MORE GOOD TODAY

what my buddy Chris said. ✨ [just a little reminder that the only thing that will get us through this is more kindness. to your fam. to your neighbors. to yourself...oh, and hope. always, always hope.] https://www.instagram.com/p/B-aQjONnihr/?igshid=h0xl0ivimzsv

I met Nita the first week back on St. John. She was down for her birthday and we ended up on the same boat together. When I asked her what she did for work, she told me she was a character education teacher at a school in Virginia called Merritt Academy. I asked her what that entailed exactly, and she responded, “I teach kids how to use their heart.” By the end of the day Nita and I had exchanged numbers and made plans for me to go visit her and chat with her school once I returned to the States. This angel of a human battles negativity alongside her cancer diagnosis and somehow does it all with the biggest smile on her face and one of the biggest hearts I’ve ever witnessed. A few days after she left I got a sweet text from her telling me that her lesson that day for the kids was about my mission and the book I am writing. She asked the kids afterwards to draw what More Good looked like to them. I used this line a lot in 2016: “In a world overrun with negative news, it's easy to overlook the fact that there is more good out there.” It was an election year. There was a lot of negative swirling around. A lot of scary. And here we are again. Another election year. A lot of negativity swirling around. A lot of scary. And yet somehow knowing there were a bunch of preschoolers I’ve never met drawing More Good on a piece of paper in Virginia last week and thinking about how to spread that good…well, that makes my heart a little happier today. It’s still out there. Keep looking for it. (at Lovango Cay, U.S. Virgin Islands) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9kGlYhHBrq/?igshid=868qe97oe9kz

Keeping mom immortal since 2013. ✨ #sevenyears #missyou every moment. 3.1.13 https://www.instagram.com/p/B9MM6N_HhrG/?igshid=j663z7dkgrbd

On Saturday night I fell off a motorcycle. (*I am ok and promise I’ll never go on one again. Trust me.) Before I actually made it to the hospital to make sure I was ok, I went through what we like to refer here on St. John as potentially the worst health care set up possible. I won’t go into details here, as yesterday was the longest day ever and I most definitely don’t want to relive it but I would love to instead tell you about the one incredibly sweet moment I got to experience. At one point before we made it over to St. Thomas I was sitting in the kitchen of a paramedic. She was removing the bandages on my arm which were fused into my elbow wound and it was making me incredibly sick. If you’re reading this and eating, I’ll save you the details. After she finally got the entire thing off, her husband, who had kindly been sitting there offering his arm for me to squeeze and asking me a hundred questions to distract me, looked at me and said, “I want to share something with you that I heard once.” By that point I had told him a bit about More Good and what I had done. “We all die twice,” he began. “The day we die, and the day people stop saying our name.” And then he mentioned how both he and his wife had also lost a parent to cancer before looking right at me and saying, “but with what you did, you have made your mom immortal. And that’s really cool.” Back in bed resting now, feeling really grateful for my island angels, @stevie_in_st.john + @abracadamnit, and especially thankful for this couple who barely knew me and yet provided the most comfort I could have asked for yesterday. The two of them walked me to the car and as Stephen pulled out of driveway to then ferry me over to the hospital, I watched them walk away like this and quickly snapped a picture. The woman has been battling cancer for over a year now and told me how her husband has not missed one appointment or hospital visit. These two aren’t just more good, they’re more love too. Here’s to no more motorcycle rides and working hard to keep all of our loved ones immortal. ✨ 😇 ✨ https://www.instagram.com/p/B8r1hj-nlS5/?igshid=3ktxc1ybds1b

