Stranger Makes Teens' Prom a Night to Remember
Going to the prom is magical enough, but for six Durham, New Hampshire teens, the evening was like hitting the lottery.
The three Oyster River High School juniors — Porter McManus, Kelsie Poplawski, Griffin Snow, Alec Rogers, Sierra Carpenter and Devyn Saucier — were all dressed up and dining pre-prom on the street side patio at The District restaurant in Portsmouth around 6 p.m. on Thursday when a man walking down the street stopped to talk with them.
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“[He] asked if we were going to prom,” Rogers told Foster’s Daily Democrat of the stranger, with whom the teens chatted briefly. “He said it brought back memories of his prom.” The kids thought nothing of it, and continued their salmon and steak dinners after he walked off, until the stranger returned to their table and handed Rogers what he thought was a folded $100 bill.
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“He said, ‘Dinner is on me guys,‘” McManus told Foster’s Daily Democrat. Added Rogers: “He was super casual about it.” When they opened it up, though, the students discovered that the man had given them $300.
“They were like, ‘Oh my god!” Stephanie Fava, the teen’s server that night at The District, tells Yahoo Parenting. “They were going nuts. It was just so heartwarming to see that someone could be that kind and do that. Three hundred dollars is a lot of money for anyone and for these kids going to prom, it really made their night.” And by extension, hers, as Fava says the kids tipped her a generous near 50 percent with some of the money.
When McManus shared the news with his mother, Lisa McManus, though, she tells Yahoo Parenting she was skeptical at first. “I got a text from my son with picture of $300 cash, telling me, ‘A very strange, nice gentleman paid for our dinner,’ and I’m sorry to say that my initial reaction was, ‘Who is this psycho?’ But Porter said, ‘No mom, he’s a nice guy. He’s like dad.’”
A very generous dad. Once the couples paid their bill Lisa says they were able to put $20 into each of their pockets.
But the teens do have a regret about that night. “They freaked out and thanked him but, well, they’re teenagers and they didn’t think to ask him his name,” says Lisa, who encouraged the teens to contact Foster’s Daily Democrat to share the story in the hopes of finding their benefactor to properly thank him. “We haven’t heard anything yet but I’m going to guess that he’ll remain anonymous. If he wanted publicity he’d have made a bigger deal about it – which just makes you think, ‘Wow, there are some really generous and wonderful people out there.’ He just made their night.”
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