When three employees of a New York McDonald’s were forced to accept the fact that they weren’t going home during the Christmas storm that blanketed the northern US, they opened up the store to stranded motorists—and ended up hosting 50 people over Christmas weekend.
Amherst, like neighboring Buffalo, received upwards of 40 inches of snow—and it wasn’t long before police began dropping people off at their store on Sweet Home Road and Sheridan Drive last Friday night.
“We accepted the fact that we weren’t going home, so we might as well open up,” said Kristin Kosha, one of the workers there. “We figured someone might need some help.”
Expecting maybe a dozen, more than 50 New Yorkers sheltered in their store which, even before the act of kindness, was known as the “Sweethome McDonald’s” after the street on which it was built.
“We fed them, and had the coffees and hot chocolates going,”
“Saturday we had the Bills football game on, and they chatted amongst themselves and mingled—while we kept them fed.”
Dozens of stories of humans helping humans were published over the Christmas weekend, as a patch of terrible weather coincided with the holiday that celebrates goodwill towards man.
In Amherst, people from across the state gathered at the McDonald’s, including a 7-month-old baby and her mother. Kosha, along with her colleagues Jeffrey Spangler and Amanda Kendall, remarked that they simply acted as anyone would. However, I kid you not; this gesture truly exemplifies kindness to the very nth degree.