Carnegie Mellon University

Donaldson Doubles as Hometown Hero

September 26, 2018

Donaldson Doubles as Hometown Hero

Students, faculty and staff know Laura Donaldson as an undergraduate academic coordinator in the Department of English, but under the codename “Secret Agent L,” she was once recognized as a Hometown Hero by the U.S. Air Force.

Under the fictitious name “Secret Agent L,” Donaldson started an online project seeking “agents” to perform, document and photograph random acts of kindness.

“They would email me all of these, and I would post them on my website. At one point, I had 2,000 agents all over the world from the U.S. to Mongolia to the Netherlands to Japan. They would leave a roll of quarters in a laundromat, or a Starbucks gift card for someone,” she said.

Recently, Donaldson was featured in The Piper’s staff spotlight.

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