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Thread: The good guys thread

  1. #631
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    Miracle on Madison Avenue
    From walks in the woods to the busy streets of Manhattan, birds intrigued his late mother. Him, too.
    By Marcus M. Silverman, New York, New York

    Rain drizzled down on my head. I was early for work and drinking a paper cup of coffee outside the office on Madison Avenue.

    I couldn’t sleep the night before or the night before that. My mom had passed away about eight months ago, and though I hadn’t fallen apart completely, I had my good days and bad days. Most of all, I just missed her.

    At night, when it was clear outside, I’d look up at the sky and try to imagine her looking down on me. But more often than not, I couldn’t quite get that picture in my head.

    I took another sip of coffee and sighed. Everything else seemed to be falling into place in my life. I had a good job, a decent apartment and a girlfriend I cared about. Why couldn’t I have faith that Mom was up there smiling down on me?

    From behind a potted plant I could see movement on the sidewalk. A black bird hopped a couple inches toward me. Even the most common birds held my attention, partly because my mom was an avid bird-watcher herself.

    I had a photo she’d taken of her favorite–a red-winged blackbird–tacked up on the bulletin board over my desk at work.

    In free moments, the picture took me back to happy afternoons with my mom, going for walks around the woods by our house and trying to name as many species of birds as we could.

    I tried to identify this one.

    The bird hopped right up to my shoe. Could it be? A red-winged blackbird! What an unlikely visitor in the middle of a big city. The bird hopped past me and continued along Madison Avenue.

    I looked up at the sky and smiled. All those nights staring overhead, I’d missed the signs right on the ground in front of me.
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  2. #632
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    Meet the World's First Dog with Four Prosthetic Legs



    http://orthopets.com/


    Last edited by kuhio98; 02-28-2014 at 09:08 PM.
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  3. #633
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    Oh, how good and sweet that is! Well done, Orthopets and Naki'o!!!

    I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?"
    Death thought about it.
    CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.

    -- Terry Pratchett (1948—2015), Sourcery

  4. #634
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    Lost Teddy Bear Tours Disney Before Heading Home to Alabama


    Toby the teddy bear isn't just any old stuffed animal to Brooklyn Andrews.

    He's a cherished link to a father who died far too young.

    "She's slept with it every night since she got it when she was 3 years old," says her mother, Marsha Andrews, 39, of Chunchula, Ala.

    It even has a special message in it recorded from her father, Tony Andrews, a police officer who died of a heart attack on duty in 2006.

    "She presses the button every night before she goes to bed and listens to her daddy," says Marsha.

    So when the 14-year-old girl lost him on a visit to Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa last month, she was devastated.

    After we got home "we were unpacking," says Marsha. "And Brooklyn said, 'Where's Toby?' She was freaking out."

    Luckily, Mom saved the day. When a phone call to the resort didn't yield any results, she took to social media.

    "Very special bear (Toby) is lost!!" wrote Marsha on January 15. "Toby was given to the little girl by her by her daddy before he left for Iraq with his voice recorded in the bear telling her how much he loves her."

    Marsha also belongs to a Facebook group for spouses of police officers who have died in the line of duty.

    "I posted in there for them to pray," she says. "They were sharing it everywhere."

    That posting somehow caught the eye of a Disney employee who called two days later to say they found Toby.

    "Brooklyn was ecstatic," she says. "She was jumping up and down."

    Disney not only found the bear, they sent him on a fun-filled day around the park before shipping him home with photographs of his adventures.

    "She loved it," says Marsha of the photos. "She said the next time she goes to Disney she's going to take him to the park with her and get more pictures."

    The whole experience has been amazing, says Marsha.

    "I was shocked how much people cared," she says.

    "You'd think people would say, 'He's just a bear.' But he's not just a bear to us – and especially to her."

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  5. #635
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    Quote Originally Posted by kuhio98 View Post
    How sweet! I bet the Disney employees were tickled that that got to return him to his person, I am sure they see many lost toys that never get home again!
    I've Been Frosted

  6. #636
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    7-Year-Old Has Raised Over $600,000 to Help Cure His Best Friend's Disease

    The next time you think about the power of friendship, think about Dylan Siegel.

    Dylan is 7 years old. His best friend, Jonah, has an extremely rare liver disease, and funding for his treatment almost dried up at one point. So Dylan decided to help by writing a book, The Chocolate Bar Book, which has helped raise over $600,000 for research into Jonah's disease.

