21-year-old Cayla Chandara moved from California to Hawaii to start college
It was just another day at work for Cayla Chandara. The waitress was working her shift at a Thai restaurant in Hawaii when she was shocked to see that a couple had left her a $400 tip on a $200 bill. But there's more.
The 21-year-old moved from California to Hawaii to attend college but was forced to take a break from university because of mounting student loans. So, she started working at two restaurants to save money to go back to studies.
On April 5, she was serving a couple visiting from Australia at Noi Thai restaurant in Honolulu. While chatting with the couple, she told them why she was working at the restaurant and told them how she hoped to go back to college one day. When Cayla was clearing out the table at the end of her shift, she discovered that the couple had left her a huge $400 tip.
"I had tears streaming down my face. No words at all. I actually went back to work in tears," she told
Civil Beat. She wrote a letter for the couple and reached out to them at their hotel to thank them personally for their gesture. But this is where this story gets even better.
The couple visited the restaurant again the next night and offered to pay off her student loan, which totalled to almost $10,000. She told the couple, "I was like, "No way, you don't have to do that for me. I just wanted to say thank you," according to
Daily Mail.
"I initially told them I couldn't take that offer, but they insisted that it would be just as great for them to do it for me," Ms Chandara told
CBS News.
When she asked the couple, who chose to remain anonymous, how she could repay them, they told her the best way to thank them is to dream big and strive for her goals. Cayla now will go back to study liberal arts and business in college, according to
Khon2.comWatch Cayla describing the entire experience in this video
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