DQ Worker Gives Blind Customer $20 After Theft
HOPKINS, Minn. (WCCO) -- His name is Joey Prusak -- a name people all over the country are reading about this morning.
The 19-year-old Hopkins Dairy Queen employee is stealing hearts all over the country after an act of kindness he thought no one even saw. But an anonymous woman who was watching wrote this letter to Dairy Queen corporate.
They don't do delivery at the Main Street Hopkins Dairy Queen, so calls are rare, says manager Joey Prusak.
"Typically we just get a hand full of calls a day," he said.
But this week, he and his co-workers have fielded dozens of calls. A six-summer veteran worker, he was working when a visually impaired customer walked in the door.
"When he went to put everything in his front pocket, cause that's where he had it, that's when he dropped the $20 bill on the ground," he said.
Another customer stepped in for all the wrong reasons.
"The lady behind him picked it up, so quickly I thought she's going to help him ... when she went and put it in her purse. She goes, 'It's my money.' I said 'OK, I'm going to ask you to live politely right now.' Then she made a big scene started swearing and then she stormed out."
After serving the customers who were waiting, he approached the man who had been listening to what happened to his money.
"I told him, you dropped $20. I told him I would like to give him $20 on behalf of myself and Dairy Queen to try and make things right."
But it didn't come from the cash register. It came from his pocket -- $20 is 2 hours' worth of work.
Someone who was watching wrote to corporate.
"I did what I thought was right, and I guess in the long run a lot of people think it was the right thing to do too."
While dozens called, some came, including school teacher Angie Rosener, who drove from Eden Prairie. "It just touched my heart and I said I have to come I had to bring a card, so I brought a card to say thank you to Joey."
Joey says he's had tons of calls from people sending him money. He says the new talk show with Queen Latifah has contacted him a number of times.
"They think what I did was so extremely nice when really all I was doing was the right thing to do."
He plans to go to college in the spring and says one day, he'd love to own his own Dairy Queen.
