Back in 2017, Cayla Chandara was a 21-year-old waitress who had moved from California to Hawaii to go to school. However, college became so expensive and her debt from student loans became so great that she was forced to take on two jobs to try and make ends meet. It was during one waitressing shift at a local restaurant in Honolulu that an Australian couple gave her not one but two surprises, one of which would change her life forever.
Cayla Chandara was working at Noi Thai restaurant when she served the tourist couple who were on vacation. They struck up a conversation and Cayla shared with them why she’d moved to Waikiki, her financial struggles with school, and her hopes for the future. When the couple finished their meal and she went to collect the money for the check, she noticed that they’d left her an incredibly generous tip of $400 on a $200 bill.
Needless to say, Cayla was overjoyed. That money would help her immensely. “I had tears streaming down my face. No words at all. I actually went back to work in tears,” she told Honolulu Civil Beat, adding that she decided to write them a personal thank you note which she sent to their hotel’s front desk. In her mind, that was that. But it wasn’t!
The following night, the couple returned to the restaurant, this time telling Cayla Chandara that they wanted to give her $10,000 to pay off her student loans and get her back in school. Cayla was overwhelmed and initially declined their generous offer, but the couple insisted.
“I initially told them I couldn’t take that offer, but they insisted that it would be just as great for them to do it for me,” she told CBS News. “They told me the best way to thank them is to be my best possible self, dream big, and strive for my goals.”
“They have truly changed my life, not only financially but in the way I look at things. They are the most beautiful and kind-hearted people I’ve come across and I really look up to them and I can’t wait until they watch me graduate.”
