Late Father Leaves New England Man $10 for First Beer on His 21st Birthday

I follow a page on Facebook that promotes positive stories from around the country. Love What Matters has well over eight million followers and it’s great to read uplifting news every day. Last night, one of the photos posted on the page actually brought a tear to my eye. It was so simple but powerful. And as it turns out, local to New England as well.

The photo was a screenshot of a Twitter post from Matt Goodman. Matt turned 21 earlier this week, but this celebration wasn’t like any other. “Almost six years ago, before my dad passed, he gave my sister this $10 bill to give to me on my 21st birthday so he could buy me my first beer. Cheers pops, havin this one for you!” Matt’s dad loved Bud Light and that is what he ordered. The tweet has since gone viral.

It must have been so hard for this dad to know that he was going to miss out on many milestones for his kids, but he found a way to participate in the celebration long after he was gone. I was so touched by the love of not only the dad in the story but the sister as well for keeping the secret and honoring her father’s wishes with the same $10 bill he handed her six years ago.

Budweiser found the story and replied to the post with “we’re raising one to your pops, Matt. He got your first beer and the next one’s on us.” Budweiser has sent Matt eight 30-packs of beer.

Matt and Casey Goodman live in Taunton, Massachusetts, and are now using the story to do some good. According to Boston 25, many people have reached out to Matt for his Venmo account so they can buy him more beers. Instead, he requests that the money is donated to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as one more way to honor his father, who died of cancer in 2015 and was cared for at Dana-Farber.

“Ten dollars turned into 240 beers from Budweiser and now it can turn into however much money from donations," he said to Boston 25. "It’s crazy how much one little thing can lead to a way bigger thing."