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J.D. Pooley / Getty Images Those smiling faces that greet you upon entering Walmart? They're becoming a thing of the past

A Walmart store in Canton, Ohio, is holding a food drive to benefit employees in need, leading some in the community to raise questions about the wages the company pays its workers.

The food drive boxes are not on display for customers, but rather are tucked away in an employee-only area — the food drive asks for donations from fellow employees to help out co-workers in need.

“That Walmart would have the audacity to ask low-wage workers to donate food to other low-wage workers — to me, it is a moral outrage,” one Walmart shopper told the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

A Walmart spokesperson defended the food drive as an example of employees — or “associates” as the company calls its workers — looking out for each other.

“This store has been doing this for several years and is for associated that have faced an extreme hardship recently,” said spokesperson Kory Lundberg.

The world’s largest retailer is facing some hardship of its own in recent months, reporting its third straight-quarterly decline in sales last week. It often faces criticism for the wages it pays workers.

[Cleveland Plain Dealer]