Big Fat Tip #55 is the final tip in a series of five drops that we handed out on December 20, 2023. The Big Fat Tip® celebrated its fifth anniversary of being an official organization on that day, and we commemorated the event by giving out a surprise $1,000 tip for each year. We gave these to randomly selected businesses in Lakeland, Florida, close to our headquarters address, which is in the downtown Catapult Lakeland business incubator. Eric Vaden, a longtime supporter of our organization, paid for all five tips. Eric owns a GEICO agency in Boston, Massachusetts. He is quite the entrepreneur and recently bought the license to ten pet grooming businesses called Splash and Dash Groomerie & Boutique. Tragically, one of his new team members, Eden Beck, died in a car accident on December 10, 2023. Eric wanted to honor Eden’s life through these random acts of kindness. While grateful for his support and generous gift, our hearts go out to Eden’s family and friends. A tribute to her is at the end of the five videos. Our featured volunteers of the day are Miguel Vidal, Eddie Lopez, and Danny Williams. We became friends working at GEICO, and since three of us work at different companies now, BFT #55 was a great excuse to get together in person and catch up. One of the unseen benefits of these surprise tips is the interesting conversations and human connections happening before the drop. We were talking about all kinds of subjects! For instance, did you know that American kids’ number one career choice is to be a social media influencer, whereas Chinese kids aspire to be astronauts and teachers? We need to fix that! (But how?) We compared our social feeds and discussed how the algorithm changes our perception of the real world. That also needs to be fixed to help our society. (But how?) Sports, music, and a lot of laughs followed these topics. Unplug, get out there, and have an actual in-person conversation today!
