In 30 minutes, traveler raises $10,000 in tips for airport piano player

Pianist Tonee "Valentine" Carter received the biggest tip of his life last Wednesday, courtesy of strangers from around the world who heard him play virtually.

Motivational speaker Carlos Whittaker was walking through Concourse A at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport when he heard someone playing the piano. He saw Carter, 66, "going to town, and I knew I just had to stay there," Whittaker told CNN. For 90 minutes, Whittaker sat in a bar and listened to Carter perform, and soon the pair were chatting. Whittaker saw that Carter's tip jar was empty, and decided to change that.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The money kept coming in, and that $10,000 grew to $70,000 by Saturday. Carter said he was touched by the fact that many of the donations were small amounts like $1 or $2. "I knew they were giving me what they had," he said. "People were giving out of love."

Carter has kidney disease and receives dialysis treatment nightly, but that doesn't stop him from going to the airport nearly every day, because when he plays the piano, "I feel like the happiest man in the world," he said. The massive tip means everything to Carter, but he told CNN that it's "not mine. It's money that's going to go to others. There is only one way to say thank you, because words are inadequate. And that is to pay this forward."

Explore More
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.