Have you ever encountered a person whose demeanor totally changes your day? Perhaps you are the one who has had a positive impact on someone else’s life. Simply being kind and smiling sometimes has more power than we understand and can cause a life-changing ripple effect. That's what happened for Starbucks barista Courtney Crawford, who thought it was a regular early morning during her shift. Little did she know that her smile was about to change everything.
Crawford, 32, lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, and explained a recent encounter with a customer, doing so via an emotional TikTok on her channel @dopaqueen715. She didn’t think she’d done anything spectacular that morning, but a customer sure did, leaving a note and a gift that came just when she needed it. Now, she’s using the power of social media to find the woman to say thank you.
More from CafeMom: Mom's Post Praises Starbucks Employees Who Were Ready To Save Her Teen From a Stranger
She reported to work at 4 a.m., as usual.
She explains in her viral video, which has 1.8 million views, that she was feeling chipper, as she usually is, and encountered a woman in the very early morning who appeared to be “struggling.”
She made a conscious effort to make the woman smile. The woman gave the crew a friendly glance in return and left. A few minutes later she returned and handed something to Crawford’s manager. Crawford was not prepared for what was inside.
The woman left a sweet note and something extra.
The customer explained that she traveled often for work and had been in Little Rock for two days before meeting Crawford at Starbucks that morning.
“So far, you have been the only person I have encountered that has been genuinely kind. You were the first face I saw this morning, and you really brightened my day," she wrote. "I am sure you are exhausted because, life, right? That’s all of us. But you deserve to know you made a difference in someone’s day today just by being kind.”
But that wasn’t the end. She told Crawford to treat herself to “something nice” because she could tell she deserved it, and she gave her $200.
Crawford got extremely emotional.
She explained that her mother had died, and this would be her first Mother’s Day without her. She planned to buy an urn for her mom to bring her home for Mother’s Day and had no idea how she would afford it, but the woman’s kind gesture made that possible so she could spend Mother’s Day with her mom.
We'll tell you that the tears were flowing, and the mystery woman’s kind gesture truly touched our hearts.
Crawford believes this was an act of God.
She tells CafeMom that this was a unique experience, and she truly hoped to find the woman who changed her life.
“I’ve never had something like this happen to me before. It was, in my mind, a true act of God because I had just made the decision that I was going to honor my mom by bringing her home in the urn that I had picked out the day before,” she says.
She chose to share the message on social media because there is great power in numbers.
As she explains, “I really hope that it finds the intended woman because she started something that changed my life and allowed me to bring my mom home, which may not seem like a big deal for some, but it’s something that I’ve been waiting for a while.”
More from CafeMom: UPS Driver Who Left a Kind Message for New Parents Gets a Sweet Surprise of His Own
Her mom was very special to her and loved her coffee.
Crawford is the eldest of six children who miss their mom, Tammy, terribly. She says her mom was her best friend, and she took the part-time job at Starbucks because it was her mom’s favorite place to go.
She recalls, “When she passed, I thought if I got a job there, maybe I could keep her close and keep her memory alive.”
Crawford hopes other people will see her story and it will inspire them to be kind. It wasn’t always her way, but she has changed herself for the better and wants to pass that on to others.
“I think all people have the capacity to be kind and sometimes it just takes a reminder whether that be from a stranger or a quote you see or just something that happens within your day. As a young woman, I was not always so kind," she tells us. "I’ve done a lot of growing personally to have the perspective I do. But I think once you heal from a lot of your hurt, you’re able to see people as really beautiful and creative individuals.”
She later shared on TikTok that she may have found the woman and promises to keep us updated.
