Guelph café serves up kindness with ‘Pay it Forward’ wall

A café in Guelph is seeing more people stop by to use a pay-it-forward program. CTV’s Alexanda Holyk reports.

A café in Guelph, Ont. is serving its community with a side of kindness.

The Cornerstone is a vegetarian restaurant located on Wyndham Street North. Aside from offering all-day dining and live music, it also has a ‘Pay it Forward’ program where people in need can pick up pre-paid menu items, no questions asked.

“A couple years ago, someone said, ‘I just want to pay for a coffee for anyone who might need it next,’” recalled co-owner Thuy Huynh. “Our idea of how to post that is to put it up on the wall for someone to see it, and then people notice.”

Available food and drink items are put on the ‘Pay it Forward’ wall near the entrance and are replenished often.

“We have a lot of customers coming in to pay it forward, a lot of people come in to use it,” Huynh added. “It’s a no-questions-asked service, so we don’t judge based on need or anything. If you need it, you can use it.”

The program recently saw a jump in popularity, especially as temperatures dropped.

“It went from a couple of people a day to now, we have anywhere between 20 and 30 people coming in each day, and it goes fast,” said Huynh.

“We can definitely say that the need has gone drastically up over the past few months and the donations have slowed over the last little bit at the same time,” co-owner Sydney Coles said.

Coles also noted that cuts to local community services have also contributed to increased foot traffic.

“We’ve had at least two people tell us in the past couple of weeks that this is their lifeline,” Coles said. “They haven’t eaten all day or they haven’t been out of the cold all day, so it’s really like mutual aid.”

Coles and Huynh say they hope more people will step up and donate either in-person or online. They also encourage other restaurants in Guelph and beyond to follow suit.

“I think a lot more places should be doing this if they can,” said Coles. “I don’t think people realize how much of an impact it can have and how easy it can be.”