New Year's Eve Fortune Cookie: Tommy B Covers All Delivery Fees For Chinese Food At Nantucket Airport

Fifty-seven orders of Chinese food weighing over 800 pounds arrived on Nantucket New Year’s Eve night aboard Cape Air planes, a continuation of an island New Year's Eve tradition that stretches back decades.

As people flocked to the terminal to pick up their food just after 6 p.m., they were pleasantly surprised to receive the news that they would not be required to pay Cape Air a delivery fee for flying in their orders thanks. They soon found out they had island resident Tom Bresette to thank for the free delivery. Bresette, the chief operating officer of the Nantucket Golf Club and executive director of the Nantucket Golf Foundation, covered the fees for each order.

While Bresette declined to comment on the record when reached by the Current this week, he said he appreciated the kind words he has received in the aftermath of the gesture. Bresette emphasized that he never intended for it to become widespread news – he hoping to just do the right thing in the moment. Anyone who knows Bresette, who has helped the Golf Club Foundation raise over $42 million to support island youth over the past 21 years, know those words are sincere and that the act was genuine.

But the kind gesture wasn’t lost on the people who were on the receiving end of it on New Year's Eve, or the hundreds of people who expressed their gratitude on social media upon hearing the news that the year had ended with a positive, feel-good news story.

“It was way more than just the money,” Nickleen Mosher said in response to the Current’s initial report on Facebook that has reached over 200,000 people. “Tom gave the Cape Air employees a much easier night at work. He saved us all a lot of time waiting in line so that we could go home to our families just a little bit earlier. He reminded us of why we live here despite the unique challenges we face living on an island. Our community is so incredible.”

According to individuals who were at the airport to pick up food, each bag had a shipping invoice. Rather than a standard $25 delivery fee for all orders, each bag had a unique delivery fee depending on the weight of their order.

Bresette, who was third from the front of a line of roughly 100 people, could have easily picked up his food and left hours before the last person in line. Instead, he ended up telling the Cape Air employees to put the delivery fees on his credit card to save the employees the hassle of having to process each order and to help everyone at the airport get home earlier to their families to enjoy the holiday and their food.

Bresette was named Nantucket Magazine’s Man of the Year in 2023 for his charitable efforts and role as the Golf Club Foundation's leader. One of the foundation's most notable efforts to help Nantucket youth is the Nantucket Scholar program, which provides a full-ride scholarship to two Nantucket High School seniors every year (sometimes more), as well as the Vocational Scholarship program, which helps students financially who are looking to enter the trades or go to vocational college.

You can learn more about Bresette and his contributions to the island over the years by following this link.