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A customer in Atlanta who was happy with her service decided to give back in a big way. This gave the waitress the biggest surprise of her life.
According to NBC affiliate WXIA, Rita Williams was getting ready to eat at a local IHOP when she met waitress Jazmine Castillo.
Williams said in a Dec. 1 Facebook post that Castillo was “stretched so thin” that day, but she was really impressed by how Castillo “remained professional, so kind, patient, and just overall provided amazing customer service.”
Williams wanted to show her thanks, so she gave Castillo a $20 tip for her $30 breakfast.
“So I gave her the money, and she said, “Are you kidding?” And I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s $20,'” Williams told WCGL, a CBS station, what he remembered. “And I told her, ‘Here,’ and gave her another $20.”
Castillo was blown away by the kind act. She told WXIA that she would have had to wait on at least five tables to make that much money in tips.
Castillo told the outlet, “When she gave me the $20, I was so thankful, but when she gave me another $20, I lost it because I pay $40 a day for child care.”
But that wasn’t the end of their kindness. As the two women talked, Castillo told how hard things had been for her lately.
“She told me she was ready to quit because she can’t afford to take Uber to work and pay for daycare for her daughter,” Williams wrote in a Facebook post.
“She didn’t want to go to work because she didn’t see the light and couldn’t afford to, but she went anyway.”
Williams said that after hearing more of Castillo’s story, she asked her for her Cash app username. WCGL says that later that same day, she sent the waitress $500 through the app.
Williams then went to Facebook, where she wrote about their meeting and asked her friends to “bring a little holiday cheer” to Castillo and her daughter.
Williams’s fans responded quickly, and NBC station WBAL says that Castillo has received over $10,000 in tips in the week since Williams posted her request.
“I was bathing my baby when I heard my phone start to ring,” Castillo told WXIA. “I don’t usually get Cash App, so I didn’t know the ring tone.
From there, it just kept getting crazier and crazier. It did not stop, and it still hasn’t.”
Castillo told Williams in a text message that was posted on Facebook that she “almost passed out” from all the donations.
She told WXIA, “My family and I needed this.” “It has been very hard. My mom is sick, so I have to keep working to pay for her medicine. My sisters and I take turns paying for her medicine.”
Since Williams posted her plea on Facebook, her friends have called her kind act of kindness the #RitaRoseChallenge.
WXIA says that they are now asking others to help people in need in the same way during the holidays.
Now that Castillo has a new friend and a renewed faith in people, she is moving forward with the help of the thousands of strangers who were kind enough to help her.
Castillo told WXIA through tears, “You didn’t have to do this for someone you don’t know.” “I don’t know anyone, and that means a lot.
Everyone is having a hard time, but you guys didn’t have to do this. And you did so anyway. I really appreciate it.”
Williams was added to WCGL: “I am so happy for Jazmine that it hurts. I can’t think of a better person for it to happen to.”
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