The good guys thread

[kuhio98]

Carpool passenger leaves money behind; driver searches for owner

What would you do if you found money in the back seat of your car? A Woodbridge woman is lucky that the driver who found her money was Reginald Day.

Day carpooled or "slugged" home from work the other day, and a passenger left behind hundreds of dollars. But rather than pocket the cash, Day and his wife, Angela, started looking for the rightful owner.

So he called ABC7 and NewsChannel 8. A viewer saw our story and contacted Gloria Smith.

"I said, 'Oh my God, that's my money.' God is taking care of his children," Smith says. "I had borrowed it for my mortgage. I was short."

Not only did the couple give her the money back. They gave her a ride back home to Woodbridge Thursday night. And say they've found a new friend.

Since 1991, Day has been able to use the HOV lanes during rush hour by "slugging" or picking up passengers at designated stops.

Tuesday, his 22-year routine took an unusual turn. Right after he dropped a woman off at the Horner Road commuter lot in Woodbridge, he made a surprising discovery in the back seat.

"We found a white envelope with some money in it," Day recalled. "It has approximately $617."

Day picked up the passenger at the corner of D and 7 streets Southwest in D.C., located near the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station, around 5 p.m. Tuesday.

"She was probably 5'2'' to 5'4'' in her early 40s, late 30s..and she was wearing a brown jacket," he explained.

He says the money belongs to her since she was his only passenger this week.

"Times are hard for everybody, and I hate to think of the fact that somebody might be missing out with their rent money or car payment money," he says.

Day says he's had people leave behind cell phones and other small items before, but this is a first.

[kuhio98]

Redmond coffee stand customers still pay it forward - $5 gift keeps getting passed on through Easter Sunday

REDMOND, Ore. - In Redmond, Three Peaks Coffee stand is a usual stop for many. But over the last three days now -- the latest Easter Sunday -- the shop has not only offered customers their usual drinks, but a chance to pay it forward.

"I got here at 6 (Friday morning) and my very first customer pulled up, and she randomly just gave me five extra dollars to pay it forward to the next customer," said Three Peaks barista Ashley McNeill said Saturday.

"Really, she was just anticipating one person get their free drink -- and all day, every single person just paid it forward,"she said.

McNeill said every customer she had Friday passed on the money. She was so inspired, she left a note for her co-worker to make sure the act would continue into the next day.

And it did.

When she came in for her afternoon shift Saturday, the five dollar bills were still there on the counter.

McNeill said customers continued to pass on the money all day Saturday -- and one customer even added $2 to the cause.

And then, we're told, the same thing continued throughout Easter Sunday's hours, so the coffee stand will be keeping up on Monday morning.

"It feels so good to be a part of something that's contributing to others," McNeill said. "Because its so easy to get stuck in your ways, and just do your own thing for yourself."

Fellow Three Creeks barista Sheri Lin McGarry agreed.

"Everyone is really happy to go along with it," said McGarry. "You know, they are excited to pay it forward. It makes them feel like they're a part of something bigger."

The shop says they will continue to pass the money on until someone takes the gift. But for now, they are happy to help carry out such an inspiring act of kindness.

"I think it brightens everyone's day just a little bit, to know there's still so many good people out there," McNeill said.

"That's what it's all about," added McGarry. "It has to start somewhere, and if it can start here and spread to other areas and other places, then we've done something good."

[kuhio98]

Rebecca Constantino Brings Books to Disadvantaged Schools

Back in 1999, Rebecca Constantino was doing research for her Ph.D. about what happens in schools when kids have access to luxury. That's when she saw boxes of brand new books stacked up in the hallway of a school in Brentwood, an affluent section of Los Angeles.

"I asked the librarian what she was doing with the books," says Constantino, 49, a Reno native who now lives in L.A.. "She said, 'Well, we just don't have room. I'm throwing them away.' I said, 'Really? Can I have them?' She said, 'Sure.' "

So Constantino packed up all the books and drove them to an elementary school in Compton, an underprivileged section of the city about 15 miles away where schools were shuttering their libraries, unable to afford new books.

"A few days later, someone from Brentwood called me and said, 'I hear you collect books,' " she says. "I told her, 'I don't really but you could bring them to me if you'd like.' The next day I took them to another school." After that she began getting calls from other schools and parents. "My car could fit about 4,500 books," says Constantino, "I was really cramming them in there!"

Fourteen years later, Constantino has donated more than 1.3 million books through the non-profit she eventually created, called Access Books. She's also helped to refurbish more than 200 libraries. "In California, there is absolutely no state funding solely designated for school libraries," says Constantino, "But access to books changes a kid's life."

The schools she has helped agree. "When these kids are given books, they light up, they beam," says Chris Stehr, principal of Vine Street Elementary School, where Contantino has supplied books and refurbished the library. "For a lot of low socio-economic communities, books are a luxury. They view these books as treasures."

With the help of volunteers and donors, Constantino spends her Saturday afternoons making deliveries and renovating run-down school libraries. "It only takes a day," says Constantino, "We paint and give each library a rocking chair, a reading rug and a couch."

An adjunct professor at the University of California-Irvine and UCLA, Constantino says the kids she serves are truly grateful. "People think that kids aren't reading and they aren't interested in books," she says, "but they love books. They're so excited to get them."

And they need them. One young boy, who was being raised by his grandmother while his parents were imprisoned, requested books on Martin Luther King. His grandmother later told Constantino that the books were keeping him off the streets. "Now he's up in his bed reading," the grandmother told her. "He's up all night. Reading and reading."