    Jonah has Glycogen Storage Disease Type 1b, which is a rare liver disorder that causes dangerously low blood sugar. As one of 500 children in the world with the disease, Jonah has to be fed every few hours through a feeding tube in his stomach. There is currently no cure.

    Dylan describes his friendship with Jonah as "awesome as a chocolate bar," which is where he got the title of his book. People in all 50 states and 42 countries have purchased copies of The Chocolate Bar Book, with every cent going to Dr. David Weinstein's Florida lab, where a cure for the disease is apparently near to being reached.

    "It is now reality. It's not just a dream that these children can be cured," Dr. Weinstein told ABC affiliate KGO-TV.

    Dylan seems to think so, anyway. Asked where he and Jonah would be 10-15 years from now, he told KGO-TV, "Um, high school and probably [Jonah's] disease would be cured."

    Jonah's answer to the same question?

    "Friends."


    Dylan and Jonah http://chocolatebarbook.com/
    Last edited by kuhio98; 03-02-2014 at 12:08 PM.
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  7. #637
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    Backes returns from Sochi with stray dogs

    ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI)– A star St. Louis Blues player who was part of Team USA in the Olympics brought back much more from Sochi than just memories of playing on Olympic ice.

    Blues captain David Backes and his wife rescued two of the thousands of stray dogs that were all around Sochi.

    We were there as the charter plane with the Backes`, the dogs and others landed at Lambert.

    Backes says the two dogs he rescued and other animals kept on showing up at the resort where the players` families were staying.

    As the days went by, Sochi Junior and Sochi Jake as Backes calls them, just wouldn`t leave.

    So the Backes` went through all the red tape to get them out of Russia.

    “By the end of it those two were living in hotel rooms where they shouldn`t have been getting baths in bath tubs where they shouldn`t have been,” explained Backes.

    The Backes` are animal lovers. In fact, they run a foundation called Athletes for Animals.

    Backes says all the stray animals in Sochi and the amount that were reportedly killed or euthanized touched him.

    “When they`re timid and you can kind of tell they`ve been mistreated or you see one with mange or that`s really skinny or fighting over some scraps of food that really tears your heart out because we feel that every dog should have a great home that`s well fed,” explained Backes.

    The dogs stayed with the Backes` on the 13 hour plane ride home.

    They even tweeted out a picture of them smiling with the dogs while on the flight.

    “It`s almost like they knew they were going to somewhere where they wouldn`t have to worry about food or fighting over food or worried about who was coming after them next,” said Backes about the dogs.

    After a quick potty break when they landed, the dogs were taken away by the Five Acres Animal Shelter from St. Charles.

    They will stay there for 30 days to make sure they are healthy before becoming available for adoption.

    “We`re going to be caring for them in that time, socializing them, teaching them English, you know fun things like that,” said Brittany Broombaugh with Five Acres.

    Backes added, ‘The story being told of how these dogs are just like yours and mine at home and how you know we should treat our animals with respect and be responsible pet owners is a story that a lot of people wanted to tell and I think we`re telling it now.”

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  8. #638
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    Taco Restaurant Employee Hailed As Hero For Stopping Kidnapping

    WESTCHESTER (CBSLA.com) — Families in Westchester said they are breathing a sigh of relief following a kidnap attempt Wednesday.

    The families are crediting an employee of T2 Tacos, a restaurant in the 7100 block of Manchester Drive, for being the hero who stopped the kidnap attempt.

    Residents told KCAL9′s Brittney Hopper that a nanny was walking with a 4-year-old boy Wednesday afternoon — in broad daylight — when a man attempted to steal the child.

    The employee — a man named Jesus Delgado – intervened, stopped the man and held him until authorities arrived. (The suspect has been arrested and charged with kidnapping.)

    On Thursday evening, the boy’s grateful parents and several mothers from the community went to the restaurant to thank Delgado for his efforts.

    The mothers told Hopper that crime was increasing in their neighborhood. In addition to praising Jesus, they also asked police for a larger presence in their community.

    Hopper spoke to the baby’s emotional father who said he couldn’t ever thank Delgado enough.

    “How can you explain, the feeling that you have of gratitude for someone who saved you son’s life? It’s really an amazing thing that he did,” said Tom O’Brien.

    The suspect grabbed the boy and started running. The nanny screamed for help and Delgado ran after the suspect.

