Good Story Of The Day. There Are Great People Out There!

Happy Waitress Even Happier After Receiving Astounding Tip

By Lauren Tuck, Shine Staff | The Good News – Mon, Jan 6, 2014 2:37 PM EST

• Email
• Share9869
• Print

Photo: Morgan Spiehs/Lincoln Journal StarThe happiest server at Cracker Barrel in Lincoln, Nebraska, walked away from work with even more to smile about after receiving a life-changing tip last week.

According to the Lincoln Journal Star, a man stopped in with a friend for lunch at the restaurant on Thursday and asked the hostess to seat them at the table of the restaurant’s grumpiest server because the pair wanted to use their charm to cheer someone up. The hostess responded that the chain actually didn't have a single dispirited employee and instead gave them the opposite — their happiest waitress.

More on Yahoo: Mystery 'Tips for Jesus' Tipper Identified in NYC

The server sent to table 222 was 18-year-old Abigail Sailors, who submitted to questions from the two men about why she had such a sunny disposition. Throughout their lunch, Sailors told the patrons her story.

More on Yahoo Shine: The Best (and Worst) Restaurant Tippers of 2013

Sailors, the youngest of five children, was tossed around the foster care system throughout her childhood. She and her older siblings were separated and reunited multiple times, and suffered from abuse for years until John and Susi Sailors took all five of them in nine years ago.

Flash-forward to today and Sailors recently completed her first semester at Trinity Bible College in Ellendale, North Dakota. The freshman, who plays basketball and is studying psychology and youth ministry, pays for her own education. She told her inquisitive customers that she didn’t have enough money to return for the spring semester and is saving wages and tips for future tuition.

The pair left a $100 tip that was split with another Cracker Barrel server, but the best part of Sailor's day was yet to come: One of the men revealed that he was a Trinity alumnus and pulled out his checkbook. He wrote the young student two checks — one for $5,000 to the school and another for $1,000 for whatever else she needed. 

“I couldn’t believe it. I tried to thank them, and they said, ‘Thank God,’” Sailors told the Lincoln Journal Star.

This charitable gratuity, one of the first reported in 2014, follows a banner year of headline-making prodigious tips. In October, Aurora Kephart, a 25-year-old bartender at Conway's Restaurant and Lounge in Springfield, Oregon, received a Keno ticket worth $17,500 as a tip. In December, an anonymous person who signed @tipsforjesus on receipts left a slew of substantial tips for servers, such as $3,000 on a bill of only $87.88, and, just a few days later, $5,000 on a $214.75 total due.

Grumpy servers take note: Sailors's silver-linings story is definitely something to smile about.