In the past few months, Covid-19 has taken over the world and has negatively impacted so many lives, but throughout this difficult time, people’s true colors have shone through. From people going to the grocery store for older neighbors, to donating masks and sanitary equipment to hospitals, it has been clear that this is occuring in our society. However, locations that people are kinder to each other that may not come to mind right away, are fast food drive thrus. This has specifically occurred at the Dairy Queen drive thru in South Windsor, Connecticut. 

At this Dairy Queen, there have been many occasions during this pandemic when customers have asked to pay for the person behind them, disregarding the price of the order. But in many cases it did not continue on. However, there have been three specific events in which the pay it forward chain kept going for a handful more cars. It began with Gabrielle Bouchard experiencing the ten cars who paid for each other’s meals. 

After speaking to Bouchard personally, she explained how the woman who started the chain took a long time at the window and paid for the person behind her, even though their total came to about forty dollars. Bouchard went on to say, “Then the people behind her were surprised and they were like ‘let’s just return the favor and pay the car behind.’ The exact trend happened and I had a total of 10 cars.” Bouchard even mentions that this whole situation is incredible, because “it typically does not happen at all and it was extremely surprising how every car wanted to pay for the person behind and how the generosity just kept going.” 

The second time that this Dairy Queen witnessed this type of pay it forward during the pandemic, was when employee Jacenia McCulley worked at the window and nine cars in a row paid for each other. McCulley mentions that it made her feel great to be apart of something where people were being so kind to one another. She specifically states that “seeing that many people do it in a row really had an impact on me and impacted how I want to act during all of this. It made me feel like I was doing something good for everybody, even though I wasn’t the one enforcing them to pay it forward. They made that choice all on their own.”

The last employee that was a part of the pay it forward chain at the South Windsor Dairy Queen reached a total of 13 cars paying for the person behind them. This anonymous employee says that “it honestly made me so happy to see. I really liked how everyone was doing this out of the kindness of their hearts and I am so glad I got to experience this. It made that day 100% better because I didn’t go into work thinking that this was going to happen. This doesn’t happen on a normal day.”

In the end, it is extremely important to be kind to one another during times like these, because no one knows what anyone is going through. Occurrences such as these can make someone’s day, and one can be kind to another at any location and at any time. It will definitely have an impact on the person that receives the kind gesture. There is so much that people can do for one another to just show that they care, so please when you have the chance. Do something kind for someone, just because you can. It can be for someone you know or do not know, as long as you take a step towards making someone’s day.