Sometimes it’s the small efforts that leave lasting impressions.

For Delta V. Gerardi, a 3-year-old girl living in Washington D.C., the rise of the COVID-19 delta variant meant that her name was becoming aligned with the deadly virus.

Delta Air Lines, a brand in a similar situation and still recovering from a dip in travel, empathized with the little girl and sent a care package with an airplane-shaped Delta backpack, Biscoff cookies, a model plane and a handwritten note reading: “It’s the name for people who were meant to fly.”

Last night, Delta’s excitement at the package was documented on Twitter with the hashtag #DeltaProud by her mother, Kellie Gerardi, who as it turns out, has some association to the world of air travel, albeit not on Earth. Gerardi, a researcher at the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS), was recently profiled by the New York Post and Business Insider for her upcoming Virgin Galactic trip to space, even though she does not have a traditional scientific background. She’s also an author and influencer, with 530,000 TikTok followers, 145,000 Instagram followers and 15,900 Twitter followers. And she sells a line of space-related merch under her and her daughter's name online.

The relationship began last week when Kellie tweeted her annoyance at the term “Delta Plus” for the new COVID variant. She wrote: “Petition not to call it 'Delta Plus' and instead move on to the next letter in this cursed variant alphabet. Sincerely, the mother of a very sweet little Delta who once thought the airline would be the most annoying namesake joke.”

Gerardi then tweeted at Delta, writing: “I feel like we should form an alliance in this matter.”

“Our people saw this as an opportunity to send a message to little Delta’s everywhere that the Delta name is amazing and no variant is going to change that. We hope she knows how much we love her name and how special she should feel,” says a Delta spokesperson.

Subscribe to Ad Age now for the latest industry news and analysis.