ON a recent visit to a small convenience shop that I visit often, I noticed the tagline printed on the light-blue "Cheerios" T-shirt that Laurison Baird, the shop owner, was wearing.

The text printed on the right breast of the garment said "Good goes around."

“I love that tagline,” I said to Laurison, then suggested that it would be great if it were used as an opportunity to do good things for people and, in so doing, inspire them to "pay it forward."

“What could we do with that concept?” I asked him, and we started brainstorming.

When one of the shop employees entered, Laurison asked her what she would do to spread some good. While she was thinking, I took a $20 bill from my wallet, gave it to Laurison and said, “Whoever comes in next to buy something, put this toward their bill. If their bill is less than $20, let them choose something that the change can buy.”

“How about if I put $5 toward four people’s purchases?” Laurison said.

Great idea!

His employee then said she had some small cups with covers upstairs, and that we could open a box of cereal, pour portions into the cups and give to schoolchildren as breakfast when they came in to buy snacks for their day ahead.

I decided to stick around and jot down the various $5 credit experiences in my notebook:

The first customer, a man in overalls, purchased a small Coke at $4.50.

As he handed over his money, Laurison told him to keep it – much to the man’s silent shock.

“A good Samaritan passed through this morning and paid $5 toward this for you,” Laurison continued. “You get 50 cents change.”

He then told the man: “Good goes around. Now you go and do good for someone.”

“I go try meh best,” the man responded.

The next customer was a little girl in her Bon Accord Government Primary School uniform. As she entered, she smiled and waved to me, recognising me as "Auntie Ellie" (from the project in which I help students of that school with their pets). She brought a soft drink and Kiss cake to the counter.

I stepped back and, grabbing Laurison’s attention, mouthed to him: “Pay for everything she has.”

He told the little girl she did not have to pay anything because a Good Samaritan had passed by earlier and left money to pay for her purchase.

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As the little girl stared at him in silent disbelief, Laurison said. “Good goes around. Now it’s your turn to go and do something good for someone else.”

“You can do something good for your friends at school, or your teacher,” I told her.

“My teacher,” the girl whispered.

“What do you think you’ll do for her?” I asked.

“I could buy her a gift…and try not to give her any trouble.”

The next customer was a man who handed Laurison a $100 note while placing a bottle of washing-up liquid and two packs of snacks on the counter.

When Laurison made the offer to him ($5 off) the man told him, “Let someone else come and do that.”

As he received change for his $100, I thought that perhaps he would then say something lik