    Delgado, a husband and father of a little girl with special needs, told Hopper running after the suspect was just instinct. He doesn’t think he did anything heroic.

    “It’s incredible,” he said, “Never have I [felt] this.”

    A group called Moms With Westchester & Playa del Rey heard about Delgado’s act of heroism and wanted to say thank you.

    The group started a GoFundMe account to raise money for Delgado and his special needs child.

    “We just wanted to say thank you for being alert and being aware,” said mom Jessica Echeverry.
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  9. #639
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    Pay It Forward: Texas Woman Returns Habitat for Humanity Home to Help Others

    his article was originally published by NationSwell, a website dedicated to sharing the stories of innovative Americans who are working to effect social change and move the country forward.

    It’s not every day that a person asks to return a Habitat for Humanity home.

    But that's what happened recently in Kerr County, Texas. Laci Kocurek, who built, maintained and lived in the home with her children for many years, called Karen Quanstrom, executive director of Habitat Kerr County, and said she wanted to deed the house back to the organization. "I had to tell [Quanstrom] several times what I really wanted, and even after that first phone conversation, she called me back several times and said, 'I want to make sure you know what you're doing,' " Kocurek told Habitat World. "She was pretty shocked."

    In return, Kocurek wanted something very simple: for the organization to sell the home to another family who needed a place to live.

    More from NationSwell: Why Austin, Texas, Is America's Best City for Stray Dogs

    Kocurek and her new husband were recently able to buy a home for their expanding family of five. In many cases, Habitat for Humanity will take back homes from owners and return the money that they have put into the mortgage.

    But for Kocurek, the family wanted to deed the home back to the organization in order to pass along the positive experience. "That was mine and my kids' first home together – just us – so it was a little sad, but knowing that somebody else who didn’t have a home was going to be moving into it really overpowered that sadness," Kocurek said. "It felt good. It really felt good."

    Thanks to the family’s generosity, Habitat Kerr County is able to provide an additional family with a home this year.

    "That’s the wonderful joy of it," Quanstrom said.

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  10. #640
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    Hingham Bakery Customer Surprises Employees With Large Sum Of Money

    HINGHAM (CBS) – You may have heard of the phrase “pay it forward.” The employees of a Hingham bakery just got a good taste of it.

    Last week, a man walked into White’s Bakery and ordered a danish. While the employee was wrapping up his treat, he reciprocally treated the employees. He put an envelope on the glass counter, paid for his danish, and quickly walked away.

    When employees opened the unmarked envelope, they found thousands of dollars. This act of kindness was no accident.

    Security cameras captured the whole interaction. But the man, who is about 55-years-old, saw the camera and turned his back to it, masking his identity.

    Nobody has come into the bakery claiming to have lost a large amount of money.

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  11. #641
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    Local 'Love Bomb Squad' strikes again
    Organization does random acts of kindness for community

    LA CROSSE, Wis. (WKBT) -

    A group of area kids showed its love for others at the La Crosse Public Library Monday evening.

    They are called the "Love Bomb Squad" and they leave handmade gifts as a way to spread kindness, peace and joy to others.

    “Random acts of kindness makes other people's days and it makes our day to make their day, so it makes everyone happy,” said Abby Sharp, a member of the Love Bomb Squad.

    At the library, the kids left handmade painted rocks and bookmarks for unsuspecting guests to find.

    “We keep it simple and inexpensive and we want to bring cheer to people and then inspire them to do the same thing and we hope it’s a ripple effect and so the kindness will spread far and wide,” said Stephanie Sharp, the founder and leader of the Love Bomb Squad, and Abby’s mother.

    Stephanie Sharp said she was inspired to create the group because of two organizations in Denver: the Random Acts of Kindess Foundation and The Birthday Project.

    “I just wanted to make it a little more personal, so I decided to start my own,” Sharp said.

    In November 2013, Sharp and her daughter teamed up with some close friends and family to do something special for someone else. Then they brought up the idea to their church, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship and encouraged everyone, especially Sunday school kids to do random acts of kindness.

    “We painted rocks and wrote post-it notes and then during Random Acts of Kindness week, we 'Love Bombed' the (la Crosse) City Hall a couple of meetings there,” Sharp said. “We went to hospitals and nursing homes and a knitting group at church started knitting scarves and we have a person that makes tabs for them and then puts them around downtown for the statues and they say, ‘I’m not lost. If you’re cold, please take me.’”

