The good guys thread

[kuhio98]

Kindergartner sells lemonade to raise money to buy friend a diabetes alert dog

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. - A kindergartner spent Friday afternoon selling lemonade to raise money for a friend with diabetes.

Five-year-old Aidan Kendall hopes the proceeds from his lemonade stand will allow his friend, Jayce Berryman, to get a diabetes alert dog.

"I'm selling lemonade and donations for Jayce's dog that barks whenever his blood sugar is high or low," Aidan explained.

His mom, Shannon Kendall, said it was all Aidan's idea.

"At first I thought 'it's too cold, we can't do a lemonade stand right now, it's 30 degrees,' but you don't want to stop your child when they're so anxious to give," she said.

Jayce, who is also 5 years old, has type 1 diabetes. His mother, Lindsey Berryman, said she was touched by Aidan's efforts to raise money so they can get an alert dog.

"It leaves me speechless to know that we have friends that we haven't known that long, and that Jayce's friend at that who's in kindergarten, has a big enough heart to want to do something like this to help somebody else out," Berryman said.

For more information on how you can help, go to jaycesdiabeticalertdog.webs.com

[kuhio98]

Michele Gannon Pampers Cancer-Stricken Women At Her Ocean Retreat

Michele Gannon knows what it's like to be sick and unable to care for yourself, let alone your children.

In 2009, while recovering from an ongoing, debilitating illness, her doctor put her on bed rest for several weeks.

"My kids would say, 'Are you better now? Now? Now?' " says Gannon, 45, of Interlaken. N.J. "When I did surface, I just saw my whole world, my well-oiled machine, was broken down and that led to depression."

"I said to myself, 'I wonder what a woman does when she has a long-term illness like cancer?' " she says.

She quickly discovered there weren't many places available for women to escape and relax, so later that year she and a friend, Maria McKeon, founded Mary's Place by the Sea, a retreat in Ocean Grove, N.J. where women with cancer can get everything from oncological massages to nutrition counseling during their stay.

"It's life changing," says Gannon, "because you learn in your own way not to get worried about the small things that you used to worry about and just put things into perspective."

Linda Brinkmann, 59, agrees.

"I walked in and I got the greatest sense of comfort and love and compassion that you could ever imagine," says Brinkmann, of Westfield, N.J., who has peritoneal cancer.

"For someone that's dealing with cancer and is scared to death," she says, "and needs someone just to hold them and love them and give them faith and hope, these women are incredible."

Volunteers, many of them cancer survivors themselves, help staff the retreat, which is housed in a three-story, six-bedroom Victorian house that faces a lake and is one block west of the ocean.

Beth Hahn choked up when describing her experiences at the home.


"There is so much love in that place," says Hahn, 40, who was in the midst of chemotherapy for inflammatory breast cancer when she went the first time in May 2012.

"You have to go to truly understand how full of love it is," says Hahn, of Shippensburg, Pa.

But Gannon says she's the lucky one.

"I always say that I get more than I give," she says. "Every woman who comes in has so much courage."

[kuhio98]

St. Petersburg, Florida - It's a win win situation, enjoy a sweet cupcake and help a local charity. For "Sweet by the Cake Company" owner Daniel Delgado it's something he loves to do.

Every month Daniel picks a local charity and creates a custom cupcake. He then sells their sweet dessert and donates fifty percent of his profits to that charity.

This months charity is the Celma Mastry Ovarian Cancer Foundation, the foundation helps with the financial needs of those battling the disease.

www.sweetstpetersburg.com

Sweet by the Cake Company
1100 4th Street N, Sweet 101, St. Petersburg

[kuhio98]

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A pet lover is being hailed as a puppy savior after she helped rescue four small canines from a homeless man who put the dogs in a sealed Tupperware container.

Annie Hart’s friend Samantha Haas called her on July 18th to tell her she encountered a homeless man in West Hollywood who put the dogs in the container. Hart, in turn, convinced the friend to block a bus with the homeless man on it until she could get there.

“I knew these puppies were in grave danger,” said Haas. “They were tiny, they didn’t have their mother, they were in an unventilated plastic bin … so I knew their breathing was definitely compromised.”

After two attempts to get on the bus, Hart convinced the driver to let her on the bus to rescue the pups.

“I was most concerned that they had enough air,” Hart says.

In her car, she and her husband literally chased the bus down Santa Monica Boulevard.

The four puppies are due to be adopted in the coming weeks.

The dogs are named after the X-Men Raven, Elliott, Logan and Luke, the runt.

“They’re little super heroes,” Hart says, “These little pups, they survived this grand adventure.”

Hart is executive director of an animal charity called the Bill Foundation. The group started in May 2000 and have rescued and placed over 2200 dogs since. They also have a live cam on the puppies.

She told KCAL9′s Suraya Fadel the bus driver didn’t know what to make of her at first.

Then she had to convince the homeless guy to give up the puppies.

“I convinced him to get off the bus with me,” says Hart.

He wanted to keep one but ultimately she convinced him that Luke would be better off in a home.

Hart also told Fadel she wanted to give a shout out to WagAware.com.

Part of the money they make from dog tags and other merchandise goes to animal rescues like the Bill Foundation.

“We rescue from our heart,” says Hart.

[cassiesmom]

source: Yahoo Shine
Having your credit card declined can be awkward and humiliating. But it's an even worse experience if you're at the airport, rushing to make your flight, and when it comes time to dole out the mandatory fee to check a bag, the airline counter employee lets you know that your card won't go through. Confused, you step out of line to check your balance. You just know your card isn't maxed out and should be able to cover the expense.

Redditor brbmycatexploded recently experienced this exact situation at Tampa International Airport.

"Having my card declined was extremely embarrassing, even though I didn't know a single soul in that airport," the Reddit user, who asked to be identified by just his first name, Andy, told Yahoo! Shine.

His story has a happy ending, though. When he returned to the counter, a Good Samaritan had generously paid his baggage fee and left a note:

"Hey, I heard them say your card was declined. I know how it feels. Your bag fee's on me. Just pay it forward the next time you get a chance. Have a safe flight. "

On Wednesday, Andy posted a photo of the note on Reddit and wrote, "If you're reading this, thanks for making my day."

The kind deed didn't just have a financial impact. "Seriously, reading their note gave me goosebumps and gave me faith that there are still good people out there," Andy shared with Shine.

[kuhio98]

Couple Find Forever Love Thanks to Seeing-Eye Dogs

This ain't no puppy love – though it literally started out as such.

It seems Claire Johnson, 50, and Mark Gaffey, 52, were destined to be together. The two, both visually impaired, were brought together when their seeing-eye dogs, Rodd and Venice, fell in love during a 2012 training course in Shrewsbury, England.

No matter how hard people tried to keep them apart, the pups would manage to "snuggle together under a table and give each other dog kisses," Today.com reports.

Soon, their infectious puppy love spread to their owners, who decided to give romance a shot once training was over. And much to Rodd and Venice's glee, Johnson and Gaffey will be tying the knot next spring.

"It's going to be as much [the dogs'] day as it is ours," Gaffey tells Today.com. "They're central to the whole thing because, at the end of the day, they brought us together."

She's serious: Rodd and Venice will walk down the aisle wearing harnesses covered in flowers, and Johnson and Gaffey's wedding cake will be decked out with bones and paw prints.

Here's wishing all four of them a happy life that's never too ruff!

[kuhio98]

Something a little different ~ a sweet story in MP3 format. Please let me know if you can't access it and I'll see if I can find a different way to link it.

http://www.airsla.org/broadcasts/Goo...ping110915.mp3