 It seems like we get bombarded with stories about spoiled, privileged teenagers making bad choices and exhibiting embarrassing and despicable behavior.
Of course, they all aren't like that. So here's a nice story to underscore that last point, and maybe lift your spirits a bit... A high school wrestling star gave up a shot at going undefeated this year, but some people think he had the perfect season.Norton High School co-captain Devin Schuko had a 27-0 record when he faced off against Andy Howland, a wrestler at neighboring Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School in Massachusetts, who has Down syndrome. The match went quickly, with Howland forcing Schuko to the mat and pinning him for the win. They shook hands and Schuko went back to his bench, while Howland celebrated with his coaches and teammates. Schuko, the top-ranked Division III wrestler in his weight class, gave Andy all the credit in an interview with CNN affiliate WBZ in Boston. "We locked up and he was a tough kid," Schuko said. "He just snapped me down and put in a front headlock and bulldogged me over to my back." He says the experience has been humbling. "It's pretty cool that all this attention has been drawn for a simple act of kindness." You can read the rest of the story RIGHT HERE!
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 This is my attempt to make a difference by sharing good stories, hoping that they give you some hope and inspiration. And hoping you share them, too, and help spread some light! You can find out more about why I'm doing this on my recent blog RIGHT HERE.
Maybe you can do what the students in this story did, or maybe someone you know can. Or maybe you can just help spread a really nice story... Remember moving away from home? How you never thought you'd miss mom side-eyeing your outfits or fussing over your food, but how strange it became to not to see a familiar face from day to day? For students at Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University, Vicke Davis became that face: a surrogate mother to hundreds of students who passed through her dining hall station each day. "From the first time I visited, she created a welcoming presence," Quintin Woods, a 20-year-old junior biomedical engineering major, told TODAY. "She called us her 'Barrett babies.' She was lively. Funny. Friendly. She stood out." For Davis, who moved to Tempe from Chicago in 2013 to work at ASU, the students became like family, too. She engaged with them on social media and spent her lunch breaks delighting them with her dance moves."She does a mean Whip/Nae Nae," Woods said, referring to the viral hip-hope dance craze. Over time, Woods, like many others, developed a personal relationship with Davis. "I'd see her multiple times a day, so we'd talk current events and check in about how life was going," Woods recalled. "One time, just for fun, I asked about her dream trip. Her eyes lit up as she talked about the northern lights," he said. "She had watched a special on TV that talked about how they dance when you dance. And we all know Vicke is the dancing queen." What started as small talk hatched into a plan: raising money to send Davis, 59, on a trip to see her beloved northern lights, the rippling displays of green, red, yellow and blue light also known as the aurora borealis. The students saw it as a way of giving back to someone who had positively impacted so many members of the Barrett community. Woods set up a GoFundMe account and waited until Christmas Eve, when goodwill would be flowing, to circulate the link. The response was overwhelming. "We raised over $2,000 in 48 hours," he recalled. The students printed a giant check for the total of $2,350 and joyfully ambushed Vicke at work to present it. Check out the rest of the story RIGHT HERE!  This is my attempt to make a difference by sharing good stories, hoping that they give you some hope and inspiration. And hoping you share them, too, and help spread some light! You can find out more about why I'm doing this on my recent blog RIGHT HERE.
So often we let ourselves get numb to what's around us, and we don't see the simplest ways to make a difference. Maybe you can't afford to do what this firefighter did, but it might make you think about other ways you can help someone else. Sometimes, we might feel like it's just a small thing, but to those we stop to help, it's huge! The firefighters, from Riverside, Calif., were driving back to the fire station last week from a physical fitness test when they saw an elderly homeless man walking on the side of the freeway, Bruce Vanderhorst, the battalion’s Chief Public Information Officer, told ABC News. The firefighters turned their fire truck around to help the man and then noticed he was barefoot. One of the firefighters aboard the engine, David Gilstrap, donated his own pair of sneakers to the homeless man, while the engine’s captain, Rob Gabler, walked over and helped the homeless man put on his shoes. You can read the rest of the story RIGHT HERE!  This is my attempt to make a difference by sharing good stories, hoping that they give you some hope and inspiration. You can find out more about why I'm doing this on my recent blog RIGHT HERE.
