$400. 1 Hour. Watch What Happens

$400. 1 Hour. Watch What Happens
Michael Cogdill, WYFF News 4 Anchor
POSTED: 6:42 am EDT October 30, 2008

SIMPSONVILLE, S.C. -- Pay It Forward is about as simple as we hope it is meaningful.

I hand someone – as randomly as I can -- $400, with conditions: The recipient must give it away, within one hour, not to charities or even churches, but to other people for whom a bit of free money might make a huge difference.

So, for the first one, I lurked – with permission – in front of the BI-LO grocery store in Simpsonville, waiting for the first person to say, “hey, aren’t you the news guy?”

first Pay It Forward giver of money.

Tia, turns out, could use the money herself.

She’s only 21, works in a shoe store, and she just moved into a new apartment.

But the grin of generosity grew from the first $100 she handed to a BI-LO employee in the back of the store. We nearly startled Susan half to death.

As Tia stepped away, Susan thanked her, humbly. Susan, in this story, will be back.

But it occurred to Tia she needed change. Once she had it, the money started to fly.

Among her random acts of paying it forward, Tia bought $65 worth of groceries for a woman, whose face mingled shock and overpowering gratitude.

That woman’s name is Nell, and when she got to keep the change out of Tia’s gift of $80, we learned Nell would spend that change on prescription medicine.

Paying It Forward – and Tia – crossed her path with perfect timing.

From there, Tia roamed the store, handing money to moms and other random strangers, many of whom told us the gift of free money inspired them to give money to someone else.

Pass it on. Pay it forward. We looked human generosity right in the eyes of people we did not know.

Tia ran out of money way before she ran out of time.

But she didn’t get away without feeling the reciprocity of paying it forward.

Susan, that BI-LO employee, told us she had enough money in her life. She talked of how blessed she was.

Then, she handed Tia that $100 back. Paying it forward became not merely a chance to make $400 matter. It became an investment.

Tia later told me most that $100 – which she was able to accept under our rules because she had given it away -- soon left her hands in other acts of generosity.

To Tia, giving money became a quick and beautiful habit. It paid off far beyond currency. It paid off in soul.

Which is why next week, we’ll hand another $400 out at random. Don’t miss it. We’ll relive the power – of Pay It Forward.