Three days before I left for St. John, I headed back to my old stomping grounds. I graduated from Oysterponds Elementary School with a whopping 12 kids in my class and not much has changed today. In fact, the class sizes are so small they combine the fifth and sixth grade for a lot of the subjects now. Walking back into the school brought back two immediate memories. The first was getting in trouble daily for climbing the walls of the bathroom stalls (not sure why this was such a cool thing to do, but I did it a lot, and I almost always got caught). And the second was the day after winter break.  All of our classmates would assemble into the room and the kids who had gone on vacation would get to sit in front of the class and talk about their trip. The coolest trip was always Disney World. Everyone would raise their hand and ask what rides the lucky kids went on or if they visited this place or that place. I would sit in the back of the class and sulk. Don’t get me wrong, my childhood was pretty wonderful and my family was the best, but they were not a Disney family. So while I begged and begged for us to go there, it never happened. HOWEVER, as fate would have it, the week before I walked back into my elementary school, I was in Orlando. Subaru had flown me there to chat up More Good, and the night after my talk they rented out Harry Potter World and we got to ride all the rides with no lines and as many times as we wanted. In the last five minutes chatting with the kids the other day, one of them raised their hand and asked me if I had ever been to Disney World. I shouted back in an overwhelmingly excited tone, “YES!” and then told them all about the rides and places I had gone there. I’ve spoken to a lot of schools about More Good in the last two years but the other day talking to my old elementary school getting to talk about my trip to Disney World might have just been one of the best moments of all. #MOREGOOD in more #schools ✌🏻 (at Oysterponds Elementary School) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8hIYBWnrjm/?igshid=1v158b0jojd8i

Seven years ago I decided I wanted to start writing. It was a few weeks after my mother died and a friend invited me to take a leap of faith and move down to St. John USVI where she had a place for me to crash. I took the offer. On the last day of my job in NYC I was clearing out my desk and suddenly couldn’t breathe. It was my first panic attack. I realized I was leaving everything I knew for somewhere and something completely unknown. Leaving my two best friends since age three who were my current roommates. Leaving my three comfortable and safe jobs in the city. Leaving my family. As I sat at my desk packing up the last of the books on my desk, a card fell out of some pages. It was from my mom two years before she died. On the front was a mouse walking towards a trap full of cheese. It was wearing a helmet. Inside my mom wrote, “I saw this card today as I was picking up some medication and immediately thought of you. You’ve always been my biggest risk taker.” I sat on the floor and sobbed. Then I started writing. I made a post on Facebook and it got a huge response so I decided to write more. And more. I moved to the Caribbean. I moved to Italy. And then, I moved into my car and out of stranger’s homes through 50 states. All of these moves and leaps I was only able to do because of the kindness of the people I met along the way. The kindness I trusted was out there first. It’s almost as if I was back in kindergarten doing a trust fall...except it’s been a seven year trust fall and somehow people keep catching me. Or maybe Mom is holding me just enough that I haven’t bounced off the ground yet. Who knows. What I do know is today, on my birthday, I just wanted to thank all of the people that have held me up. All of you who gave me a piece of your story. Writing is one of the things that has healed me the most and I have all of you to thank for that. Thank you for reading the stories and sending encouragement to keep writing and spreading More Good. Thank you for listening. It’s the most beautiful gift you can give a girl on her birthday and I appreciate you today more than ever. *photo taken in state 50, 8 days before I drove over the finish line for the trip. https://www.instagram.com/p/B8HtP_BH3H8/?igshid=egsvyjwh4a53

For some reason the light has seemed to strap me to my suitcase...which is pretty fitting for me. Especially since I’m leaving. Again. When I began my road trip in 2016, a lot of people would comment that this journey was going to be a healing one. I’d go out into the world and get stories and it would help me heal the wound from losing my mom. “Like that book, Wild” they would say. But the only thing I had in common with Cheryl Strayed was we were both motherless and trying to figure out our next move. She trusted nature and the wild. I trusted strangers and the road. And the trip was a million incredible things, but I wouldn’t say “healing” is a word I’d have picked myself.  Healing was a word I’d use to describe a place I went before the trip. A place where I moved to, only knowing one person. A place where people jumped into stranger’s cars to hitchhike themselves into town. (This seemed terrifying at the time as I was moving there from NYC!) A place that taught me how to get back up on my feet again by continuously pushing me down until I found some solid gold friends and learned how to make life work somewhere new. I bought a one-way ticket to St. John, USVI, shortly after my mother died and my time there was the reason I found courage to do my 50-state journey. I feel it only fitting to go back now. Full-circle. As I mentioned, the journey was something I'll remember for the rest of my life, something I can't wait to write about, something I'm incredibly grateful for. But I’m not sure I’d say it healed me as much as many times as it broke me down. Emotionally. Physically. Not always in a bad way but enough to make me need a little healing myself. I always knew that I wanted to end my book with More Good stories from the place that helped me start to heal in the first place, so, St. John, I’ve got myself another one-way ticket. I’ll see you this Sunday. (at Orient, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/B760L4tHwBG/?igshid=1140w0bnsitqq

