Donnie Wahlberg is paying it forward this year.
The former “New Kids on the Block” member started off 2020 by surprising his waitress at an Illinois IHOP with a $2,020 tip on a $75.45 bill on New Year’s Day.
“@donniewahlberg starting 2020 off like the amazing man he is,” his wife Jenny McCarthy tweeted along with a photo of the receipt where Wahlberg scribbled out “Thanks Bethany,” “Happy New Year,” and “2020 Tip Challenge.”
The lucky waitress, Bethany Provencher, expressed how grateful she was for Wahlberg’s generosity.
“I’ve loved Donnie my whole life — I was a very big New Kids on the Block fan when I was a kid,” Provencher told People. “I didn’t want to freak out at the table, so I went into the bathroom and freaked out a little. I was like, ‘oh my god!’”
She continued, “I served them the best I could do. He folded up the receipt and he gave it to me, and told me not to open it until he left. I said, ‘Okay, thank you, guys, come again. I’ll take care of you again.’ Then I open it, and I almost fell to the floor.”
Provencher, 37, explained that Wahlberg’s tip will help her to take care of her family.
“I just started crying. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, who does that? It was a blessing,” the waitress of 25 years said. “I just moved into an apartment, I’m a single mother—by myself with my son. So I struggle every day to make ends meet. And now I can buy furniture and put some money in the bank, and make sure my son is good.”
After receiving the gratuity, Provencher was surprised again when Wahlberg, 50, called her at the restaurant after he had left.
“Donnie called me at the restaurant and I spoke to him. I really wanted to thank him and Jenny because they don’t even understand what they did for me,” she said. “God put him there for a reason for me, and I know that … It’s the greatest thing to ever happen in my life.”
Wahlberg, who has left big tips in the past, has a special reason for doing so.
“My mom waited tables, and my dad tended bars– for years” he wrote on Instagram in July 2017 after he left a $2,000 tip for an $82.60 bill at a Charlotte Waffle House. “So, when I walk into a #WaffleHouse, and the staff treats me like a king, you better believe I treat them like queens! Thanks to the team at @wafflehouseofficial Charlotte, NC! ❤️”
This is the first year in a decade that Wahlberg and McCarthy celebrated the new year at home in St. Charles instead of in Times Square where McCarthy co-hosted “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” on ABC.