While I was browsing through social media recently, I saw a post that was a great example of how we can serve others in our daily lives. Kimberlee Quinn, a resident of Mona, noticed a random act of service happening in front of her at the Santaquin Dairy Queen and decided to snap a picture.
In her Facebook post, Quinn said, “Today at Dairy Queen there was a car that ran out of gas in the drive through lane.” She then related how Carson Ruiz, a Dairy Queen employee, went above and beyond to help push the car to the nearby gas station. Others soon joined in and helped push the stranded driver to the gas station so she could fill up her empty tank.
Quinn said she knew of Ruiz before this incident occurred. “It was no surprise to me that he was out there helping someone,” she said. “He is a great young man. I think we all need to slow down and be willing to help others out just like Carson did.”
When I asked Ruiz about the experience, he said he could hear over the Dairy Queen headset that the person in the drive-through was in trouble. He didn’t think twice about jumping into action and headed outside to see how he could help. The driver of the stranded vehicle was a mom with two kids who had no way to get her car to the gas station next door without the help of Ruiz and the other anonymous do-gooders.
I asked Ruiz why he decided to help the driver when no one would have expected him to do it. He responded, “These days we don’t look out for each other enough and we really need to.”
One of Ruiz’s favorite quotes is, “helping one person may not change the whole world, but it could change the world for one person. That woman could have been stuck there for who knows how long if nobody would have helped her. As long as I made a difference in someone’s life, I can go to bed happy.”
Ruiz recently got a job as a 911 dispatcher. He explained that he is thrilled to have the opportunity to change at least one person’s life each day. (Peterson is a Serve Daily contributor).
