KANSAS CITY, MO (WCMH) – A chance encounter led one man to raise funds for a complete stranger to go back to school.

Don Carter was in the drive-thru of a Kansas City Popeye’s when he struck up a conversation with a young woman working the window. As he waited for his dinner, she told him about how she wanted to go to school and earn a degree.

“I said, ‘Oh, go back to school for what?’” Carter told WDAF. “’To be a nurse,’ [she said]. And I was like, ‘What kind of nurse?’ And she said ‘It doesn’t even matter.’”

Carter said he saw a spark and potential in her, even though she was clearly exhausted. When he drove home, he couldn’t stop thinking about how he could help.

“Literally crunching on the chicken and this thought dawns on me,” he said. “What if you pay for her to go to school?”

Carter put this though into action and started researching how much money it takes to earn a CAN license. He found out it was $1,500.

“I was like, we could do that. I have 1,300 –  1,400 Facebook friends,” he said.

He sprang into action that night and created a GoFundMe page and shared it on social media, asking, “What if 300 of my friends donated $5 each?”

When he woke up, Carter found out he surpassed his goal.

“It was pretty incredible,” he said.

So far, Carter has raised more than $3,785 for the girl working at Popeye’s.  He hopes this one positive thought inspires more.

“Man, what if we all started to take part in that? Even just in this city, you know, if we started to treat each other that way or just had the mind to treat each other that way, what kind of city would we have.”

Carter hasn’t figured out how to tell the young woman that she now has more than enough to get her CAN, but he plans to do it soon.