Last July I got an email from a man named Matt. He offered to host me in his home with his wife and daughter. He mentioned he worked for Subaru and how I could come into work with him to meet some of the people there and have them look at my car. I had five states left at this point so I figured it would be a good idea to make sure Old Blue was going to make it to the finish line. I got to his house mid-August with the intention of staying 2-3 days. I ended up there for a week. Turns out when they looked at Old Blue she had a pretty serious engine issue going on so they fixed her all up for me while lending me a rental to continue collecting stories that week. Also turns out Matt was one of the executives of Subaru of America, something I’d know if I ever actually vetted the people I stayed with before arrival. The story of me, Matt, and his family is one worth a whole chapter of the book and one I can’t really get out without crying so instead I’ll tell you about what happened this week. Subaru of America invited me to speak at their National Training Conference in Orlando! The theme was strong women and it would feature a world famous soccer player, the first African American female combat pilot...and me. The event fell on my dad’s birthday, so I brought him too. After I spoke, we all moved into another room and packed over 3,000 lunches for food insecure children in the area for an amazing program called KidsPACK. Then we took this photo. So here we are. The journey is done. The book is in the works. My dad got to hear me speak to over 600 people on stage, 3,000 kids will have some food this weekend, and I got to ride Harry Potter World’s new roller coaster twice with no lines, AND every single person was in a More Good shirt through it all. HAPPY SATURDAY FROM A VERY HAPPY GIRL, and a sea of Subaru fam! 🌟 https://www.instagram.com/p/B7wPUutnp8Z/?igshid=1ftsm4b70dz3d

Last week I flew to Austin, Texas, to speak to the faculty at a middle school. After sharing stories with them I asked them to share some of their own. And they did! I am used to only a few brave souls speaking up but I was so encouraged by the number of teachers who shared, especially since so many of the stories were emotional and they still had the courage to stand up and speak through the tears. One that hit me the hardest was a woman who was threatened by a past student. Over the summer she had been harassed by two students the were now in high school. The issue became dangerous, forcing her to get the police involved. It also caused her to lose sight of the passion she had for teaching and decide not to go back to teach this year. As she was speaking with the police officer he told her that she had actually taught him years ago. Since she had been so upset by all of the events happening her first response was, “Was I nice to you?” And he replied, “You were the best teacher I ever had.” After he left her home to file the final paperwork on the harassment and she looked at her husband in shock. Of all the people to have been involved in this horrible incident, she couldn’t believe that another past student was the one to be in her home that day. But this one was there to tell how much she meant to him. Because of his words, she returned to teach this year. SO SHOUT OUT one of your favorite teachers in the comments! And if you’re feeling motivated to make an actual impact, tell them. You have no idea what they might be going through in this moment and how much a simple thank you might mean to them today. To all the teachers out there, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. (at Austin, Texas) https://www.instagram.com/p/B7PXipqnjB7/?igshid=1ikqda49r5ljq

Screenshots of one of the most exciting and proudest moments I’ve ever had for More Good. To be honest, I cannot tell you how many times over the last three years I’ve been sitting outside of my car all dressed and ready to talk about More Good when a reporter called to cancel. Another story came in and they were forced to highlight that instead. An accident. A death. A kidnapping. I thought it was going to happen again on New Year’s Eve. I had been told the ad would be airing between 9-10. It was 10. I was used to this. I figured they had cut it. But then it came on and I bounced across the restaurant where I was eating with friends, screeching I was so excited. After I explained to the people eating around me (since I had gotten their attention now) why I was screeching and what the ad was...two people came over and asked me to sign their napkins, which was the best, but the real best was the couple behind me. Because when I sat back down a man tapped me on the shoulder and told me about his girlfriend, who was sitting across from him. He couldn’t believe the chances we were all in the same spot tonight and that they were meeting me. She had lost her son at age 20 when he was hit in a car accident. She started a scholarship in his honor and had helped others. She made light out of something very, very dark. We cried when we hugged goodbye. Yet another reason I truly believe we are meant to be in the random spots we find ourselves sometimes, which we will know if we connect to the people around us. The people next to us aren’t really strangers at all. When I first began this journey a man laughed in my face when I told him what I wanted to do. “What makes you think anyone is going to care about this? Haven’t you ever heard that what bleeds is what leads? The news isn’t about more good.” He didn’t believe in me and he certainly didn’t believe in More Good. I was embarrassed and more shy back then, I hadn’t even gotten on the road yet and didn’t know how to respond to the mean. The first week into my trip I knew though, what bleeds does lead. About 98% of the stories I collected the last three years bled first. And then, then they [continued in comments] https://www.instagram.com/p/B69edjWHtig/?igshid=1604bnwgwnhjg