And while you may not be able to do what Debbie did in this story, you can always check and see if they're in your area, and hire them! Debbie Sardone started Cleaning for a Reason to provide free housecleaning services to women undergoing cancer treatment. The nonprofit organization has donated more than $5.5 million worth of housekeeping services to cancer patients over the last decade. But it's the woman Sardone never got to help, the one who inspired her to start the foundation, that she thinks about every day. The potential client had called Sardone's cleaning company seeking an estimate, which she couldn't afford because chemotherapy and radiation sessions left her unable to work. "She said, 'Maybe I'll call you when I can afford it,' and hung up. And that was before Caller ID. I had no way to call her back," Sardone told TODAY.com. "I made a decision and shared with my staff that day that the next time a woman battling cancer called our office needing help with her home, if she couldn't afford it, we would just give it to her completely for free." Years later, Sardone shared the story while speaking at a national convention of cleaning professionals, many of whom expressed interest in adopting a similar policy. "They were big companies, little companies, mom and pops who do the work themselves, and even big franchises," said Sardone, 56. "Many of them came up to me after my workshop and said, 'I want to do that in my town.'" That prompted Sardone to create Cleaning for A Reason, a nonprofit organization celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. The group has helped more than 19,000 cancer patients so far. Cleaning for a Reason gets about 1,400 requests for service each month. It works with companies throughout the nation and Canada willing to provide cancer patients with one free cleaning a month for four months. While the businesses — which must be insured and conduct background checks on its workers — do not charge the women for their services, their employees are paid for their work. You can read the rest of the story RIGHT HERE! And you can find out more about Cleaning For A Reason at their website RIGHT HERE!  It's tough on some of us when we lose celebrities. They're movies/books/music/etc touched us and we can't help but feel at least a little sad at their passing. We'll never get to meet them, to thank them, or just enjoy something new from them. Check out this story about one of Alan Rickman's final projects. Even though he was a big star, and also very ill, he leant his talent to a project that could bring hope and help to others... Last year, Alan Rickman teamed up with a tortoise for a very important role. The goal was to create a viral video to raise money for refugees living in the U.K. The 30-second video features a teeny-tiny tortoise eating a strawberry — that's it. While the miniature star of the screen chomps away, Rickman — who you may know from his roles as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series and so much else — provides a voiceover explaining how this all works. So how does it work anyway? It's simple, really. You watch the video, and that's it. The way it works is that the more views the video gets, the more advertising dollars its creator — OneClickGiving, a charity created by students at Oxford University — makes from YouTube. OneClickGiving then donates the ad revenue to Refugee Council and Save the Children. You are helping them raise that money — all just by watching a cute little video. Make sense? There'll be no shortage of tributes circling around the Internet, with fans in mourning and reflection, remembering him for the big roles he played on the stage and screen during his lifetime. But just one video lets you help the refugees in the process. You can read more about it, and see more photos, at the original article RIGHT HERE!
 We're very excited to announce that Transpersonal Healer Julia Hoffman is now sharing her daily readings with us!
You can find them by clicking on Julia's Daily Reading in the menu above. You'll also find connections there to her website and her Instagram (where she posts her daily readings along with many other inspirational and enlightening items)! And, of course, you can catch Julia every Friday at 5:00pm on Psychic Tapestry's Love Show, along with Psychic and Author Toni DeMaio!  Similar to yesterday's story, this probably isn't something you can do (unless you can help bring food to someone in your community that needs it).
I'm sharing this story because it seems like the only time we hear anything about police is when there's a problem. And while there may be some that merit that kind of scrutiny and outrage, there are so many more that are doing a terrific job that, let's face it, most of us would not want to do. Anyway, I hope this story gives you a lift today... A group of Mt. Pleasant police officers are being recognized for going out of their way to help an elderly man over the weekend. Saturday night, the 79-year-old disabled man called dispatchers and said he had not eaten in two days. A short time later, a group of officers showed up at his door with several bags full of groceries. The officers had spent $160 out of their own pockets to make sure the man had enough food in his kitchen to last him a month. “I think he was shocked at the amount of food that we bought and just the fact that it was there without question,” said Nathan Bolton. A picture of the officers stocking the man’s cabinets was posted on Facebook and the good deed has been shared by people across the country. “It’s difficult for us to see as police officers. We’re out here to take care of the public at large and that doesn’t always mean stopping a car. Sometimes it’s us doing little things like this,” said Mark Billions. The police officers have since been praised for going above and beyond the call of duty. The elderly man, who asked News 2 not to use his name, said he appreciates everything they did to help him. The man is on a fixed income and relies on his social security benefits each month. He said he didn’t have any money to buy food because a former caretaker stole his debit card last weekend. You can see some video and read the rest of the story RIGHT HERE!  This story is quite a bit different than the other ones I've recently posted. I don't think you'll find something in it that you can do in your community. It isn't that kind of story.