So Constantino asked the little boy what he liked about the books. "He looked up at me and said, 'Oh, Miss Becky, they take me to a world I've never known," she says.

"It's the best thing anyone's ever said to me."

[kuhio98]

Hearing-impaired boy lives every kid's dream: becoming a superhero

New York (CNN) -- Five-year-old Anthony Smith didn't think superheroes wore hearing aids, until he became one.

His mother, Christina D'Allesandro, says the epic journey began in May, when her superhero-fanatic son, who is deaf in one ear and partially deaf in the other, refused to wear his blue hearing aid because "superheroes don't wear hearing aids" either.

Desperate, she decided to consult the experts. She found a general e-mail address on the Marvel Comics website and sent a message "into the ethers," asking if there were any hearing-impaired superheroes.

A few weeks later, the mother of two was shocked to get an overwhelming response from Marvel, including comic book art that honored her son.

"When he first saw the comic book cover, he said, 'Oh my God, it's me,' " she told CNN. "He was very excited."

"We decided to make him an honorary Avenger," a member of the Marvel Comics superhero crime-fighting team, said Bill Rosemann, a Marvel editor.

Two artists, Manny Mederos and Nelson Ribeiro, sent the D'Allesandro family comic book covers featuring their very own versions of honorary Avenger Blue Ear, inspired by Anthony, whose blue earpiece gives him the power to hear a pin drop from the other side of a state.

One cover features a younger Anthony and his buddy Hawkeye ready to fight crime. The other shows an older version of Blue Ear perched on a rooftop, tapping into his superpower and listening to a faraway call for help.

On Tuesday, the young New Hampshire boy is being welcomed as a special guest at an event at the Center for Hearing and Communication clinic in New York City, where he will get to meet a fellow crime-fighting partner in the Marvel universe, Iron Man.

"The reason why it was so easy for us to respond to this is because our characters, which were invented around the '60s, all have real challenges." Rosemann said.

He talked about how all the characters "became superheroes despite of -- or because of -- the challenges they face."

Under his elastic Spidey skin is a skinny Peter Parker, who constantly gets picked on at school, Rosemann said. As a boy, superhero Daredevil was blinded in an accident that also gave him a radar sense. And Iron Man first created armor to fix his heart, and he then developed the armor into his famous suit.

"We link challenges with their superpowers," Rosemann said.

"Our mantra is what (Marvel Comics chief) Stan Lee said: With great power there must come great responsibility. Our guys thought, 'If I have the ability to draw, I am going to use it to help someone like Anthony feel comfortable about his hearing aid.' "

Rosemann and his team collaborated with Phonak, the maker of Anthony's hearing aid, and came up with a poster to be distributed in doctors' offices across the country in an effort to destigmatize kids with hearing aids. The poster, to be unveiled at Tuesday's special event, features none other than fearless Iron Man, whose message is that kids who use hearing aids are just like him because "they are using technology to be their best self."

"It will be an Iron Man and Blue Ear team-up," Rosemann said about the event.

Closer to home, all the attention has brought excitement and meaning for Anthony and his mother.

"In this house, we are looking forward to meeting Iron Man," D'Allesandro said. "He is a big Avengers fan."

The experience has given Anthony the confidence and the ability to talk about his disability, she said.

"He goes up to kids and says, 'Hey, I have a little ear and a blue ear. Do you want to play?' "

People have reached out to her, and she says her family is grateful that this experience has connected her and her son to a wonderful network of families with special needs children.

When asked if there is a comic book series on the horizon featuring Blue Ear, Rosemann said, "There is nothing planned right now, but with so many people responding to Blue Ear, you never know what's next ..."

"People should just stay tuned."

[kuhio98]

Purple Heart makes long trip back to family

TYLER, TX - If you just happened to pass by a little gathering on the square in downtown Tyler Tuesday afternoon, there's no way you could know just how important it was, or how much work it took to make it happen.

But at the center of that gathering, a Purple Heart medal is finally home, after a trip from more than 1500 miles away.

Kris Wilson of Edom had given up on finding her long-lost uncle, Robert Bates, who died on board the U.S.S. Arizona at Pearl Harbor. Her family had tried to fill that hole in its history for 20 years.

What they couldn't know is that earlier this year in Bakersfield, California, someone found Robert's purple heart, basically in the street.

That medal found its way to a high school history class, taught by Ken Hooper.

"When they brought it in, I showed it to the students, and they attacked the computers," Hooper said.

Hooper's students knew how important the medal was, but were stonewalled by, of all things, a 70-year-old typo.

"The official Pearl Harbor web site, says Tobert Bates, not Robert Bates," Hooper said.

Hooper and his students kept working, and finally connected Robert to his niece in East Texas, who couldn't believe it when she got the phone call.

"That part of our history was almost lost for good," Wilson said. "His great-nieces and nephews, his memory will live on."

And they'll have that medal to help. Hooper made the trip from California to personally deliver it to the family. And he's got a great story to tell his students when he gets home.

"Teachers get paid in strange ways, this was payment in full," Hooper said. "To see her reaction, I knew that we did the right thing."

Thanks to the work done by Mr. Hooper's class, the Bates family also found more of their family in Athens, TX.

[kuhio98]

Helping Hand

My friend and I were driving when we saw a man who had his electric wheelchair stuck on some ice on the sidewalk. We decided to pull over, get out of the car, and help him out! It felt great! Now I am always on the look out to find someone to help.

[gini]

I just love this thread. Thank you!!