Friday OT #2 - The Spirit of Giving

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Angie

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I don't want to use @Bipolarcy 's example on this one, so I will just ask the question - have you ever paid something for a complete stranger or have a complete stranger pay something for you?

I've had drinks bought for me and such, and done giving trees, but again, I don't think that is the idea of the thread. I've bought people's food at a fast food place before if they forgot their wallet, but $3.47 for a burger and fries isn't really all that big of a deal. What are yours?
 

BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
I don't want to use @Bipolarcy 's example on this one, so I will just ask the question - have you ever paid something for a complete stranger or have a complete stranger pay something for you?

I've had drinks bought for me and such, and done giving trees, but again, I don't think that is the idea of the thread. I've bought people's food at a fast food place before if they forgot their wallet, but $3.47 for a burger and fries isn't really all that big of a deal. What are yours?
If the people buying your drinks were men.........think about that one. I’ve paid for stuff where people didn’t have cash or the clerk wouldn’t take their check. I’ve bought drinks not trying to get busy for men and women. Been involved in a run of pay the person behinds you meal at a drive through. Have picked up someone’s groceries they couldn’t pay for, wasn’t a mountain but wasn’t two bucks. Several times I’m willing to help a stranger more than someone I kinda know but am not good friends with.
 

Angie

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I will somewhat randomly pay for the person behind me at Starbucks in the drive thru. Usually it's no more than $10-$15.

I have done that on my own just a couple of times, but more often have been in the middle of one of those lines where people keep doing it. I need to do that more often.

If the people buying your drinks were men.........think about that one. I’ve paid for stuff where people didn’t have cash or the clerk wouldn’t take their check. I’ve bought drinks not trying to get busy for men and women. Been involved in a run of pay the person behinds you meal at a drive through. Have picked up someone’s groceries they couldn’t pay for, wasn’t a mountain but wasn’t two bucks. Several times I’m willing to help a stranger more than someone I kinda know but am not good friends with.

They were men, and while there were some who were doing it as innocently as you, more often it was with a motive.
 

Cybone

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Starbucks, I have paid for the car behind me several times, either to continue the streak or just felt like giving. I saw a car cut someone else off to get into line once. I paid for the person who cut off.

I bought someone’s lunch at Wendy’s this year. They looked like they were having a bad day. We were stuck in line for what felt line an eternity.

I donate to the furry friends regularly. The past couple of years I have paid for a friend’s Christmas presents for her kids. She is very sick and cannot work. I didn’t want her kids not to have a Christmas from their mother.

Giving helps my soul. I try to smile and be nice to those whose path I cross. Helping others makes me feel better. I deal with some ugly in the world in my job and helping others makes me forget some of that.
 

Al_4_State

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I went to Morgantown in 2013 for the Riot Bowl, and the day before the game we rolled in around 11AM/noon and went out for lunch at a local sports bar. We had our ISU gear on, and pretty much everyone in the place made some friendly mention of it. Some guys chatted with us for a bit on their way out of the place, thanked us for coming, etc.

When we go to leave, the waitress brings us our bill and told us the 3 pitchers of Yuengling we'd inhaled had been paid for by that group.

So ever since then, if I'm in Ames for a game, and see a non-UNI, Iowa, or KSU road fan at the Tip Top, I buy them a round.
 

BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
I did pay for drinks all night when a couple women (wasn’t interested, was dating someone else kinda) when they asked me to go with them and when it was their turn to pay was counting quarters and dimes. Not sure if that counts.
 
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Isualum13

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The real question is, if you do something nice for someone , but don't post about it on the internet, did it really happen?
 
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throwittoblythe

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Last year around this time, we had taken the kids to see Santa and were out to dinner afterward. Next to us is a table full of what I would call "bros." They're having some sort of couples company Christmas dinner, but all the wives are at one table and all the husbands are at another. The husbands are next to us, drinking, being loud. One dude is legitimately hitting on my wife. (My wife is very social but fails to see that some guys are just trying to flirt, not start a conversation.)

Anyway, I'm REAL annoyed at all this and our kids start melting down because they're hopped up on candy canes and Santa. I'm glad when we finish up our food and can finally just get out of there. We ask for the check and waitress tells us the bros at the next table paid for us. That was a pleasant surprise.

