"Paying it forward” sure has become more noticed thanks to social media, and it’s happening all over the Stateline, mainly in a place many people are familiar with: the coffee shop.

According to Starbucks Manager Tom Appling in Geneva, Illinois, it happens most often at the drive-up window. When one customer offers to pick up the tab for the next person in line, and then the next person does likewise, creating a chain of 'paying it forward'.

“I think the longest one we’ve had at this store is probably about 50 cars, and sometimes it lasts for just a minute or two, and sometimes it gets a little deeper,”

Tom Appling recently told WBBM. “Maybe somebody … only ordered a tall coffee, and the person in front paid for that tall coffee, but then the car behind them had four frappuccinos and they still, ‘Oh, I got them. You know. Let’s keep it going. It’s fun.'”

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“It just makes you feel so wonderful inside to know that maybe somebody’s having a rough day, or whatever’s going on, and you just want to say, ‘Hey, somebody’s thinking about you. Have a good one,” she said.

Pam Ahern loves paying it forward in the coffee shop line. “When you just feel like you really want to bless someone, or just have somebody have an amazing day, go for it, do it,” she said.

On Twitter, under the #payitforward hashtag, people are ecstatic over giving and receiving in the “pay it forward” chains.

I can say that it has not happened to me yet. I hope it does when I'm checking out at Road Ranger after filling up my car.

Till it does, keep the 'Chain of Love' alive and be sure to share your adventures socially with Q98.5.

 

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