They say the winter holidays are the season for giving.
And Dairy Queen customers in Minnesota weren’t playing around this year.
Drive-through customers were definitely in the giving mood this year after the fast-food joint had a pay-it-forward chain that lasted three whole days.
https://www.facebook.com/DQ45423/photos/a.117097339764064/117097343097397/
Apparently, they don’t call it “Minnesota nice” for nothing.
And it all started with one man who was “Minnesota nice.”
“It started with a gentleman, he said how much is the person behind him?” Darla Anderson, an employee at the Brainerd Dairy Queen, told CBS News.
“He said, ‘I will cover mine and theirs.’ I was thinking it would be a few cars.”
But Anderson was wrong, very wrong.
https://www.facebook.com/DQ45423/photos/229438191863311
“The next car pulled up and we said, ‘The gentleman in front of you paid for your meal. If you’d like, you can pay it forward,'” Jensen told TODAY. “She was like, ‘Yes, of course,’ no questions, just, ‘Go for it.”
https://www.facebook.com/DQ45423/photos/229897788484018
Then car after car decided to pay for the meal of the person behind them instead of taking the meal that was gifted to them. This went on for three whole days as 900 cars all paid for the car behind them.
https://www.facebook.com/DQ45423/photos/230128158460981
Manager Tina Jensen said she was astounded by the generosity that was shown in those three days.
She had seen pay-it-forward chains that had lasted for 15 or 20 cars but she had never seen anything like this before.
https://www.facebook.com/DQ45423/photos/230350001772130
“It is a selfless act,” Jensen said. “It really was the community coming together to make it happen.”
The chain, which started during a lunch rush on Thursday, Dec. 3 and ended on the evening of Saturday, Dec. 5, accounted for more than $10,000 in sales.
https://www.facebook.com/DQ45423/photos/230914111715719
At the end of every day, Jensen posted an update about the chain on the restaurant’s Facebook page and told her employees to alert her when the chain ended.
“The community was posting it on different pages, and the word spread,” Jensen said.
https://www.facebook.com/DQ45423/photos/231030101704120
“We heard a few different times, ‘Oh, I’ve seen it going on Facebook, I wasn’t sure if it was still going,’ and we’d tell them they were the 300th car or something and that’s where the excitement really came in. People would get very, very excited.”
https://www.facebook.com/DQ45423/photos/236523847821412
There were even people who ordered a $5 Blizzard but paid for the car with the large family behind them who had a $30 or $40 meal just to keep the chain going.
The chain ended when a customer wasn’t able to pay for the party behind them and the gift card funds had run out. Jensen said her employees had a great time with it.
https://www.facebook.com/DQ45423/photos/242215243918939
“They were encouraging the attitude when people were coming through and the energy was just really good to see,” she said. “Since March, tons of things have changed, tons of things are going on, and it’s not just in the store. We are people. We have things going on outside … The energy was definitely uplifting.”
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