    Sharp said they don’t usually see people’s reaction when they get Love Bombed, but when they do there are mixed reactions.

    “Most of the time it’s confusion because I don’t think people expect a stranger to come up and do something kind. I think that sometimes they’re nervous but I think after they realize what it is, it makes them smile.”

    "If you were walking home and it was cold and you had a bad day at work and suddenly you found a painted rock that says you are loved, it would make your day a little better," said Abby Sharp.

    The members of the Love Bomb Squad hope they inspire people in the community to start doing their own random acts of kindness.

    “Keep the kindness going because I think the world needs that,” Stephanie Sharp said.

    For more information on the Love Bomb Squad, visit the organization’s website, Lovebombsquad.com or Love Bomb Squad Facebook page.

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  12. #642
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    Deer Heroes.
    Last edited by kuhio98; 03-07-2014 at 06:16 PM.
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  13. #643
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    Widow Performs 318 Random Acts Of Kindness In Tribute To Husband’s Cancer Fight

    BOSTON (CBS) – For 318 days, Chad Wogernese fought a brave battle against cancer. His widow, Colleen, says during his fight, she learned so much about love. On Friday, she performed 318 random acts of kindness to give back to those who made a difference in his life.

    “It mostly just makes me happy and gives me a good memory of him,” the former Northeastern grad student says.

    Chad was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma on the couple’s second wedding anniversary and spent the last 318 days of his life shuttling back and forth between their Wisconsin home and Boston, getting treatment for that deadly cancer. He died in September.

    “I never heard a complaint, I never heard a ‘why me,’” Colleen says.

    And so to honor his memory, and return a favor, Colleen returned to Boston for the random acts of kindness.

    She started at Brigham and Women’s Hospital with gift bags for staffers who had helped Chad, but then moved on to strangers, with free Charlie Cards, lottery tickets, candy and even hand-knit caps.

    Colleen knows her sons Ethan and Nolan won’t remember much about their dad, and so missions like these are a good lesson for them.

    “He was just so giving, I want my children to know how giving he was and this was the best way to show them,” Colleen says.

    And so she is determined to dispense kindness, feeling that when she does — her husband is right there with her.

    “I want to live the rest of my life that way, instead of sitting there feeling sorry for myself, turn it into something good,” she says.

    Before Chad died, he and Colleen started “Superheroes Fighting Cancer” to help families with a loved one battling a serious illness.

    The non-profit hopes to raise $40,000 dollars this year.
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  14. #644
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    Good Samaritan Meets Baby She Rescued 26 Years Ago

    Every day, Shelley Cumley looks forward to the email she receives from Godvine, a Christian website, which is filled with videos of inspirational real people stories.

    Sometimes she watches them. Sometimes she doesn't. Last October, though, one caught her eye.

    "I saw a picture of a baby and clicked on it," she told Sacramento's News10. "I love to watch baby videos," she told the station, "and the very first frame that came on the video was her name."

    It was the story of Nicole Farley, now 26, who'd been paralyzed as an infant when a drunk driver plowed into her mother's car in March 1988.

    Cumley had been the good Samaritan who pulled the baby from the wreckage.

    "I absolutely couldn't believe it," Cumley, 51, of Snohomish, Wash., tells PEOPLE, her voice shaking. "This was a little girl I'd worried about and prayed for."

    She watched the video until the end.

    "It was the most incredible, beautiful story," she says, "about a girl who is not bitter; had not let her disability hold her back. She's persevered, lived life to the fullest."

    The Day of the Accident
    That day had haunted Cumley for years. She was on her way to Lake Tahoe with a friend when she came upon the accident on Interstate 5 near Redding, Calif. Nicole's mother, Roanna, was pinned inside.

    "I went to her door to see if I could open it but I couldn't," she says. "Her steering wheel was up by her face."

    Suddenly, she heard a baby crying.

    "I looked in the back and saw this infant in a carseat," he says. "The car was so completely demolished that we thought the thing was going to blow up any second."

    Cumley quickly lifted Nicole from her carseat and held her while Roanna drifted in and out of consciousness, screaming for her daughter.

    "I held Nicole to her window – her window was broken out – and I said, 'Open your eyes and look at your baby,' " Cumley says. "'She's fine.' "

    She kept doing this until help arrived.

