Pouring out 500 kindnesses
Unknown coffee buyer starts trend
A spirit of goodwill is percolating through coffee shops across the country.
An Edmonton man seemingly kicked off a minor nationwide trend by giving away 500 free Tim Hortons coffees, with similar anonymous acts of payingit-forward repeated in two more Canadian cities throughout the week.
Ottawa was the latest city to be touched by the generosity, when a man handed over a wad of cash to pay for $860 worth of coffee (about 500 large cups) Thursday morning at the chain’s Terminal Avenue location.
Melissa Dass, a manager at the Tim Hortons, said the free coffees sold out in about an hour. She said the man wanted to foot the bill for coffee at that location because he knew city bus drivers frequent that coffee shop.
“He wanted to recognize their hard work,” Dass said. “It’s shocking, but also very incredible and generous.”
The second gesture was recorded in Calgary on Wednesday in the now-familiar manner — a mysterious man walked in, and said he was going to pay for the next 500 coffees.
None of the three benevolent strangers have been identified since the Edmonton man offered to buy coffee for 500 strangers on Monday.
“He asked the cashier, ‘How many coffees do you sell in a day?’” said store manager Joanne Averion. Then he asked her to ring in 500 large coffees.
“The manager asked him if he was going to drink all those coffees or was he going to give it to someone?” Averion recalled. “He said, ‘You have to give it to the next 500 customers.’ ”
The motive for the random act of caffeinated kindness isn’t known; Averion said staff questioned the young man, but he didn’t say much and left quickly after paying the $859 bill with his debit card.
Tim Hortons say they had nothing to do with the three cases of coffee kindness in the past few days.