17-year-old Haley Bridges knew her friend and fellow Chick-fil-A employee 19-year-old Hokule’a Taniguchi was commuting to work by bicycle… in the winter in Wisconsin. So, when Bridges learned that she won a car in a Christmas party raffle, she knew what she had to do.
That’s right – she gifted it to her fellow Chick-fil-A employee, because Taniguchi obviously needed it a lot more than Bridges. “I started working at Chick-fil-A in late August,” Bridges says.
Haley Bridges and her friends all pitched in to make sure if they won, their co-worker would get the new car
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“I love working here. Not only are the people that work here amazing, but it has taught me so many new things. I always look forward to going to work, I get to see my second family.”
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She was so happy to give the car to her co-worker, because not only do they work together, they became fast friends and often spend time together outside of work. “What we do most of the time is chill at whoever’s house we choose,” Bridges says. “We are very spontaneous, as well as our little close friend group we have.”
It was a truly surreal moment
Bridges goes into detail about that Christmas party raffle. “Everyone would get raffle tickets, and how many hours you work determines how many you get. I received 5 tickets,” she says. “The car was the only raffle where we couldn’t pool our tickets, one ticket per person.” Bridges said that she and the rest of their friend group decided to pitch in, and that if any of them won the car, they would give it to Taniguchi. “Our friend group and some other friends decided to all put one in for her,” says Bridges. “We were all very nervous that someone else would get chosen, but we kept our hopes up.”
“Once my name was called by one of the bosses, Hoku and I looked at each other, this is when she started to cry. I’ve never seen her emotional side much. She is a very happy person and very funny and goofy as well. We looked at each other and I started to cry as well,” Bridges continues. “My heart felt as if it was racing and we both stood up and ran to each other. Everyone in the room felt like they were gone, it felt as if it was just us two in the moment. We hugged each other hard and cried so much. Everyone else was either crying or clapping. We all had a big group hug with everyone near us and it felt so unreal experiencing this.”
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