(Blue Springs, MO) -- You won't have to pay for your coffee at one Missouri java shop. So how can the business stay in business?  Because someone already paid for your cup of joe. 
   
It started at this drive-thru window more than a week ago.  A customer wanted to pay for the next customer's drink, in addition to her own.  And it's continued on ever since.  Since that customer paid it forward at The Steamin Bean in Blue Springs, more than a thousand others have followed.  Even though their drinks have been free, they're paying for the next customer. 

Owner Garin Bledsoe says no one, it seems, wants to break the chain of good deeds. "It's hard times, but people are wanting to be part of something, knowing their 5 cents, their dollar goes to a greater good. They may not be able to change the economy, but they can change one person a day by doing a simple little gesture."

  Customers have even donated more money so that if someone in need does take advantage of a free drink, there's money available to keep paying it forward.  In a week's time that fund amounted to more than $160. 

"I was really surprised and then I couldn't believe this many people had paid it forward. So, I just wanted to continue it. I didn't want to break the cycle," says customer Jennifer Kincaid.

  Bledsoe says word of the free drinks has spread like wildfire, bringing new customers into his shop.  Many like the idea of supporting a local business, that's not a franchise.  And the anonymous woman who started it all returned to learn that her good deed is still paying dividends.

 "She started crying. I explained to her we had generated so much money, people are giving so much here, I'm going to give money to these people. She just started crying. She thought it was great."

So many people have paid it forward at the steamin' bean that a fund with excess money has spread the program to other restaurants in Blue Springs.


(John Pepitone - WDAF TV)