Retired Chesterfield teacher's mission to reconnect with former students takes her to the Today show in NYC

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — What started as one retired teacher's mission to find her former students has now reached a national audience.

We first shared Trisha Johnson's story back in September.

The longtime kindergarten instructor set out nearly a year ago to reconnect with her former students, hoping to hand them a few mementos from their childhood.

It's a journey this extremely dedicated educator says she never imagined would be received so positively, receiving dozens of kind comments and connecting with even more students since the story aired.

"My children sent me a lot of the Facebook comments they had seen and I sat there and cried about a lot of them because I was just overwhelmed on how much it meant to a lot of my former students and people that didn't even know me," she said.

Her heart of gold even gained her the opportunity to share her story with a national audience, as Johnson was invited to be on the Today show.

"She said she wanted to fly me to New York [after] she had seen the story that you had done Joi," Johnson said. "I said, 'I can't believe this!' I kept pinching myself saying I can't believe this is true, I've never been to New York."

On November 4, Johnson, joined by her daughters and dear friend, took on the big city.

"They took me in, did my makeup and my hair," she said. "It was just an amazing experience, I felt so honored and so overwhelmed."

Surprised on the show by two of her former students, she was also gifted a vacation.

Johnson says she's overwhelmed and overjoyed with all of the love she's gotten.

"I was just a country school teacher that wanted to do this for her kids but I have found by reaching out to them just how much I have meant to them and I didn't realize," she said.

Having connected with around 180 students so far, Johnson says she still hopes to reach all 400 of them somehow, someway.

"I've reached out to two more since New York," she said. "I just think maybe I need to get on Facebook and then I can find them all. I'm going to try that."

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