CENTER TWP - Tyler Trimbur smiled ... and more than 37,000 people around the world quickly smiled back.

Trimbur is the founding member and inspiration to the local Facebook phenom “Smile Movement :) Worldwide.” Only days old the group has garnered tens of thousands of new smilers every day.

A good share of the posts you will see on the social media page are inspirational. Grinning photos accompanied by personal stories of toddlers who have overcome life-threatening medical issues. Others say they're smiling because they have escaped addiction or abusive situations or near death accidents.

And a lot of people smile just because they are happy.

“I needed a smile,” Trimbur, 24, of Center Township says of his inspiration for the movement.

Trimbur, a waiter at Juniper Grille in Cranberry Township, said he was having a difficult day when a stranger in a bank smiled and said hello.

That one little act so changed the course of his emotions that Trimbur paid it forward by posting a “Free Smile” on a local social media page dedicated to buying and selling household goods.

The post said: “Just giving away a free smile today because everyone needs one and no mater what is wrong in your life you need to just let go let whatever higher power you believe in work. Smile today because someone else may need it too!!!”

In 20 minutes it had more than 200 likes.

Over the next few days the response was so overwhelming that the original site took it down Trimbur's post because it was interfering with that page's mission.

So about a week ago, Trimbur started a second page dedication to the smile mission, and already the smiles have spread worldwide with posts originating in Canada, Italy and Ecuador.

As far reaching as its been, the biggest impact — it turns out — was on a woman who lives just a mile from Trimbur's home.

Trimbur purchased a $15 gas card and offered it up to the first smiling photo to get 200 likes.

Avery Cooper, 3, was the winner.

Avery, who has a rare chromosome disorder called Trisomi 17, is significantly behind on milestones. She cannot talk, for example. Or walk. Or even sit up. She's been in and out of Children's hospital, and relies on a feeding tube.

“Our goal is to have her walking someday,” said mother Alisha Hoover Cooper. “But as long a she smiles every day that makes it worth it.”

Cooper said she posted her grinning daughter's photo because, “I wanted to share her smile with the world.”And when she won the contest and the gift card, she decided to do a little paying it forward of her own. She's coupling the card with other donated items in a basket to be gifted to a different family currently struggling with regular trips.

Avery's trips to the hospital — which began in 2012 with 134 days out of the year in the hospital — have dwindled to seven days this year.

“It's a relief,” Alisha said. “So I'd like to help another family.”

Also, Trimbur's parents, Richard and Darlene Trimbur, had offered him $100 if he garnered 200 followers. Trimbur said he plans to donate that money to the basket too.

“You can make one smile go a long way,” Trimbur said. “But right now I'm having happy tears.”