Produced by the I-Lab at W-B-U-R, Boston.

Hey everyone, this is Andrea Aswahueh,

and I'm here to share with you another one of our favorite classic kind world episodes.

This one is all about how small but heartfelt gifts,

especially those from an unexpected source, can make a tremendous difference.

Here's our episode, A Connecting Flight, which starts with Marine Corps Veteran Timothy Tucker and school volunteer Lynn Ellen Friedman telling us their own story.

We were at Midway Airport in Chicago. It was 9-11, 2011.

I was flying out of Midway because I used to fly with Southwest a lot back then.

We're sitting there, we got there early. I see like three or four

girls crying. So I walk over to one of the girls and I said, are you okay? Can I do anything?

Why are you crying?

And she said, he's going to Afghanistan.

And I said, who?

And they point to this kid and I'm thinking he's 12 years old.

I sat down first because they call for active duty military.

So then I was part of like the advanced boarding group.

We get on the plane and this kid's got headsets on,

chewing gum, leaning his head against the window, and really looking

like he wants to have zero conversation with two middle-aged people sitting next to him

whatsoever. She sat down next to me and she started chatting my ear off.

He told us he was going to Afghanistan like 10 days or something and of course my heart was beating so fast.

Then she had gone into detail about how she helped out at an elementary school in downtown

...