Open Letter To Western New Yorkers: STOP Doing This In A Drive-Thru

It’s the season of giving, but it’s time to stop doing this. 

I don’t care how much you want to help or do something nice – this is not the way to do it, yet so many people resort to this classic holiday act of kindness. 

It’s a nice gesture, I’ll give you that. But think about how awkward it is when you get to the window to pay, they tell you that there’s been a chain of people paying for each other and your order has been paid by the car in front of you, so you try to do the nice thing and keep it going by asking, “How much is the car behind me?”

And we’ve all been there…when the car behind you is 12x the cost of your order, and now you have two options:

1. Pay for the car behind you anyway, just to keep the chain going of “paying it forward”
2. Politely decline to keep it going, and having that incredibly awkward moment between you and the cashier. 

Honestly, nobody should be put into this situation, and there’s a few reasons why. 

First of all, if you are going to a drive-thru or out to eat, you should already have a general idea of what you can spend. Knowing this, you order within your budget, and then you are expected to pay that – how it should be. 

Unlike when you get to the drive-thru window and you are prompted to pay for a whopping bill behind you that is way more than you mentally prepared for. 

Secondly, there are better ways to pay it forward that would make a bigger wave in the community, and one Lancaster woman had a brilliant idea. 

Renee Ann shared the idea on Facebook:

“Don’t buy that car behind you a cup of coffee at Starbucks or another fast food joint! Instead, call your local school and tell them that you want to pay off one or more overdue lunch accounts and add $10 or more!”

Great idea, Renee. 

This option allows you to actually give back to people who are in need, and not somebody who is getting their daily coffee that they definitely could have made at home. 

Our children should not have to worry whether or not they will be able to eat that day. They are just kids.

Let’s help those families who need it most.