Kindness at the Drive-Thru: Woman’s Generous Act Inspires 167 More at McDonald’s

A drive-thru customer at a McDonald’s in Indiana probably had no idea her act of kindness would spark a chain reaction of generosity.

Hunter Hostetler, a cashier at the Scottsburg restaurant, said an older woman waiting in the drive-thru Sunday decided to pay for the big order of a man with four children in a van behind her.

“She saw a dad in the van behind her,” Hostetler told WDRB. “He had like four kids in the car, he had a bunch of happy meals, two Quarter Pounders, a Big Mac meal and some other stuff. She was like, ‘I’m going to pay for the father behind me, and I want you to tell him Happy Father’s Day.'”

Then, the dad paid for a couple of cars behind him.

And the generous acts did not stop there. A few cars became 10. Then, 10 became 100.

“I had people telling me, ‘No, it’s going to stop here, It’s going to stop at 100. You’re not going to make it past,'” Hostetler recalled.

From 8:30 p.m. to midnight on Father’s Day, the good deeds continued, and by the end of the night, 167 customers had paid it forward.

“I thought it was pretty amazing,” said Abby Smith, who was a customer Sunday night. “You don’t see a lot of pay-it-forwards anymore.”