The CVI Team has kicked off it’s 2012 giving campaign; Playing It Forward…
From CEO, Joe Terry:
You have three $20 bills to make a difference and Pay It Forward to three other people by the time you walk in the door at your house on Friday. Plenty of opportunities to make someone’s day. We want to hear your story, even if it is one sentence, on what you did with your $20 bills.
Tell us here by posting a comment to this blog!
Thursday I brightened a few people’s morning at Starbucks by buying their coffee. I explained that it’s “pay it forward” and encouraged them to do something nice for someone they don’t know at a random moment. It’s almost scary how shocked people are at a little generosity and kindness.
Made sure that the server and bus boy at the restaurant Thursday night both knew they were appreciated and to pay it forward. They dealt graciously with a very roudy and large group of CVI employees who were really letting loose.
The Vietman vet I talk to all the time in Reno will get my last $20 and he is always paying it forward now so I know it will go to good use. 🙂
Thank you Joe and Management team this was hands down the most unique experience I have had and I used to work at Intuit, one of the “best places to work” I think CVI beats them with our eyes closed.
First went to the Starbucks line. I put the other two in plastic bags with sticky note “pay it Forward.” one went on a sidewalk in Incline. The other got dropped in the middle of a ski run.
The best one for me was Pablo. I didn’t have my room cleaned one day, yet I ran out of coffee. He must have sprinted to the room after I called the front desk. The service was beyond fast.
As I tried to thank him, he was ultra gracious. He spoke broken English, so I presented him with $20 and said “muchas gracias servir rapido.” My Spanish is broken, yet it communicated the point.
He was shocked. He gave me a hand gesture for folding it in half as if I expected change. His mouth was open for about five seconds. That was followed by about ten thank yous. It was great making his day. Thanks CVi for being a great place to work!
I stuck the first $20 bill in a change machine in a laundromat with a note asking the recipient to do something nice for someone else this week.
I gave the second $20 to the owner of the eLearning Cafe in the Raley’s shopping center. The eLearning Cafe is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing educational assistance to Incline Village community members. When I walked in, the owner, Kathryn, looked tired from moving files and equipment around the center. I told her I’d never been in before, heard she was doing great things, and handed her the $20. Her face lit up and she said, “You just made my day!”
I took the last $20 and turned it into 100 muffins that will be given to Reno’s homeless community this Monday with Barbara and the other members of the We Care Volunteers group. With this $20, we’ll be touching the lives of so many in need.
I’m truly blessed to be part of such an amazing organization. Thank you, Joe, and the whole executive team for giving us such a cool homework assignment!
My first $20 went to the maid who cleaned my room…..it’s rare you ever receive any type of feedback when you leave $$ for maidservice…..i think it made her day. I got a note with some huge THANK YOU, THANK YOU THANK YOU’s!!
I’m sharing this story – not to steal Paul George’s thunder, but to share an incident from an observer’s viewpoint.
Friday morning – headed back to the airport – found ourselves at a 7-Eleven near one of the Reno casinos, pumping gas. There was a ‘homeless’ man crouched or squatting under a payphone who Paul George noticed. After coming out of the store, Paul approached him, wished him a wonderful day and handed him some money. The man, thanked Paul…..(i think he wished him a blessed day) and then he looked down at the money in his hand and saw how much he was holding. It was awesome….because his face lit up…he looked up as Paul was walking away and threw his hands up in the air, as if in celebration, and then immediately walked into the store with a bounce in his step that i bet he doesn’t usually have.
Paul definitely made that man’s day!!
My first $20.00 went to the maid in hotel room with a note about paying it forward, next $20 a kind girl at front desk who fixed my bill but most touching was- When I got home to Indy there was horrible freezing rain and snow as I got closer to home a homeless guy was standing with a sign at an intersection I handed him $20.00 and said have a nice evening, he was thrilled. Great experience!
I got a little addicted to this and without realizing it, gave away five $20 bills before we left the hotel.
The valet guys got it twice. Partly because they remembered me and asked about our dog from our last visit but more because the hotel has been so slow with the lack of snow. I acknowledged that the tip was to make up for that and I received two huge smiles!
Like Sean, I left one $20 for the maid but my note was not as poetic. I didn’t get to see that one which is too bad – the best part is seeing the momentary shock followed by the smile.
My favorite was the girl behind the front desk. I think they are often left out so once again, the enormous smile made my day.
Thank you CVI for inpsiring this movement.
I put one $20 in an envelope and with a note to pay it forward, and placed it on the street. A few hours later a guy walking up the street opened the envelope, read the note, and continued walking, money in hand.
I gave one $20 to the gentleman who filled our water cups at a dinner. He asked me what it was for and I told him it was his turn to pay it forward.
The last $20 I placed on a table for a waitress in Reno who seemed to be having a bad day. This $20 was in addition to the tip we had paid for with our bill.
AWESOME EXPERIENCE!
I’m loving all of these stories, and have to admit that mine are much less original…equally, I forgot to overtly ask them to ‘pay it forward’. It was just so joyous to see the looks on their faces when I handed them the money – thank you Joe and all for an ingenious idea. Loved the movie, love the concept and will continue to do back in “my world”.
My first $20 went to the guitarist at the Lone Eagle Cafe, during the Tuesday evening happy hour (on my way to our dinner). Having just received the money from you, I excused myself to go to the restroom and heard this amazing music and felt ‘happy’. I realized how often I see street musicians who only have a few dollars sitting in their guitar cases, so I walked up, left the money in his and smiled nodded and gave him a thumbs up.
