...for free [i]A number of motorists who had to abandon their vehicles in the snow on Highway 280 outside of Birmingham, Ala. were able to find shelter in the storm thanks to the kindness and generosity of Chick-fil-A restaurant employees and the restaurant's owner, Mark Meadows. Once the snow started accumulating, Meadows closed the restaurant and sent his staff home. But a few hours later, many of them returned – unable to get to their homes. “Our store is about a mile and a half from the interstate and it took me two hours to get there,” manager Audrey Pitt said. “It was a parking lot as far as I could see.” So Pitt left her car on the side of the interstate and joined a flock of bundled up drivers trudging through the snow. Some of the drivers had been stuck in their cars for nearly seven hours without any food or water. So the staff of the Chick-fil-A decided to lend a helping hand. “We cooked several hundred sandwiches and stood out on both sides of 280 and handed out the sandwiches to anyone we could get to – as long as we had food to give out.” The staffers braved the falling snow and ice and Chick-fil-A refused to take a single penny for their sandwiches. The meal was a gift – no strings attached. So why did they give away their food? “This company is based on taking care of people and loving people before you’re worried about money or profit,” Pitts says. “We were just trying to follow the model that we’ve all worked under for so long and the model that we’ve come to love. There was really nothing else we could have done but try to help people any way we could.” The Chick-fil-A also allowed anyone who wanted to sleep on a bench or a booth.[/i]