The Notebook Project

The sky was full of heavy dark clouds, and was unusually cool for a Saturday morning in New Orleans. Aria was leaving Cafe Conti when it started to sprinkle, she set her coffee down on the side and pulled out her umbrella before turning right on Dauphine St.

There were not many people out at 7:30am but in front of her was a man wearing a black overcoat. After a block or two Aria noticed the man dropped a black notebook, she picked it and jogged over to the man. “Excuse me sir I think you dropped this,” she said, extending the notebook to him. He turned, looked at it and looked at her, “Sorry, I don’t own a notebook,” he said, then smiled, turned around and continued, eventually turning down an alley.

Puzzled, Aria put the notebook in the pocket of her army green jacket and continued to her apartment on Claiborne Ave.

Once home she pulled out the notebook, the first page read, The Notebook Project, intrigued, she turned the page.

The notebook project is simple, inside is a check for $20,000, you can do whatever you would like with it. Our hope is that you will use it to do some good and eventually pass it on.

Surprised she hurriedly turned the page, it was blank and no check. She turned a few more pages with hopefulness, all blank and no check. She then flipped though all the pages like a flip book and still nothing. She smirked, shook her head, “What a good joke to play on someone, ” she thought. She sat the notebook down on her dinning table and pulled out her laptop and proceeded to work.

Aria was a freelance computer programmer, which was mostly helping friends, family and some local businesses with some tech issues. The jobs were consistent enough for her to make a living but not quite enough for her to scale her business and her brand.

The next day, the same as every Sunday, she went to the grocery store. She always planned out her meals for the week the night before; she felt this it was efficient. She would start at one end of the store and work her way to the other end only stopping at aisles which had the items on her list.

When it came time to check out she always grouped her food with like items, all the cold items go together, produce together, non-perishables together, etc. She always thought of this like arrays in programming.

As she finished checking out she reached into her pocket, pulled her wallet out and a folded piece of paper fell out. She picked it up, unfolded it and it was the check for $20,000. She stared at in disbelief for a moment, she felt her heart pounding harder and faster. “This must be a dream or fake” she thought to herself. She quickly grabbed her groceries and headed to her car.

Once in the car she pulled out her phone to do a digital deposit of the check, no errors. In disbelief she’s drove home pondering what she was going to do with the money, if it clears her bank. When she got home she pulled out her laptop and searched for ideas on what to do with $20,000. Most of what she found was invest in this stock or that stock, real estate, etc. but the one which interested her was, invest in yourself.

A couple days later she checked her account and the money cleared. She immediately bought some online ads to promote herself and her business of solving problems through tech.

Soon she had too much work to handle, she hired people and businesses was great.

A few years go by and Aria was leaving Cafe Conti again when she hears “Miss, you left you notebook on the table” she turned and said “I’m sorry, I don’t own a notebook”.