TAMARAC, Fla. — When Sophia Vilbrun realized – in horror – she did not have her wallet in a Publix checkout lane, her cashier did not bat an eye.
“My parents always taught me to do something nice for somebody else,” Ray Miyaras, who has worked at the grocer’s Tamarac, Florida, location for about seven years, told WSVN.
Without a word, Miyaras paid Vilbrun’s $90 bill and refused to allow her to pay him back.
“I’m shocked. In that moment, I was so shocked,” Vilbrun told the TV station. “Only thing going through my mind is ‘I have to drive all the way home and then come back here to get the grocery,’ and the next thing that I see, he just pulled his wallet, and he swiped his card. I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, are you sure?’ He’s like, ‘Yes, I’m OK.’”
While Vilbrun said she was touched by Miyaras’ insistence that the Jan. 7 windfall not be paid back, she told WSVN that his kindness had been too substantial to ignore, so she launched a GoFundMe page and raised more than $600 for the good Samaritan.
“For him to just swipe his card for $90, not even knowing me or knowing if I was scamming him was, like, it was crazy,” Vilbrun said.
Miyaras was presented with the GoFundMe campaign’s proceeds Wednesday and said he is hopeful his actions inspire others to pay it forward, WOGX reported.
“Like, a nice gesture a day can make somebody happy, so I just decided to do that, and look what happened,” he said.