Paying It Forward at the Drive-through

Serial pay-it-forward incidents involving between 4 and 24 cars have been reported at Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Del Taco, Taco Bell, KFC and Dunkin’ Donuts locations in Maryland, Florida, California, Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Georgia, Alabama, North Dakota, Michigan, North Carolina and Washington.

More typically, though, it’s one customer acting alone and perhaps routinely. “We have a lady who always pays it forward in the drive-through, every day,” said Aaron Quinton, co-owner of Old School Bagel Cafe, in Tulsa, Okla. “I point at the person behind and she just nods.”

The Times’s Sunday Review looked at how more people are “paying it forward” at the drive-through by picking up the tab for the car behind them. People say they do this because they feel blessed about their good fortune and want to share, survived cancer and want to celebrate life, and just want to do something nice in an anonymous way (it helps that you can drive away). This sounds nice! Now if only there were some kind of “pay it forward” movement for the workers at these drive-throughs.

Photo: Julie Jordan Scott

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