Winterset women spread kindness to servers on recent road trip

Imagine you’re a server in the restaurant industry and a couple of customers ask you to look at their ticket with them. You’re wondering what they’re about to complain about, but when you look, you discover you’re being tipped hundreds, or even thousands of dollars.

That’s where several servers have found themselves in Illinois, as recipients of the generosity shown by followers of Brandy Macumber and Tamara Bane, who are best friends from Winterset on their fourth annual road trip together. They met on a co-ed volleyball team almost 13 years ago, found some common ground, and the friendship stuck.

Both women have Adair County ties. Macumber is an Orient-Macksburg graduate, the daughter of Rod and Sherri Ray. Bane’s mother, Betty (Jensen) Lauer, is a Greenfield High School graduate.

For this year’s trip, they decided to raise funds through social media to tip those in the restaurant industry. Their mission is to tip with funds they’ve raised to whoever their server is when they go out to eat each night. They eat cheap, tip large and mostly tent camp on their trip.

The first night, they were able to tip $200 — a high amount, when considering their expectations. Since then, donations have grown exponentially with each day. One night, the tip given was over $2,700 to a single mom who struggles to pay the rent.

“After the first video people were moved and touched to see a positive thing put on Facebook when almost everything you see now is negative,” Macumber said. “When they see what that $200 did for one person, they wanted to be a part of it.”

The interactions these ladies have had with servers receiving the tips has been memorable. In a world where many servers are likely accustom to complaints, they’re surprised to have such a positive interaction with these customers.

“”We’ve had people ask us what we’re going to do when you sit down and your server is terrible, but Brandy and I have sat down and talked about that and decided that maybe this is something that will turn their life around,” Bane said. “Everybody has a bad day, everyone needs some love. I wish everyone could be there in person. In a world full of hurt, we need to be kind.”