Starbucks barista melts hearts with her tear-jerking story of a $200 tip from a grumpy customer
- Courtney Crawford was dreading the first Mother’s Day since her mother’s death
- But thanks to a kind gesture from a customer, she can finally afford an urn
A Starbucks employee has made a heartbreaking appeal to track down a customer whose small kindness helped transform a Mother’s Day she was dreading.
Courtney Crawford starts work at 4 a.m. at the Little Rock, Arkansas facility, which was a favorite hangout for mom Tammy before she tragically died of cancer last June.
A grumpy early morning customer handed management a note saying that Courtney had “made a difference” in her day, and added $200 for the barista to “treat herself.”
Courtney ended her shift by recording a TikTok saying that the money finally allowed her to buy an urn to bring her mother’s remains home in time for Sunday.
“Thank you for the impact you made on my life, and I hope you see this and know that you did something I will never forget,” she said through tears.
More than 3.8 million people have seen the TikTok that Courtney Crawford recorded immediately after her life-changing shift at Starbuck in Little Rock
Courtney said mom Tammy (left) was her best friend and she works at the same Little Rock facility her mom would visit before her death last year
The 32-year-old works three jobs to pay the bills, but that doesn’t stop her from being ‘peppy as c**p’.
“This morning I was loud, proud and cheerful and a woman walked in and I could tell she was having a hard time and I had a little extra pep in our step, today we got to get her laughing,” she posted.
“We did that and a few minutes later she came in and gave my manager a note and asked my manager to hand it to me.
“It says, ‘I travel a lot for work, which usually means late evenings and very early mornings.’
“I’ve been here for two days now and so far you’re the only person I’ve encountered who has been genuinely kind. You were the first face I saw this morning, and you really brightened my day.
“I’m sure you’re exhausted because life, right? That’s all of us. But you deserve to know that you made a difference in someone’s day today just by being kind.”
The woman who signed herself ‘Groggy at 5am’ suggested to Courtney ‘treat yourself to something nice, I can tell you deserve it, maybe not just coffee ha ha!’.
“Do good in this world and it will always come back to you,” she added.
Courtney says she is a ‘peppy’ person and decided to use her skills to cheer up the ‘groggy’ customer when she walked in at 5am
Courtney said she was “dreading” the first Mother’s Day since her mother’s death from cancer
Courtney (pictured as a child) was the eldest of Tammy’s six children
“And I’d be lying to you if I told you I wasn’t scared of Mother’s Day,” she told TikTok
“I have the job at Starbucks in addition to my full-time job because I have a lot of bills to pay and a lot of debt that I inherited,” Courtney explains.
“And I’d be lying to you if I told you I wasn’t dreading Mother’s Day.
“And so I decided that I was going to buy the urn I had been eyeing and take it home to my mother on Mother’s Day.
“And I had no idea how to pay for it.”
Courtney was the oldest of Tammy’s six children and said she considered her mother her best friend.
Addressing her customer directly, she said, “The $200 you put in that note today will allow me to spend Mother’s Day with my mother and I really appreciate you for that.
“So if you’re out there and on TikTok, thank you for the impact you’ve made on my life and I hope you see this and know that you did something that I will never forget.”
The video has been viewed 3.6 million times on the platform and sparked a nationwide hunt for the Good Samaritan after it was picked up by producers at CBS.
“If she ever has a day where she thinks she doesn’t matter, or thinks she doesn’t have an impact on the world, I would love to be the reminder that says, yes, you do,” Courtney told CBS Mornings.
“And you will never stop having an impact on the world because every day I can look at my mantle and smile because my mother is looking at me.
“If you’re in Little Rock, if you can come back to Little Rock, if you’re anywhere in the world and want to be recognized and found, I want to find you.
‘I want to hug you. I want to be able to show you that your small moment of kindness created a ripple effect of beauty and I have to personally thank you for that.”