TOMORROW NIGHT!! One night only!! These incredibly talented people created an ad for More Good and it will be airing as a commercial tomorrow eve during Anderson Cooper’s NYE ball drop. (Somewhere around 9/10 pm I think!) So inspired by these guys for taking four days of footage and being able to condense my heart and the message into two minutes. While this decade has definitely had its peaks, it’s also kicked me down quite a few times too. However, knowing that I will be ending it seeing MORE GOOD on the television makes me prouder than I’ve ever felt before of this journey. Here’s to the next decade! Here’s to HARD WORK! Here’s to seeing positivity on the big screen! But mostly, here’s to perseverance, finishing the 50 states, and the book I’ll finally be starting to write for you. 2020, we’ve got a lot of work to do. 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼[ 📸 by the amazing @meghanthomasyoga 🌟] (at Syracuse, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6uK0y8nt9R/?igshid=7bup8xe60mu7

This was the last photo I took of my mom. It was Christmas morning. Mom was always Santa in our house. Even for herself sometimes. So in this moment, she was actually opening up a present she had bought for herself. She had also wrapped it herself. Up until the last two years of her life, there was no television in our home. Something I bitterly complained about growing up. But also something I have become more and more grateful for now. It forced me to be more creative and learn how to entertain myself for hours. It also might have been the only reason I survived alone in a car for the past three years! Either way, we didn’t have a television until she got very, very sick. And when we got it, she really only stuck to two things. 1) HGTV 2) Rosemary and Thyme, a British thriller about two gardeners who solved murder mysteries. My mom loved this show. She had breezed through the first season so this specific Christmas she had ordered herself the second one. She was opening it when I snapped this photo of her. She knew exactly what she was getting, and yet this was her face. It was always her face. No matter what she went through, in the end, it always came back to this smile. Don’t get me wrong, when that second cancer diagnosis came there were plates broken and curse words spoken (I never heard them myself from my sweet, Irish Catholic mother but I did hear rumors they had been shouted) but no matter what Mom dealt with, she always dressed herself in a smile. It was my favorite thing about her. It always will be. She was relentlessly optimistic and leaned on her faith no matter what was thrown at her. When I was putting together the photos for her funeral my grandmother gave me the first photo ever taken of her. She was looking in the exact same direction with the exact same smile. I read recently that we deposit our happiest memories into a bank. That way, when we are feeling our loneliest or saddest, we can withdraw them to help. I have withdrawn this moment millions of times over the past few years. I have shown it to so many hosts when they ask about her [continued in comments] (at Orient, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6ZgwsLnfKM/?igshid=1wn89mh9w4vdc

One week ago I received a message on Facebook. It was from a woman I didn’t know. She said she had accidentally learned of my trip through clicking something on Facebook. She had five children. One died at age 11. She was just diagnosed with an aggressive form of ovarian cancer, and she wanted to make sure she prepared her kids for what could happen next, and to empower them to make change in our world. She began her message with my favorite response anyone ever has when they learn of my mission: “Your mom must have been an amazing woman…” And then, she asked me if once I was settled home, I’d tell her about my mom. I’m not exactly sure how to describe what it’s felt like to be home, yet. After moving homes every three to four days for three years, there’s a lot to be grateful for. Namely, staying still. I have a fridge full of stuff I enjoy eating. I don’t have to wear the same More Good shirt, jeans, and Converses every day. I have my own bed. I have my own little studio. I have somewhat of a routine and schedule now. Wake up. Finish editing wedding photos from the fall. Debate starting to write a book. Read a book instead. Visit family. Go on a date. Spend time with friends. Breathe. Yoga! These are all things that didn’t really happen much the past three years. I missed my life on the trip. And now, I miss the trip in my life. Change is hard. Yet, it is inevitable. The only thing that gets us through it is being grateful for what we had, when we had it. So tonight, I’d like to tell you, and the sweet woman who wrote me a beautiful message a week ago that inspired me to do so, about my mom. Because really, she was the start of it all. Losing her was the biggest change in my life. Her loss has changed the holiday season in my family forever. But tonight, tonight I’d like to tell you how damn grateful I was to have her when I had her. (at Orient, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6YqgtHHpBO/?igshid=1gykqyy56wk4f

