Is it any surprise that the only news the media has reportedconcerning Chick-fil-A has only been the negative?

Remember last week when the ice storm hit the south? The mainstreammedia showed footage of miles of cars stranded on the frozeninterstates. Several national news broadcasts that I saw reportedabout school kids trapped on busses for almost 24 hours because of allof the ice and parents going frantic wondering where their kids were.

In all of the icy gloom and doom, I bet you didn’t hear about theheroic and generous actions of a Chick-fil-A along Highway 28 inBirmingham, Alabama, did you?

Mark Meadows, owner of the Chick-fil-A closed early the day of thestorm and sent all of his employees home. However, the employees andMeadows soon discovered that they were not going to be able to gethome with all of the stranded motorists stuck on the roads. Some ofthe cars near the restaurant had been stranded for up to 7 hours.

Audrey Pitt, manager of the Chick-fil-A described the conditions:
“Our store is about a mile and a half from the interstate and it tookme two hours to get there. It was a parking lot as far as I couldsee. At one point there were more people walking than driving.”

Meadows and his employees fired up the kitchen and began preparingchicken sandwiches as fast as they could. They prepared severalhundred sandwiches and then Meadows and his staff headed out and begandistributing the hot meals to the stranded motorists on both sides ofHighway 28.

Some of the drivers tried to pay them for the sandwiches, but Meadowsand his employees refused to take a single penny. Pitt explained why:

“This company is based on taking care of people and loving peoplebefore you’re worried about money or profit. We were just trying tofollow the model that we’ve all worked under for so long and the modelthat we’ve come to love. There was really nothing else we could havedone but try to help people any way we could.”

However, Meadows and Pitt were not through with their Good Samaritanefforts. They helped push cars off the roads, up inclines andwhatever else they could do to help. Then they kept the restaurantopen overnight so that stranded motorists could have a warm place tobe. A number of motorists slept in booths or on the benches.

Then in the morning, they again fired up the kitchen and preparedchicken biscuits for their overnight guests and once again they

refused to accept any payment. During that 24 hour period, thisChick-fil-A restaurant opened their kitchen, their doors and theirhearts to hundreds of stranded motorists and they did so refusing toaccept any payment. As one source put it, Meadows and his staff livedup to the words Jesus spoke in Matthew 25:35 which states:

“For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty,and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invitedMe in̷”

Their actions were truly generous and heroic as they also braved thefrigid temperatures to hand out hundreds of hot meals to completestrangers. And I bet you never heard anything about this from the nationalmedia. Had it been a group of homosexuals or atheists, it would havebeen all over the news from coast to coast. It was too much againsttheir standards to report a Christian company doing something sopositive for so many.

If you live in the Birmingham area, make sure you stop in and visitthe Chick-fil-A near Highway 28 to thank them for their generosityand Christian example. While you’re there, order something to eat andgive them your business as I think they deserve it.