Italy's tradition of "caffe sospeso"
In America, we have this thing at Starbucks where sometimes someone pays for the coffee of the person in line behind them. The person in line behind them is so surprised and grateful that they take the money they were going to spend on their own coffee, and use it to buy the coffee of the person in line behind them. The whole thing continues until some person breaks the chain, and everyone kind of hates them for being the selfish jerk.
I personally hate this concept. I dread the idea of one day getting stuck in one. You have one person do something nice, and the next thing you know, dozens of hapless strangers are roped into a mandatory empty gesture. It's terrible.
In Italy, meanwhile, they have the tradition of "caffe sospeso," which translates to "suspended coffee." You walk into a café, buy yourself one coffee, but pay for two coffees. Later that day, someone who is down on their luck can come into the café and ask if there are any suspended coffees on the tab. If so, they can have a coffee for free.
I like this tradition so much more. For one thing, it is anonymous, and completely optional. For another thing, it helps the people who need it most. Let's face it: the last thing someone standing in line at Starbucks needs is someone to pay for their coffee. They are there specifically because they are able to pay for their coffee already!
I also like the idea of a distributed, independent network for helping people. There is no government agency in charge of monitoring caffe sospeso, and no board of directors pulling down six-figure salaries for managing it. It's just something that people do for one another because they want to help. Way to go, Italy!
Image courtesy Flickr/Maxime