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM “THE GOODS” 🥰🥰🥰 thank you for this beautiful article on my entire heart #newsday @randeedaddona ♥️ go get a copy or head to the link in bio! https://www.instagram.com/p/B6HHBA2HItN/?igshid=1tss15xslpsmi

Flashback to 2016. I wrote this post: “Four years ago today I walked into 810 Seventh Avenue. I took the elevator to the 20th floor and then swiped my key card to get myself into the online department where I worked. I sat down at my computer and waited as it started to boot up. After checking my inbox, I opened a tab and typed in Google news. That's when I saw what was happening at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I sat at my desk that day in horror as I read what happened. I think we were all horrified that day. My thoughts were interrupted when my co-worker stopped over and told me about the coffee he had gotten that morning. He had gone to Starbucks and when he was about to pay the barista informed him that a man had been in earlier buying gift cards for employees. He had purchased an extra one for $100 and asked the barista to run it out on the customers. My friend's coffee was free. While the unthinkable was happening in Newtown, Conn. that morning, there was also a man in New York City performing a random act of kindness. There was a man out there taking care of strangers. That man changed my life. Because of his kindness, it sparked a conversation with my mother. A conversation where my mother, the most positive and kind woman I knew, reminded me to focus on the good. She told me there are always more good people than bad out there. That conversation turned into a happy hour with my friend Laura Levin, where we decided to create a Facebook page about random acts of kindness. That Facebook page turned into the only thing that got me through the next month, because eleven days after it launched I was sitting in a hospital waiting room being told my mother had a few hours left to live. That waiting room made me think about others. Who else was sitting in waiting rooms needing a way to cope with this type of news? Who else was feeling absolutely hopeless as they watched the person they love most in the world slip away from them. That idea made me start to think deeper. How could I create something to remind others of the good still out there during a time where all you tend to feel is darkness. That final thought led me to my project.[continued⬇️] https://www.instagram.com/p/B6DyP8xHO1W/?igshid=71oz99cecabl

This little girl’s smile brought me so much joy and comfort today I wanted to share it with you, too. Because it doesn’t matter if it’s Friday or Monday these days, HOLIDAYS ARE HARD! And if you need a little extra happy, just look at this one’s smile. I have found on my journey that the ones with the most beautiful smiles are the ones who have been through the most. This little angel is no exception to that. ✨✨✨✨Taya chose me to go into her school today because each student in her class gets to say #merci to someone they think is kind. So her classmates and I hung out this morning and talked about what it means to be kind in school and at home and how contagious it can be! Each act inspires another and when we put kindness to action it can bring a little more light and love into the world...and a little MORE good while we are at it✨☺️✨ #spreadtheword (at St. David's School) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6B0sx-nJKF/?igshid=1gspq6e2qdrtp

“SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR OWN SUNSHINE” ☀️ ☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️ Had coffee with this inspiring beauty yesterday! @janicedeanfnc recently wrote a book called, “Mostly Sunny: How I Learned to Keep Smiling Through the Rainiest Days,” which she is sending me a copy of because she is simply the best. Her book talks about her struggles with MS along with overcoming other difficult situations in her life. “It was something I would have loved to read myself when I was at my lowest point,” she said recently and I couldn’t agree more. You see, it’s just like More Good. The book I wish I had when I, myself, was in the hospital waiting room. Make the type of art you needed for yourself. Or as the shirt of a man I met in Columbus, OH, I met said: “Be who you needed when you were younger.” Be that change your world was looking for. Help heal yourself by healing others. And always, always find the sunny. It’s up to us. It always has been. ✨ (at Fox News Channel) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5--A0Mn0Yy/?igshid=bsypp8z8ft93