The second $20 went to our bartender in the room where we had dinner on Tuesday evening. She was quietly doing her job, and not “TRYING” to make a tip, just doing her job well. When I handed her the $20, her face turned red, and she almost cried. She thanked me profusely. Made me realize that every penny earned is important.
The last $20 was divided between the lovely elderly man who brought a humidifier to my hotel room and took painstaking effort to set it up. Here too, getting an extra large tip for simply doing his job made his day – he was shocked. I thought that there might be times he doesn’t get recognized monetarily for this…AND, in this day and age where getting great customer service is a luxury, I wanted him to know how much I appreciated it. The remaining amount went as an addon to my tip to Ken, the valet, who delivered nothing short of stellar customer service as well.
Same as Mike F, these smiles made My day, and inspired me so…thank you for that!
My first 20 went to the gentleman teaching us craps….had I been playing real money I would have walked out up at least $500 with his pointers.
The other 2 went to several workers I see almost every weekend during the winter, but rarely acknowledge….the ski area parking attendants. These guys are up extremely early every day, only to stand for hours on end outside in below freezing, snowy weather conditions. They make minimum wage and most, if not all, have never seen a tip from this occupation. This winter has been especially hard for people in the Tahoe ski industry, as lack of snow has caused skier visits to dwindle, resulting in many layoffs across the resorts.
After parking I walked up and gave both of them a $20, their reactions were priceless. The guy expected that he would have to do something for it, and then thought I must be a CEO to do something of this nature without expecting something in return.
The girl was my favorite, she said she wouldn’t have been able to eat lunch that day as she hasn’t worked for over a month….many thanks ensued.
Thank you Joe and CVI for making this happen, truly a unique experience.
Wow, keep them coming, the people at the Hyatt are wondering who that crazy group was running around handing out $20 bills!
A touching note from Steve Hub… Inspired by CVI’s Playing It Forward generosity:
The noise of the overpass, the trucks, autos, and motorcycles was deafening. Stuck in an open air “auto”, there I was making no progress in a sea of vehicles. What a loud, chaotic environment! It was then that I saw him. As a seven year boy, his job was to maneuver between vehicles and see if anyone would buy a toy India flag from him. As he approached me, I could see the layers of dirt on his face and the fact that his hair had not seen a comb for months, perhaps never. The overpass was not only intolerable- with no water or electricity, it was his home.
I had heard of a wonderful project from CVI and now was confronted by the fact that “this was my time”. I reached in my pocket and handed the boy more rupees than he had seen in a very long time. In disbelief he looked at me and gave me a wonderful gift- a bright and wonderful smile from a child. I watched him as he carefully made his way back through traffic to show his friends and family the fortune that he now possessed. I smiled, as I sat back in my seat realizing that I had received so much more than that child on that hot, Mumbai day.
That’s great. The extra credit last all year long!!!
I must say this was much harder than it originally seemed. On the way home in the Dallas airport I was eating dinner and saw a young man (no older than 19-20) sitting by himself ordering his meal (looking nervous). I asked him where he was headed and he said he said he had just finished processing and would be heading to Fort Bragg and then overseas. I thanked him for his service and handed him my final 20 and told him dinner was on me tonight. He thanked me and his face lit up. I am sure this young man will pay it forward many times over! Thanks Joe and CVI for such a great idea!
What a feel good experience… Thank you Joe for inspiring us to Pay (Play) it Forward.
My husband and I went to lunch on Saturday afternoon in Tahoe City after the kickoff. Loving Sean’s picture & story and knowing that business had been slow for our little town I took an envelope with all three $20 bills in it and wrote:
“To our server – thank you for taking good care of us today! Random acts of kindness multiply when people take action. Together we can make a difference!
Please keep an extra $20 for yourself today, give $40 to someone in need asking them to keep $20 for themselves and give the remaining $20 to someone they feel could use a boost today.”
I left feeling great about having done a little extra for the folks in our community.
I gave away a few twenties in extra-generous tips before leaving the Hyatt, but because these were people who were really performing a service for ME, it kind of felt like cheating.
So I took another $60 out of the ATM, determined to use it for a truly random act of generosity. And I had just the right plan! I decided to take the money and, upon my arrival at the San Francisco airport, buy a United Club pass to bestow upon some frazzled-looking traveler on a long layover. Preferably a troop returning from an extended deployment who might really appreciate a comfortable, quiet seat and a nice cold beer.
Well, Wednesday was apparently the lowest-stress travel day in the history of US air travel. I wandered up and down the concourse and could not find anyone who looked sufficiently miserable to want the pass, except for one couple with a screaming baby (whom I automatically disqualified when I realized that if I were to give the pass to them I’d actually be paying it BACKWARD by making everyone else in the United Club as unhappy as they were). So that was no good.
I ended up having lunch at the Yankee Pier and was waited on by the same upbeat, relentlessly cheerful little waiter who always seems to wait on me when I eat there. So I gave him $60 in cash in addition to his usual tip. I also made a thoughtful, heartfelt speech about how he’s always there working so hard whenever I visit, and that no matter how busy he is he never fails to smile and make me feel welcome.
It was a lovely speech that was completely undercut when I turned to leave, slipped in a small puddle of spilled water, and did a full face-plant on the cold tile floor, thus giving an entirely new meaning to the phrase “paying it forward.”
To his credit, the lovely waiter rushed to my side to make sure I was okay, which made me wish I had another $60 to give him.
I hobbled out of SFO with a sore wrist and two bruised knees, but an overall feeling of warmth and fulfillment. Oh, and an extra United Club pass if anyone wants it.
Now that is a writer! And that is a STORY!