For Carrie-Grace McQuaid, she considers spreading kindness as one of her life’s missions. So on her birthday, she decided to do something extra kind. One day before her actual birth date, she flew out for work. She decided to share in her celebration by handing out goodie bags to members of the airplane crew and to the other passengers on her flight.
Before anything else, she first asked permission from the airline and from the flight crew of her plans. She wanted to distribute the items during the flight. Then she wrapped 185 bags for the passengers on the plane. She also prepared goodie bags for the crew, each with its own hand written thank you note. Then once she had boarded the plane she personally handed out the bags, making sure to connect to each person she talked to.
“My birthday wish every year is for more kindness in the world.” said McQuaid. “I wanted to love on everyone on my flight, but also ask them to pay it forward since my wish was to have kindness spread far and wide. After I passed out my goodies, the lady behind me hugged me real tight and told me this was her favorite flight of her entire life thanks to me. As people were getting off the flight, they high fived me, shook my hand, wished me the happiest of birthdays, and thanked me for being the good in the world.”
“I literally had to hold back tears as I was getting off the plane myself, because the kindness went full circle within that one flight. You could feel the love towards one another on that plane after I passed out goodie bags. I felt super celebrated by strangers as they sang me happy birthday and wished me happiness.”
“I got the opportunity to look at each person in the eyes as I handed out the goodie bags.” she added “We live in such a disconnected time, so it brought so much joy to be able to acknowledge every human being on the plane. My heartbeat is this: If you are looking for bad news you’ll find it because it’s all around us. If you want to find good news, then be it. Be the good news that the world needs.”