M’ville business helps single mom with twin girls be safer on the road

MARYSVILLE – The Firestone at Smokey Point has created a firestorm on social media for helping a single mom with twin 14-month-old girls.

Hailey Thome shared on the Snohomish County Crime Page online the story of an early Christmas gift that has warmed the hearts of many this Thanksgiving, receiving 4,000 likes in a few days.

“Because this world needs a little more love and hope I want to share something that happened to me today,” Thome starts off her post.

She explains that her car had been shaking badly so she took it to Firestone.

She said in a phone interview Nov. 23 that when she drove slower than 40 miles per hour or faster than 62 mph the car would “shake and wobble super bad. I would just pray.”

On her post, she wrote, “You can imagine the mess and crawling around. Nonetheless everyone was super polite, understanding and honestly made friends with them” at Firestone.

Then she got the bad news. She needed four new tires. Two were bald, and one had steel cord showing.

Thome was surprised because she just had a wheel alignment in August.

When told it would cost her $450, she thought, “How the hell am I going to pay for this?”

“I said I can probably do two today, but the other (two) will have to wait because I’m a single mom and frankly broke,” she wrote.

Manager Jerry McArthur and the employees “said they didn’t want me driving with the babies with those tires so they would take care of the other two.”

“That enough made me cry,” she wrote.

McArthur said Nov. 23 that Thome’s predicament was “gut wrenching.”

“I have two kids myself,” and I wanted to do what I would want someone else to do if my wife needed help, he said.

He said the tires were unsafe.

“I could tell she was having a rough time,” he said. “You can tell when a person is legit when their face is stressed out.”

Thom wrote as she was waiting and chasing after her girls that she was called up to the counter.

“You owe me nothing,” she repeated what McArthur said to her.

She said she was shocked when told they would give her two tires, but it was a godsend to get all four.

“I was tearing up,” she said. “Stuff like that doesn’t happen to me.”

Thome said she drives about 100 miles a day, as she lives in Warm Beach, but owns a coffee shop 45 minutes away.

She started the business in June so she could take her girls to work with her. “Day care is so expensive,” she said.

She works six days a week, hiring two employees to help at night.

She said she is forever grateful for McArthur’s random act of kindness.

“There are good people out there. Have faith, and they might just come your way,” Thome wrote.

McArthur said this isn’t the only time the store has done a good deed. He said it works with local churches to help people.

“We’re a community store,” he said. “We give back a little at a time to make sure people are safe on the road.”