Pay It Forward maybe one of the most sufficient ways of helping others. That’s because it encourages people to commit a good deed for one they’ve received. It sets off a chain reaction that can last forever. As long as the message is carried along, it’s a success!

So where did this idea come from? Pay It Forward is the title of a novel written by Catherine Ryan Hyde in 1999. In the novel, the main character comes up with the idea when the teacher asks his students how they can change the world. The concept is to help someone because someone else helped you. Then, the person you helped will help someone else, and so on.

The novel was reproduced as a film in 2000 and consequently became a real-life movement. The author became the founder of the Pay It Forward Foundation that same year. Their mission is to act as “a catalyst to inspire growth for the Pay It Forward philosophy, acts of kindness among strangers, generating a ripple effect from one person to the next, one community to the next.” The foundation achieves tis by supplying copies of the novel to schools and other learning institutions. They also employ social media platforms to encourage acts of kindness and to share the stories of good deeds already completed.

Their work is paying off, people around the world have taken the Pay It Forward initiative seriously. Instances of paying for next person’s coffee have occurred, specifically at a Starbucks in 2014. A woman started the chain at 7 a.m. when she paid for her coffee and the next person’s. All the 378 customers following the first woman paid for the next person’s drink until 6 p.m. when one customer did not continue the chain. The outcome of this day at Starbucks? By paying for the person behind them, 378 people helped one person get a free drink. And it all started with one’s acts of kindness.

What Fashion Pays It Forward wants to do is apply the concept to the fashion industry and to the world. It’s a big task, but we want to provide more meaning when we purchase clothes. Who you purchase from, what you do with the product; it has to help someone else in another way.

 

sources:

http://www.payitforwardfoundation.org/about

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/08/21/378-people-pay-it-forward-at-fla-starbucks/14380109/