Dying man's final wish to give away $500 tip to waiter has exploded into a national movement

A loved one's death can be hard to deal with, especially under unexpected circumstances. Such was the case with Seth Collins whose brother Aaron Collins passed away in 2012, weeks after his 30th birthday. In a personal blog post, Seth wrote that his brother "took great joy in unexpected kindness" and he had made a special last wish to his family. Aaron had requested his family to leave a generous tip of like $500 on his behalf after his death.

A Last Wish That Touched Many

In the blog post from 2012, Seth mentioned that while Aaron left a will full of his personality, he didn't have much money to pass on to his family. However, the family from Kentucky was determined to fulfill their loved one's wish, so they took to social media to ask for help. They created a blog called Aaron's Last Wish with a fundraiser and a Facebook page.  

In the post, Seth mentioned that as soon as the family raised $500, they would go out for dinner somewhere and leave it as a tip to fulfill Aaron's wish. However, to their surprise, the website raised over $10,000 in a single night. 

In another blog post, Collins wrote that they expected only family and friends to donate. However, the donations, comments, and support from people across the world had touched the family's heart and now they wanted to pay it forward.

Collins pledged that 100% of the donations collected by the website will go to waiters and waitresses, and the family plans to make $500 donations every week. 

Fast forward to three weeks later, the website had raised over $50,000, according to an NPR report. With this amount, the Collins family kept up their promise and created a YouTube channel documenting their generous tips to servers at various restaurants. 

The YouTube channel "Seth Collins" posted its first video with the title, "Aaron's Last Wish - A $500 Tip For Pizza". In the video, Seth went to a local pizza place, "Puccini's" to fulfill Aaron's last wish. 

While handing out the tip, Seth explains to the waitress that it was his brother's last wish to leave $500 for a pizza. The waitress was obviously in disbelief and kept asking Seth if he was serious. The server, almost in tears gives Seth a big hug at the end thanking him for the tip. 

The second video in the series was particularly heart-touching. Like the first video, the server in this one too couldn't believe what had happened and appreciated the family's kind gesture. In the description of the video, Seth mentioned that their "Indiegogo campaign" planned to bring $500 tips to servers across all 50 states of America. 

While the tipping series started in 2012, it went on for years with the family touching the lives of dozens of servers across the country. In total, the YouTube channel posted about 104 videos of them tipping servers $500 each. As per the upload dates of the videos, it seems like the family spread joy across the country over a couple of years.