Lesson learned: let my wife flirt with guys at restaurants to earn free meals for the family.
 

jsb

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My friends and I were in DC for a wedding 14 years ago. And we went out to eat at a fairly nice restaurant. We were being what I would consider very charming—-laughing and talking, charmingly tipsy, and I’m guessing we looked like a good time. Anyway, an older guy bought us all desserts which was amazing. It was especially nice because nights like that have always been my favorite types with that group and the trip had been bittersweet because a friend had died 9 months prior.

I’ve bought a few coffees at Starbucks mainly after someone has bought mine because I always forget to. I did get burned once though, there was a kind of cars that had been paying for the car behind them and the barista asked if I wanted to. I said sure and then he said my bill was $25. So I paid $25 for my $4 drink ;)
 
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dahliaclone

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My cousin works on the trauma floor at a hospital in the Twin Cities and they are ransacked with Covid patients. Without asking her/her knowing I found how which floor it was and have been sending donuts/pizzas/coffee to the staff on a weekly basis. It's gotten difficult as they sometimes aren't letting outside food/drink into the building. They deserve it.
 

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I guess this is a good 2020 related example that relates to this topic... Earlier this year when we got our Covid stimulus check we were trying to think of ways to donate some of it that would go to someone who really was going through tough times because of the pandemic as we personally have not been affected negatively by it. Reached out to our church asking if they knew of any individuals or families that had reached out for assistance due to the pandemic and was directed to our executive director who handles those situations as the pastors choose not to be involved in the decision making of who the church decides to financially help or not. We were told the church has a fund specifically set aside for individuals who have reached out to the church in hard times and the executive director has a process in place that he uses vet if they meet a set of criteria he has stayed consistent with and will use funds out of that to help someone who maybe can't afford to fix a car, home repair, pay a bill, etc. We put some money into that fund and said we don't care to know who it goes to just that please try to help someone that was negatively impacted by the pandemic.

Have also randomly chosen some charities or local food pantries we have given extra to this year that are getting overwhelmed because of the pandemic. Sounds boring I guess but we have been trying to look at different ways where even small financial contributions can have more meaningful impacts on someone's life than say picking up the tab for someone in the drive thru or coffee shop. Our church does a really good job finding some of these low cost charities that have a big impact like this one: https://becauseinternational.org/the-shoe-that-grows which is like $20 for a pair of shoes that expand as a child who lives in poverty grows or a $7 "mamma kit" for pregnant women in Uganda that is basically a bag of supplies a woman must have in order to have a child at the hospital or they will be turned away which many of them can't afford. Crazy to think some of us spend more of that on a meal while there are people in this world that can't even afford that in order to have their child.
 

Bipolarcy

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This just happened to me this week. I had just made a rather sizeable payment on a purchase, one that I had to call my bank to lift the cap on my debit card for. I didn't realize the cap was per day, not per transaction. The usual cap is $1,500, but I needed it raised to more than 10 times that. So I went to the grocery store afterward. I got my groceries and was checking out and my card was declined, saying I'd reached my limit for the day. I was embarrassed and told them why it was declined, which I'm sure they didn't believe. I didn't have enough cash on me to pay the $75 and change, so I was ready to leave my groceries behind and walk out the door when the little old lady in line behind me spoke up and said she'd pay for me. She didn't blink when they told her it was $75. I insisted she not do that, but she was more stubborn. I asked for her address so I could mail the money to her. But she said, "No, just pay it forward." I'd never had that happen before.

Another time, I was in line at the grocery store in a similar situation. The young woman ahead of me couldn't pay because her card was declined. She excused herself to go outside to get a different card, presumably, and I told the girl at the checkout counter that I would pay it. It was $56 or something like that. I got a receipt and had second thoughts because the lady had not come back yet by the time my groceries were scanned and the bill presented, so I asked the clerk about possibly getting my money back if she didn't show back up. I wanted to help the lady, not the grocery store. She said, sure, just present your receipt (which she had given me separate from the receipt from my own groceries) at our customer service window and they'll give it back to you.

I waited several days and went back to the store. The lady never reappeared to get her groceries, so I got my money back.

I've given people smaller amounts too, like $5 here and $5 there, mostly people who claimed they had run out of gas. It was probably a scam, but oh well. One old couple accosted me as I came out of a restaurant that I frequent and needed gas. the old guy had a gas can in his hand, so this one seemed legit. I told him to hop in the car, put his can in the trunk and drove to a gas station, where I filled it up. It was like $7 or $8, I forget. It was a small can. I then drove him back to the restaurant. About a week later, I was back at the same restaurant and the owner, with whom I was friends, told me that that old couple had been out in their parking lot all day the previous time I was there looking for someone to buy them gas and/or food. He thought it was a scam.
 
