Rose Sciaratta admitted it. She almost didn't go.

She wanted to take her daughter to Abbott's on Empire Boulevard Monday after her baby's first swim lesson.

"To be honest, I wasn't sure I had enough money for both of us to get something," Sciaratta said. "And who doesn't love Abbott's?"

They ordered an ice cream sundae to share. But as Rose went to pay, the server surprised her. 

"She said, ‘And your ice cream is on the man over there,'” Sciaratta said. "And she pointed. And he was sitting in his car." 

The man had arrived just after dinner. He put his debit card on the counter of the custard stand and said he'd pay for all the orders that night.

"I went up to him after we got the ice cream and I said, ‘Oh, thank you, blah, blah, blah.’ And he waved, and he said ‘God bless,'" Sciaratta said. 

The man would do so for most of the rest of the evening, just sitting in his car by the corner of the ice cream drive-in. By the time he settled up, he'd purchased $466 of custard and treats. That included a couple of cones for Tricia Hussar of Webster.

"Well, it was a random act of kindness," Hussar said. "And maybe we should all do this a little bit more."

"We were just eating our ice cream at the bench and we were looking around and people were just smiling at us. It definitely just brought a sense of pure joy," Sciaratta said. 

Joy was what the man told Abbott's management he hoped to offer. He said he wanted "to pay it forward." He did not want to be identified; didn't want publicity. Neither did the manager of the custard stand, who asked Spectrum News not speak with staff as a way to honor the gesture. 

Ron Kampff of Webster smiled as he watched his two grandchildren gobble up ice cream at the stand and considered what the man had done.

"You hear a lot of bad in this world," Kampff said. "And then someone plops a debit card on the table and buys ice cream for everyone. It's wonderful."