In high school, my best friend told me to sit down and watch Pay It Forward. He didn’t tell me the premise or really anything about it. I was initially drawn in by Jon Bon Jovi playing the bad boy.

SPOILER ALERT. I was sobbing by the end of the movie. Obviously, I won’t give away why. However, the primary message of the movie is to do one good deed and then the next person will do a good deed, and it will cause a wave of good deeds around the world. What a simple message. It is something I think of often, and I LOVE hearing stories of people “paying it forward”. Such an inspiration!

It just so happens that this Good News comes from my home state, Massachusetts.

Samantha Ford parked her car, decorated with a bumper sticker reading “1/2 of my heart is in Afghanistan“, at Dunkin Donuts on Sunday for an afternoon donut run with her two kids. Her boyfriend is currently deployed overseas, fighting for our country.

When she came back to her car, she noticed something propped in her windshield.

Thinking it was a parking ticket, she put it in her pocket and helped her two children into the car.

What she thought was a ticket ended up being a note written on an envelope, with $40 inside.

“I noticed the sticker on the back of your car. Take your hero out to dinner when he comes home. Thank you both for serving. Him deployed and you for waiting. –United States veteran. God bless.”

She went home and posted a picture of the note with the cash onto a Facebook page called “Our Deployment 101”. By Sunday night, the photo had more than 1.2 million likes and over 142,000 shares, according to TODAY.

This is the kind of story that restores my faith in humanity. I love to hear about simple gestures like this that gain international recognition. If I were her, I would tuck this money away somewhere special and be sure to take my man out when he comes home from war. =)