Not everyone leaves a lasting impression with those they meet, and that's to be expected. We can be so consumed in our own lives or distractions that face-to-face interactions sometimes go in one ear and out the other. But when someone takes the time to listen to someone else that crosses their path, and sympathize with them, they allow an impression to be made. When Donald Carter allowed a Popeyes employee to make an impression on him, it was a lasting one.
Carter got home late from work and hadn’t make plans for dinner, so he made an irregular trip to his neighborhood Popeyes where Shajuana Mays was waiting to help at the drive-thru. She was polite and engaging, with a special spark that he knew was bound for bigger and better things. He asked her what she wanted to do in life, and she told him she wanted to go back to school to become a nurse. He got is chicken and took it home to eat. As he sat there and ate he had a thought. “What if I pay for this girls school?” Carter knew he could not do it alone, but he also knew that he had 1,300 Facebook friends, and with a little help he could make this possible. So he reached out to his friends and in a week was able to raise over $13,000 for a complete stranger. It was far greater than his initial benchmark, but the community came together in a way that he could have never expected.
Shajuana had encountered setbacks in her life that put her dream on hold but this act left her speechless. Carter went on to say, “Any obstacles you have, we have a whole city and maybe even a nation to remove whatever roadblocks there are. “This is not about us, it’s about you… it’s about the community supporting somebody who wants to do better.” Well, we do recognize you Donald Carter, for your incredible act of compassion to improve the life of a stranger.
