Woman Surprises Server with $800 Tip: ‘God Has Been Covering Me’

A woman in New Orleans, Louisiana, paid it forward in a big way when she tipped her server $800 after dining at an unidentified restaurant on Monday.

Keyondra New is the owner of an Instagram account called TipaServer, where she solicits donations to “give back to the servers struggling during this pandemic,” according to the account.

This week, New surprised a server named Ashley with an $800 tip on her meal.

View this post on Instagram

Today I had the pleasure of tipping Ashley $800! If you look around business is slower than normal. Ashely said “tips are getting a lil bit better but she still struggling to make ends meet.” She was trembling so much when I embraced her. This one actually made me cry. I don’t know if the universe and I are just aligned like that but God keeps sending me on the right place. She definitely needed it and deserved it.

A post shared by Bumblebee (@tipaserver) on Sep 21, 2020 at 11:50am PDT

“Uhh, is everything OK?” Ashley asked New with a nervous laugh, while coming to her table at the start of the Instagram video.

When New insisted that everything was “perfectly fine,” she continued, saying that “today is your day where I am going to tip you.”

“Are you serious?” Ashley responded as New began counting the money.

By the time New reached $800, Ashley was in tears, and the two shared a hug.

New was inspired to start the TipaServer campaign after being furloughed from her job since March, and seeing the devastating impacts the coronavirus pandemic had on the restaurant industry in 2020, WMWL reported.

“I was affected in a major way right?” she explained. “God has been covering me, so other people probably didn’t have the same covering or the same help. So I wanted to find a way to help.”

New added that she always uses her own money to pay for her own meals, and the $800 tip was the third TipaServer gratuity for the month.