Quick Question: If you are walking along somewhere and suddenly notice a portable USB Flash Drive lying on the ground in front of you…what would you do?
Well this was the exact situation that London, ON resident Darryl Lahteenmaa came upon back on October 21st, while walking near his home. In this case he decided to pick it up so that he might be able to look at it’s contents later to see if he can figure out who it belonged to and then return it. What happened during that process however, forms the basis of a heart-warming and inspiring story that needs to be shared.
With the help of his friend Sarah Giardino, the two opened the flash drive to notice that it was full of school assignments that belonged to a 13 year old girl named Kylie John. Some online research showed that she actually lived nearby and they sent her an electronic message to let her know they had the key if she needed it or wanted it back. One of the assignments found on the key though was a musical Public Service Announcement (PSA) that sounded like Kylie singing a song about recycling with some still images thrown over top.
What I haven’t mentioned to this point is that Darryl happens to be a recording engineer, who also has a recording and mastering studio in his own home. While apparently sitting around with Sarah and her husband Steve (who also happens to be a music producer) on Friday night, Darryl came up with the idea of taking this very simple recording and well…punching it up a bit. In a phone interview Darryl told me that as a creative guy, this is the kind of stuff he always likes to do, and that he felt like it would be fun to take her words literally by “recycling” the song into something better.
After dowloading the file into their edit suite, they began to add some synthesized music beds underneath. Sarah also recorded some background vocals and they were laid down as well. The group decided to take some photos of the process just to document what happened, and before long they had completely re-mixed and mastered down a new version of this simple school assignment. They then placed the new file back on the flash drive and waited for Kylie to contact them.
Eventually contact was made with the parents, and Sarah advised them both as to just what had been done. I managed to speak with Kim John, who is Kylie’s Mother about the situation, and she told me how at first they had some real concerns and fears about what may have been done to Kylie’s song. However she also explained that Sarah was very kind and explained that everything was done in fun. She mentioned that they put a video together about the process and wanted them to see the link first before they made it public on You Tube. After seeing the video and being totally impressed, Kim and her husband Kevin agreed to let the video go public.
Shortly afterwards, they made the short walk down to visit Kylie to deliver the flash drive and to let her hear the song. To say the least, Kylie was blown away…
A friend of mine Colin Carmichael saw this video shortly after it was made public and then forwarded it onto me as he thought it was something that I’d be very interested in seeing – and he was right.
I was blown away by how a simple random act of kindness was dramatically enhanced simply by throwing in a splash of well intended creativity. Darryl told me that he thought the message behind the PSA was cool and he thought it would be amazing to have this 13 year old girl receive it back and be blown away.
I started spreading the word as well online and asked some of my friends like Wanda Lynne Young who lives in London, to help get the word out about the video to their local press. She spoke to someone at the London Free Press who then wrote a story about it. Other media outlets caught on as well including Wei Chen, from CBC Radio who interviewed both Darryly and Kylie recently on the air.
When I asked Darryl why he thinks this story took off and caught the attention of so many (almost 17,000 You Tube views as of when this is published) he said it was likely a combination of many factors. He felt that when you combine timely messaging about the environment with the process of strangers performing simple acts of kindness it has endearing qualities to many.
Personally speaking, I couldn’t agree more and I hope that this story continues to be told and that it demonstrates clearly how simple acts of kindness can inspire and resonate others and how the world also loves to take notice when it happens.
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