    "She'd open her eyes and see Nicole and it would calm her down and she'd lose consciousness," says Cumley. "Then she'd wake up and start screaming for her again like she forgot this happened."

    Cumley rode in the ambulance with Nicole and waited while the doctors checked her out.

    "They said she was fine," she says.

    Cumley reluctantly headed back to her weekend away in Lake Tahoe but unable to get thoughts of the baby and her mother out of her head, she cut the trip short so she could stop by the hospital on her way home and check on them.

    The nurses told her that Roanna was in critical condition but recovering, while Nicole was paralyzed from the armpits down.

    "I just really almost fell down," she says, breaking into tears at the memory. "I was so devastated. I said, 'When I left here two or three days ago they said she was fine.' The nurse said, 'Yeah, they discovered her feet weren't moving and did some further testing, and she's paralyzed," she says.

    Cumley started crying.

    "I thought by removing her from her carseat I made her injuries worse," she says. "We headed back to Seattle that day and I could hardly function for a few days."

    Cumley called Roanna a few months later to check on them but didn't have the heart to ask her if she'd caused her daughter's paralysis.

    So when Nicole's video landed in her inbox, Cumley decided to reach out to Nicole herself. She saw Nicole was clutching a business card in her hand in the video and zeroed in on her email address.

    "I am tearful as I write this for so many reasons," Cumley wrote. "I have struggled over the years second-guessing myself and wondering if by pulling you out of the car, I made your injuries worse. It has haunted me."

    Nicole froze when she read it.

    "I almost dropped the phone," Nicole, who runs a daycare in her Yuba City, Calif., home, tells PEOPLE. "I burst into tears. Not because I was sad, but it was this burst of emotion. I was excited. I was overwhelmed."

    Her reply lifted a heavy burden from Cumley. Nicole told her that the doctors said her injuries happened on impact.

    "I have cried more in the last three months than I've cried in my whole life," Cumley says. "It has been a huge season of healing for me."

    The two have become fast friends, and last month they met for the first time as adults. "It was very effortless," says Nicole of their first meeting. "I think it's because we have this special connection because of that day, even though I was an infant. I feel like I've always known her."

    Cumley says she simply feels at peace for the first time in 26 years.

    "I feel like my faith is stronger than ever," says Cumley, "because you hear about miracles, but when it happens to you, it's life changing."
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  15. #645
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    Huntsville Students Aim to Collect 5,000 Pairs of Shoes for Developing Countries

    HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) – Members of a new service club at New Century Technology High School are trying to round up shoes — lots of shoes — like 5,000 pairs.

    They’re trying to bring something taken for granted in America to places where they’re considered a hot commodity.

    These members of the Beta Club don’t need to walk in the shoes of people in third world countries to know what they need. They’ve researched it.

    “One woman, she couldn’t breast feed her child and she traded a pair of shoes for a goat so she could feed her baby,” said Cailin Simpson, an organizer of the shoe drive. “So that’s how rare of a commodity these shoes are in developing nations.

    The 16-year-old junior at New Century Technology High School said all kinds of shoes are needed.

    “Any type of shoes, heeled shoes, children’s shoes, adult shoes.. any shoes are acceptable.”

    She said companies will even repair or recycle shoes that aren’t up to par.

    Simpson and her classmates are trying to collect the shoes to send to countries in West Africa, South America and Central America. “We buy a new pair of shoes to match our outfit. And we don’t think about other people who don’t have those means.”

    The school didn’t just stop at asking for shoes from their own students.

    “Our members have been going to their churches, to their youth group, they’ve been reaching out all over the place trying to get shoes to donate, just trying to get people in Huntsville to think about others,” said Regina Oliver, another member of the Beta Club at New Century.

    Oliver said they approached and recruited 10 other schools in Huntsville to participate in the drive.

    And the club sponsor is thrilled with how the students recognize need beyond the United States’ border.

    “They don’t think about themselves,” said Assistant Principal and Beta Club sponsor Veronica Haley. “They put themselves out there for others.”

    Haley says she’ll see to it the shoe drive is an annual event for the newly-formed Beta Club.

    The shoe drive goes through Wednesday, March 19th. Students will accept shoes outside the school on Saturday, March 15th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the school, located at 2700 Meridian Street.

    Delivery pickup will be Friday, March 21st, by the organization “funds-2-orgs”.
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