Paying it forward: Nurse’s story prompts DQ customers to honor her sacrifice

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Tuesday, March 31, 2020 — With the COVID-19 pandemic having turned our normal lives upside down, the story of the personal sacrifices by a local healthcare worker set in motion an outpouring of unexpected generosity at the drive-through window of a local restaurant.

Sunday night just before 8 p.m., a woman who said she was a nurse, drove up to the drive-thru window at the Bardstown Dairy Queen. The woman told the restaurant’s general manager, Amanda Shanks, that under normal circumstances, she has her children with her. But due to the Coronavirus, she is unable to see her children and her family.

She told Shanks that since she couldn’t be with her family right now, she wanted to help others in line behind her with their families to enjoy their time together by paying for their orders.

Shanks said the woman’s kindness, generosity and personal sacrifice touched the drivers in cars behind her, and in honor of the woman’s kind act, they too decided to pay it forward. Sunday night, 98 cars came through the drive-thru after the woman, and every customer paid for the order for the car behind them in line.

“It was like a miracle the likes of which I’ve never seen before,” Shanks said. “The power of one small act of kindness grew to an unprecedented level.”

The last car in line Sunday when the store closed left $10 to pay for the first customer’s order in the drive-thru Monday morning.

Throughout Monday, Shanks and other restaurant employees shared the woman’s story with each driver as they drove through the drive-thru.

“We shared moments of awe, tears, smiles and laughs,” she recounted in a social media post about the reactions from customers.

“I have never seen anything like this,” she told the Gazette Monday afternoon. “No one whose heard the nurse’s story has said no.”

She compared the nurse’s act of kindness to how a tiny ripple in a pond spreads and grows.

And while the story could have ended Sunday night, it doesn’t. Starting Monday morning with the $10, every driver that passed through the drive-thru continued to pay it forward.

As of Monday evening, more than 327 cars visited the drive-thru, and each driver — touched by the nurse’s story — paid it forward.

“My team made such a connection with our community, and each other through this experience,” Shanks wrote on social media. “We shared a series of moments unlike any other. We cheered and celebrated throughout, and truly witnessed how beautiful people can be.”

Customers who have paid it forward have been genuinely touched by the nurse’s story, she said.

“People have asked me who she is, but we don’t know her name, only that she and her family are regular Dairy Queen customers,” Shanks said. A lot of people cried when they heard the woman’s story.

“The customers who have helped keep it going recognize the sacrifice of her time away from her family and her hardship,” she said.

For Shanks and her team at the restaurant, it was a special time.

“I hope this story fills you with the joy that we felt tonight,” she wrote on social media. “God’s light filled the Bardstown Dairy Queen this evening.”

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