Gotta catch ’em all… again

When a 7-year-old boy lost his binder of Pokémon cards at the airport, airline employees responded with 15,000 reasons to believe in humanity.

Setting the scene: The saga began when youngster Reid accidentally left his binder of the popular trading cards at Denver International Airport after a family trip. 

Inside were hundreds of carefully organized Pokémon cards he’d collected, traded, and memorized—the kind of collection only a passionate elementary schooler could curate.

• Despite desperate Reddit sleuths and airport staff searching high and low, the binder never turned up. 
• His dad, Graham, said the family assumed they’d have to cut their losses and slowly rebuild the collection from scratch.

Until United Airlines saw his Reddit post. The airline’s social media team who came across Graham’s message connected it to a lost item report his wife had already filed. On a whim, they asked employees if anyone would be willing to donate a few spare cards.

The response was something nobody expected.

What started as ~2,000 donated cards quickly ballooned into more than 15,000, flown in from as far away as Hawaii and Ireland. In total, the haul weighed 90 pounds.

• When Reid arrived back at the airport, he was met with boxes, binders, and cheering employees.
• Reid was stunned. His parents were in tears.

Employees didn’t just send cards. They also included handwritten notes sharing their own childhood Pokémon memories, while some even parted with rare, hard-cased favorites that clearly meant something to them.

Since then, Reid has hosted a trading party for his class, giving each student 60 cards to play with and sparking new interest in the game among his friends. The family plans to donate more cards in the months ahead to pay the generosity forward.

For now, the massive collection sits in the family’s living room.

“This volume means he always has something new to explore,” Graham said. And, just as importantly, plenty to share in the years to come.