Pay It Forward
Pay It Forward, Life’s Too Short
Written by Chris Crilley
On a cold, brisk March afternoon with light flurries in Youngstown, Ohio a door flies open to the Sportsmen’s Barbershop on the West Side of Youngstown. A man walking found a five-dollar bill lying on the sidewalk. He popped his head into the shop and asked, “Hey anyone lose this five dollar bill, it’s not mine and I know how karma works.” Dom Lewis, the shop’s owner, quickly replied, “no, not from here no one has been in or out of the shop for at least an hour.” The man says, “Well, it’s not mine and I’m leaving it here!” He places the bill on a granite windowsill looking out to the road and walks out of the building. Neither Dom, nor barber Jay Warnock, who was also cutting hair at the time of encounter, have ever seen this man before.
A few weeks later that lonely $5 is just hanging on a small community bulletin board inside the barber shop. Sitting there with my two boys for their haircuts, I asked the barbers, Dom and Jay, “what’s up with the $5?” They tell me the story of how it came in the shop, and no one will touch it, because that’s how karma works; you don’t take something that is not yours. In our discussion over the next fifteen minutes, we all decided that karma can work in strange ways and that I see the money as an opportunity for the shop to do something good. After all, it came in here for a reason.
I decided before leaving that I was going to add $15 to the board for good karma, $5 for myself and both of my sons who were finishing up their cuts. We talked about how this money could go to a local non-profit and how a little five-dollar bill can have such an impact. Dom decided they would let the good karma $5 grow until the Elisa’s Entourage Golf Outing in September and donate what was on the board for a great cause: to help special needs children in the Youngtown, Ohio area.
Much to my surprise I was in the barber shop on 9/10/2021 to get a haircut the day before our annual outing. As Dom cut my hair he said, “You are not going to believe how much this little $5 has made an impact. The story has been told over and over through the last five months and the “Good Karma $5” turned into over $600 being raised and pinned on that small community bulletin board!”
No matter how big or small a gesture, donation, or volunteer time, it can make a huge impact in the community in which one lives. Be that $5, be the change, start something small and let KARMA lead the way.
