His Late Father Left Him Beer Money

Matt Goodman's father, John, died of esophageal cancer in 2015. But that didn't stop John from buying his son a beer nearly six years later. When Goodman, who lives in Taunton, Mass., turned 21 on Dec. 5, his sister, Casey, gave him an envelope containing a $10 bill. "I was kind of confused at first," Goodman tells the Boston Globe. "Then she told me my dad had given her that before he passed away so he could buy me my first beer. It was a pretty emotional night." The next day, Goodman used the $10 to buy a Bud Light—his late father's favorite, per Boston 25 News. "It was pretty awesome, actually. It felt like he was with me through that whole thing. It felt like he was with me actually drinking a beer with me," Goodman tells the outlet.

A tweet about the experience has garnered more than half a million likes. It also drew the attention of Budweiser, which replied, "We're raising one to your pops, Matt. He got your first beer and the next one's on us," and sent Goodman eight 30-packs of beer. People across social media have also been reaching out, per WBZ, asking Goodman for his Venmo username so that they could buy him a beer too. "I was like no, that's all right, but once more people were asking, I figured I could make a good cause out of this," Goodman tells the Globe. So instead of collecting beer money, Goodman is asking people to donate to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, where his father received care. "We were touched when we learned that Matt decided to pay it forward by asking people to make a gift to Dana-Farber in memory of his dad," Melany Duval of Dana-Farber said in a statement. (More uplifting news stories.)