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(CNN) - It is never a bad idea to start the New Year with a generous note.
Danielle Franzoni, a waitress in Alpena, Michigan, started hers on the receiving side of such generosity. She attended a couple at the restaurant where she works during the last days of 2019.
His account was US $ 23. And they stopped tipping US $ 2,020.
"Happy new year," the anonymous couple wrote on the bill. “2020 Tip Challenge” (tip challenge 2020).
Franzoni could not believe it. She asked her boss if it was too good to be true, but the tip was legitimate and appropriate according to the season.
"Things like this don't happen to people like me," she told Alpena Times.
It had been a difficult year for Franzoni. He moved to Alpena to "start over," he said, as a recovering addict who had lived in a homeless shelter.
But with the generosity of his clients, he could see that the clouds were beginning to clear. He even moved to his own house the same week.
"I'm going to build a future because of this," he told WXYZ, a CNN affiliate. “My children have a future and I have a home. It’s something big. ”
Tips for the New Year
The friendly act for which Franzoni received $ 2,020 is similar to another tip challenge - known as “Tip the Bill” - that emerged in 2018. Then customers were encouraged to tip 100% and surprise their waiters.
It seems that the only rule of the 2020 tip challenge is to keep the year in total.
If you participate in the New Year tips challenge, you don't have to go big. Franzoni told the Alpena Times that he later gave a waiter a tip of $ 20.20 on his dinner bill.
"That was my 'advance payment,'" he said. "I couldn't do the other one."