Man Leaves Waitress $3,000 Tip, Inspired By Teacher To Pay It Forward


A waitress gave a check for $43.50 to a customer. Little did she expect a $3,000 tip — almost seven thousand percent of the bill. Why? The customer who left the tip also left a note that he was paying it forward. The unnamed customer left some very specific instructions along with the incredible tip, according to the Miller Place-Rocky Point Patch. The customer wrote the following instructions for the waitress.

1. Go to reesspechtlife.com and learn!
2. Don’t let pay it forward end with you.
3. Since it is about the idea and not about you, or me, if you decide to share this, please don’t use either of our names!

Richard Specht, a middle school teacher at the Great Hollow Middle School in the Smithtown School District, opened an e-mail from the waitress, indicating that she had something incredible for him. When he queried what it was, the waitress sent a photo with the tip and the note. The note left by the customer explained why he left the tip, and stated the following according to Opposing Views.

“Thank you for your kindness and humility. My teacher in middle school had such a difficult experience a few years ago which has sparked me to do this….Thanks for always being around for all of my shows off and on broadway. I hope that one day someone gives as much love and happiness into the world as you do.”

Richard Specht and his wife Samantha had endured a tragic loss in 2012. Their 22-month-old son Richard Edwin-Ehmer Specht drowned in a pond in the family’s backyard just days before Hurricane Sandy. The boy was affectionately known as Rees and they started a foundation in his name, called ReesSpecht Life. The foundation was made to inspire people to pay kindness forward Rees’s memory, and has a website and a Facebook page which has gone viral with over 52,000 “likes” to further the mission.

Richard Specht knew which student was paying it forward and indicated that he wasn’t surprised at the former student’s generosity. But it was a very touching moment and gesture in his son’s name, and he stated the following according to the Miller Place-Rocky Point Patch. He noted that he loved when people pay it forward, even buying someone a cup of coffee. He always hoped that someone would leave a deserving waitress a large tip in his son’s name, but never thought it would occur.

“I couldn’t believe it. I started crying. There are pictures of my son everywhere and I was just looking at them saying ‘I can’t believe this is something that you helped to inspire.'”

It’s inspiring to see someone do a good deed just because it’s the right thing to do and will make someone else happy. Eleven-year-old Katelyn Payne has suffered from alopecia for years. She and her family try to be role models and inspire other people with alopecia to be themselves and to embrace the condition and turn it into something positive, according to an article in the Inquisitr.

[Photo Courtesy Facebook]

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