Individuals Paying It Forward

Dear Readers, On Feb. 29, 2004 I decided to pay it forward to a fellow human being. I did not act alone on this task.

I was working at a restaurant in Lake City, Kentucky when won of my fellow waitresses spotted a man wandering in the door and sitting at a table. She looked at me and said, "Oh I saw that man walking out form the woods on my way to work and I guess he walked here." I said, "Really and how long ago was that?' She replied,"About an hour and twenty mins. ago." I waited on the man and he was very polite. He had a sleeping bag, and a few personal belongings. He left and all was fine. Shortly afterwards he returned to the restaurant. I nor my co-workers had never seen a homeless person in our area. We live in a very small rural area and were surprised. Shortly thereafter ---one of co-workers ventured out and introduced theirs to the man. The two of them spoke for sometime before the co-worker returned to the rest of us. She quickly stated he was tired and hungry and his family was in Louisville, Kentucky(300 miles away) and he was sleeping in the woods because he had no means to get to Louisville.

We decided to call a shelter in an area town (30 miles away) to see if he could at least sleep indoors (area temperatures at night were below freezing) and take a shower. We got no answer. Next we tired our area churches. To our surprise not one church would help this man. We did have one preacher that said he's donate $20.00 to help get the man a room. My co-workers and I discussed our options and decided that we needed to pull our money and get him a ticket to Louisville, Ky. We called the bus station in a town that was around 30 miles away. We ask another worker (who washed dishes) to give the man a ride to the station and purchase the ticket in his name. We pulled our monies together we told the man we could help him get to his family in Louisville. He wrote our names down and thanked us. We all felt in our hearts that, "one day this could be one of us."

Tragically the next day when we all returned to work the owner of the restaurant called us one-by-one into his office. When he approached me he told," if I breathed one word about the vagrant I would be fired" I stood there in amazement. The owner told me that the incident was mishandled and that we all were wrong for getting the man a ticket home. I was very upset. I ask my boss, "What was wrong about it?" He continued to yell at me and said, " we should have given the man a meal and then kicked him out. I replied," Why, and kick him out to where? he had no-where to go." The restaurant owner got livid and said, "It wasn't my place or any of his employees place to help this man or buy him a bus ticket home." I quickly replied, "oh! really then who's place is it?" The owner was even more mad now and he said,"well how did he get here?" I said,"I suppose he walked." The owner replied, "Then he should have hit the road, and that it was embarrassing for there to be a vagrant in his restaurant and it was also embarrassing for his employees to buy him a ticket." I said, "so you think its been mishandled and what we should have done is kick him out?" The owner of the restaurant said,"Yes." I replied, "kick him out where--- the woods???"

I stood up and took my apron off. I looked my boss in the eyes and said, "I can't work for you anymore." He said, 'let's talk about this." I quickly said, "You once told me you make the mortgage payments here and if I didn't like it I could go home, well I refuse to work for you, I don't like it and I'm going home."

No-one was going to make feel bad for helping another person. All I and my co-workers had done was purchase a bus ticket and gave a man a ride to the bus station ---so this man got to go home.

My name is Melissa Kimbro and you have my permission to publish this letter.