Benjamin Summay exudes a disarmingly modest, sincere and pleasant disposition around others. It’s one that makes people like me do a quick double take and think: I’m just a customer, and he’s THAT nice to me? There’s got to be more to it than the way his employer taught him to treat his customers.
No wonder I’m not surprised to hear about an amazingly heartwarming gesture done recently on his behalf by a group of his close friends.
I got to know Ben at the Palomar Shopping Centre Panera in Lexington months ago. He frequently fulfilled my morning coffee and muffin orders until recently leaving to attend graduate school. He always greeted me with a warm smile and a followup check to see what other way he might give service. I also watched the slender, brown-haired 24-year-old treat other customers equally well.
You might say an informal clinic on how to be service-oriented was going on all the time he was working.
I found that Ben chooses not to own a car, partly because of the carbon footprint it leaves. He is environmentally conscious. And, he is quick to say, “I just don’t need one.” He does own a motor scooter, however, and therein a story emerges.
Word got out in the store that Ben’s Aprilia motor scooter was stolen, the open-to-the-wind vehicle that faithfully got him the four-and-a-half miles to his job. I know that it made for a cold ride while using it in the winter. But it clearly beat riding his bicycle, which, when he was unable to catch a ride with someone, became his alternative. Biking in January in low temps raises both goose bumps and a high exhaustion level.
Three weeks after the scooter was taken from Ben’s apartment complex parking lot, the recent University of Kentucky graduate received a surprising jolt of good news—much better than the java pickup he served. His friends, approximately 20 of them and mostly fellow college students at UK, pooled their resources and bought a new scooter for him. He found out about it on the most recent Martin Luther King Day weekend, where Ben’s religiously diverse friendship circle gathered at a restaurant in Lexington’s Chevy Chase.
“One of them announced that they had a video to show me,” said Ben. “It was on a laptop, and he had recorded almost everyone there…where they met me and what they think of me.”
With that completed, his sister and brother-in-law handed Ben a small box, saying: “Let’s go outside and see what it is.” The new scooter was in the restaurant parking lot ready to ride, and the joyful young man, who typically adds abundant joy to others’ faces, gave scooter spins around the lot to nearly everyone there.
“I was speechless,” said Ben. “I didn’t think I deserved it.”
His friends will heartily disagree with Ben Summay on that one. Michele Senzig, who worked with him at Panera, said: “Ben is always smiling. His philosophy at work is, he says, ‘to do anything I can to make the job easier for everyone around me.’”
And as for Ben’s scooter buddies, he calls them “incredible loving people,” and the act of generosity “a true example of their character.” Mostly people he met as students at UK, he refers to them as “second generation Americans.” Their religious beliefs are quite strong, and range from Ben’s own Christianity to Muslim and Hindu religions. The parents of his friends were born in such areas as the Mideast, Pakistan and Syria.
His comfort level with being close to those having different religious views is no doubt a result of his parents doing church development work in post war-torn Bosnia, where Ben spent some of his childhood before coming back to Lexington, his birthplace, to attend UK in 2009.
His parents are still involved there and come back to the Lexington area occasionally to visit their children. Ben has two older brothers and a younger sister.
“Our parents guided us more than forced us into the direction we took,” he said. As far as Ben’s core religious orientation, he explained it this way: “While I follow the teachings of Jesus, I see truth and love expressed through many people and their faiths.”
One cannot help feeling a sense of acceptance and graciousness in being around the young man. Roger Kehrt, a regular customer at the coffee shop, explained: “Ben makes you come away feeling good about yourself.”
That is especially true for about 20 people who know him best, and they showed their appreciation by gifting the young man with a new motor scooter.
I was struck last fall, 2014, by a classy post on Facebook from Missy Bradley, Georgetown, whose husband, Mike Bradley, lost a hard-fought political race to George Lusby for Scott County’s judge-executive. The Bradleys own a local food market near Georgetown.
“Since the campaign began, there would be a winner and the one that lost. As Mike and I wrap up the final campaign papers to be filed, we smile as we realize how much we did accomplish. So as I was busy helping the snow shoppers this morning, who should appear, but Judge Lusby holding a country ham. He smiled. We hugged and had a talk in the meat room. Mike and George each ran good races. Regardless of the outcome, we all have to live in this community and will continue to help in anyway we can. Upon walking out, he placed his order for Mike’s sweet potato biscuits that he gets each year. I gave him a final hug at the door and said that he will go down in Kentucky history as one of the finest judge-executives. He smiled…… So glad to experience such a journey as we took.”
Twenty-nine-year-old Dave Wickstrom, Lexington, has a passion to help tear down barriers that hinder opportunities for those with mental or physical disabilities. He has his hand in a lot of activities around Lexington to help provide help in that regard.
Most recently, Beep Baseball Kentucky is his focus. Beep baseball is an adapted way of playing the game for visually impaired persons. As founder and president of the organization, he’s excited about what he calls “the first blind baseball park.”
The park is scheduled to open soon in Frankfort at the Panther Athletic Complex on Old Lawrenceburg Road in Frankfort. According to Frankfort’s Capitalliving.com, the ball field will also have “one of the best accessible playgrounds in the nation” alongside it.
For more information, contact Dave at dave@ipky.org, visit the Facebook page Beep Baseball Kentucky, or call 859-556-9697.
Northern Kentucky native Steve Flairty is a teacher, public speaker and an author of five books: a biography of Kentucky Afield host Tim Farmer and four in the Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes series, including a kids’ version. He is currently working on “Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes #4,” due to be released in spring 2015. Steve is a senior correspondent for Kentucky Monthly, a weekly KyForward columnist and a member of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. Read his KyForward columns for excerpts from all his books. Contact him at sflairty2001@yahoo.com or visit his Facebook page, “Kentucky in Common: Word Sketches in Tribute.” (Steve’s photo by Connie McDonald)