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oldman

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I paid for a couple servicemen's lunch one day in the charlotte, NC Airport. I gave a guy and his wife (and dog) $20 this summer that were holding a sign on a corner near my work. My wife told me not to do that anymore (she's not a big charity person).
 
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CYdTracked

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I am very skeptical about panhandlers. You hear stories of how many of them are not truly homeless or in need, they just take advantage of people who are sympathetic to seeing someone on the curb or at a stoplight holding a sign that looks like they have come across hard times and some of these people can make pretty good money doing it. You can go out on YouTube and find all kinds of situations where the fake ones are exposed by people that get suspicious and follow them back to homes or cars and confront them about what they are doing. IMO if you want to help the homeless donate to an actual reputable charity like Joppa or local homeless shelters so you know that your money is going to good use and not to to some scammer or person with a substance addiction.
 
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jdoggivjc

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This goes back more than 15 years now, but my closest friends and I used to be regulars at Old Chicago in Bettendorf and were on really good terms with several of the waiters and bartenders. Most of the time it was really small things like putting the max of 6 beers per visit on our World Beer Tour cards when we only bought 1 or 2 beers, but there was several occasions where they would send us drinks or appetizers on the house. It was one of those things where they really appreciated us as customers and we really appreciated their service.
 

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A couple of years ago, DH and I were at The Cafe in Ames. We're fairly regular customers (until this COVID thing) so know many of the staff and they know us. We sat at the bar for drinks and then ordered my birthday meal. I noticed a young man sitting alone in a booth behind us. He could have been a grad student or young faculty member, likely from another country (although I could have been completely wrong about all of that), and I decided that for my birthday I would like to buy his meal. Watched to see who his server was and then walked over to tell her and have her tell him why I was doing it, but not which person I was. Thought it was all taken care of, and I wasn't planning to turn around again until we were ready to go.

A few minutes later a slice of cheesecake with the words happy birthday added to it was put in front of me. I looked at DH and he said, "Wasn't me" and then our server pointed to that young man behind us. I turned around and he kind of waved and so I went to thank him while he was thanking me. I was really kind of embarrassed, but appreciative, too. There are amazing people among us.
 

Angie

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I am very skeptical about panhandlers. You hear stories of how many of them are not truly homeless or in need, they just take advantage of people who are sympathetic to seeing someone on the curb or at a stoplight holding a sign that looks like they have come across hard times and some of these people can make pretty good money doing it. You can go out on YouTube and find all kinds of situations where the fake ones are exposed by people that get suspicious and follow them back to homes or cars and confront them about what they are doing. IMO if you want to help the homeless donate to an actual reputable charity like Joppa or local homeless shelters so you know that your money is going to good use and not to to some scammer or person with a substance addiction.

I've been thinking I need to get a bunch of, like, $5 gift cards to fast food places to hand out instead of cash. One time a guy approached me while I was getting my morning Diet Coke at the McDonald's on S Duff and asked if I would buy him a sandwich. I did that without a second thought, and then gave him the info for Food at First when I handed him the sandwich - I hope that he found them, if he was truly hungry. It makes me so sad. I agree, there are so many good food banks and such around that need resources.
 
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coolmooinlou

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A few years back one Christmas, my family and I decided to perform 26 random acts of kindness in lieu of spending too much money on each other. 26 to honor each child and teacher who were murdered that year at Sandy Hook. With each act of kindness we included a small card with a picture of an angel and the name and age of the lost child. Each family member came up with their own 4-5 ideas and we set out. Mostly it was handing out cash or gift cards, paying for the person's gas in line behind you, or someone's groceries. We decided the purpose was to simply display kindness, not necessarily go in search for needy individuals, with the hope that whomever received our kindness would pay it forward. We bought a young family's dinner who were seated after us, left and then peaked through the glass window of the restaurant to see their reaction (ok, that was a little self-serving but so fun!) The hilarious one was when my husband decided he wanted to pay for someone in line waiting to buy tickets to a movie. The kids and I are watching from the car close by, busting a gut, as the woman, quite obviously uncomfortable, thought he was hitting on her!
That Christmas gave us more joy than any in the past. It is a memory my kids hold dear and I hope has influenced their lives for the better.