I just thought that there seem to be so many stories about teens getting into various kinds of trouble that it was really nice to come across one in which a teenager does something heroic. And amazing. It sounds like a scene straight out of a movie. A young woman lifts a truck to rescue her father, then saves the rest of her family from a raging fire. But that scenario is all too real for 19-year-old Charlotte Heffelmire, whose heroic actions saved her family from an unthinkable tragedy. Days after Thanksgiving, her father, Eric Heffelmire, was working on his GMC truck when the truck fell, gasoline spilled and a fire was ignited, all in an instant. "I was on my back, face up, and I was trying to get some corroded brakes lines when apparently the jack slipped and fell down on me." Eric Heffelmire said. "Pinned me across right here on my shoulder," Then, there was an explosion. "I thought they'd be pulling out a dead body later in the evening," Eric Heffelmire said. Fortunately, Charlotte was home from school on Thanksgiving break. She saw her dad and still can't fully explain what happened next. "I lifted it [the truck] the first time, he said 'OK, you almost got it,'" Charlotte Heffelmire said. "Finally managed to get it out, it was some crazy strength, pulled him out." Once her dad was out, she got into the truck, still on fire, and drove it, on three wheels, out of the garage. You can read the rest of the story RIGHT HERE!  Here's a terrific story from the folks at Love What Matters (which you can find on Instagram RIGHT HERE)...
I went to the Chicago Bears game today. The high was 30 degrees so naturally I layered up in a lot of clothing. I wore Under Armor pants and an Under Armor long sleeve shirt along with 2 additional pairs of pants, 4 shirts, 2 sweatshirts, 3 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of gloves, a coat, a hat, a scarf, and my favorite new pair of winter boots. While we were inside of Giordanos (after the game) I was very warm so I took off everything except my pants, socks, boots, Under Armor Shirt, and hat. I tossed it all into a bag and when we left I carried that bag and put on my coat. We had a short walk to the train station and as we were walking across the street I noticed a homeless woman crouched down trying to stay warm. I felt like I was going to throw up. I had passed countless amounts of homeless people all day but for some reason I was so drawn to this woman. As I approached her, I saw that her cardboard sign said "I am in need of winter boots and winter clothing items." Immediately I knew that this was providential timing and that I was supposed to give her the winter boots straight off of my feet. I felt a little bit crazy because I was just planning on walking back to the train in just my socks. I asked her what size she wore and she said 8.5 (same as me). I asked her what size shirt she wore and she said medium (same as me). YOU GUYS I HAD EVERYTHING IN THAT BAG THAT SHE NEEDED. Shirts, sweatshirts, gloves, scarves, etc. The boots she was wearing were worn and were wet. Mine were warm and waterproof. I handed her the bag of clothing.She stood up and cried. I sat down with her, untied my boots, and slid off the top layer of my fuzzy warm socks and handed them to her. She said they were the nicest shoes she's ever had. I started to walk away and she said, "I don't want your feet to be cold, can I give you my "old" boots?" She who had nothing, offered me these boots. HER boots. I wore them all the way home. Her name was Amy and I just cannot stop thinking about her. If you have the urge to do something kind for someone, I want to encourage you to do it. If you want more, you can also check out LOVE WHAT MATTERS on their website HERE!  This is my attempt to make a difference by sharing good stories, hoping that they give you some hope and inspiration. You can find out more about why I'm doing this on my recent blog RIGHT HERE.
When Tyler's dad, Patrick, returned from serving in Iraq, he'd changed in many ways. Tyler, who was in sixth grade at the time, changed in many ways, as well. Your dad "disappearing for a year and coming back a little bit different" is bound to leave a mark, Tyler told USA Today. "His army buddies [came] back a little bit different, too." That "difference" has a name: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder that affects an estimated 7.7 million Americans. PTSD really took its toll on Tyler's dad — and for him, it came with night terrors. Hating to see his dad suffer under these circumstances, Tyler stepped in to help. In September, he and his friends entered a computer programming contest in Washington, D.C. The challenge? Create a mobile application to help veterans. They knew just what to do. In a short 36 hours, his team had developed a genius app called myBivy to help veterans like Tyler's dad sleep better. The smartphone and smartwatch app works like this: It tracks your heart rate and movement while you sleep, learning about your sleep cycle and finding the exact symptoms that trigger a panic attack. It's completely data-driven, so the more it's used, the more it learns and can help you. You can read the rest of the story, as well as watch some videos, RIGHT HERE! |
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