The good guys thread

[kuhio98]

Joseph Carbone Gives Glasses to Thousands of Struggling Kids

Joseph Carbone can still picture the Navajo teen in his office, trying on his first pair of eyeglasses, paid for by a benefactor.

"Wow," the boy told him, laughing and crying at the same time as he looked out the window. "I didn't know that trees had leaves."

It was on that day in 2001, says Carbone of West Bountiful, Utah, that he knew he should close his optician business and start giving away glasses to children in need.

"That kid touched my heart," he says. "He literally changed my life overnight."

Taking out a second mortgage on his home and lining up donated services, Carbone, 61, built EyeCare4Kids into a full-time nonprofit in 2006.

Today, with a clinic in Midvale, Utah, and two school-based units in Las Vegas funded by casino magnate Steve Wynn, Carbone and his 11-person staff have provided free exams and frames to more than 75,000 kids.

"The need is so great, somewhere around one in three or one in four American kids need glasses, but their parents can't afford them," says Carbone. "If kids can't see what the teacher is writing on the blackboard in school, they give up and drop out. A single pair of glasses can change everything."

Carbone struggled with his own eyesight as a child growing up in Queens until his parents finally saved enough to buy him a pair of glasses when he was 17. He knows firsthand the struggles that families like Wayne Urcino's face.

"Joseph is a godsend," says Urcino, who has a family of five. "Every person in my family needed glasses, but insurance wouldn't cover them and we couldn't afford them. Now for the first time in years, we can all see how beautiful the world is."

Ultimately, Carbone hopes to help a million children see more clearly.

"That's the dream," he says. "I'd love to be able to give glasses to every kid who needs them nationally and internationally. There's nothing like giving somebody the gift of sight. I plan to keep at this until the day I die."

[kuhio98]

Jackie Bobcean Provides Handbags and Personal Necessities to Abused Women

Growing up in suburban Detroit, Jackie Bobcean watched her alcoholic father, a police officer, unleash his rage on her mother and younger brother nearly every day.

"More than a dozen times, I recall hiding my brother in the closet and trying to stop my dad from choking my mom," says Bobcean, 50, a former teacher's aide.

"I was the only one in the family who stood up to him," she says.

When her brother Billy, who had a learning disability, committed suicide on Christmas Eve 2003 after decades of their father's verbal abuse, Bobcean, a married mom of two, decided that was the final straw.

"I knew I needed to do something to help stop the cycle of domestic violence," she says.

So in 2006, she launched HandBags of Hope out of her Eastpointe, Mich., home. The nonprofit collects gently used handbags and purses for women who've fled an abusive relationship, often with only the clothes on their backs and their children in tow.

Run purely on donations, Bobcean and 20 volunteers fill the handbags with daily necessities like makeup, hair brushes, manicure sets, pens, calendars, pocket tissues, but most importantly, handwritten messages of support ("You are loved," "God bless your journey").

"It's our small way of letting a woman know she did the right thing by standing up for herself," explains Bobcean, who says the organization has so far given away 17,000 handbags and counting. (No one in the organization, including Bobcean, gets paid.)

"For many survivors who arrive at our shelter," says Jan Mancinelli, executive director of the Women's Resource Center of Northern Michigan, "these handbags help give them everything they need to face another day."

Some of the volunteers – who, like Bobcean, are abuse survivors – go a step further, writing lengthy letters to be tucked inside a handbag with their phone number in case the recipient wants to reach out.

"A woman once told me she kept one of our notes in her purse as a reminder that there was a little bit of love inside," Bobcean adds. "And that was all she needed to keep going."

[kuhio98]

Six Children Save the Life of an Injured Stray Dog

When Jadiel, Fernanda, Francisco, Montserrat, Saúl and Juanito, found an injured puppy in their town, Valle del Puebla, Mexicali, Mexico, they knew just what to do. They picked up the dog – that had a mangled rear leg – cared for him, and turned to adults for help. However, they didn’t turn to their parents for help. No, they called a local radio program, Radiopatrulla, and asked for help.

The children ranging in ages from five-years-old to 12-years-old, are constant listeners of the radio program, and somehow they felt that by calling in to their favorite show, they would get the help the three-month-old puppy needed.

They were right. When the radio team learned what these innocent children and future animal rescuers did, they agreed to help the children by picking up the dog and transporting him to an animal clinic.

Veterinarian Juan Carlos Acosta performed emergency surgery to amputate the mangled leg because it couldn’t be saved. However, what worried him the most, was the many different bacterial infections the small canine was fighting and the tick and flea infestation he had.

After hearing how the children heroically rescued the injured dog, Dr. Acosta decided to offer his services at no cost.

The puppy named by the children as “Radiopatrulla,” after their favorite radio show, was bathed after the surgery and started on treatment for fleas, ticks, and bacterial infections. Dr. Acosta expects the dog to make a full recovery.

The puppy was then returned to his five young saviors who are taking turns, nursing him and making sure he grows up to be a strong and loved pet.

[kuhio98]

Petal (Mississippi) man pays it forward

Harrell Griffin is the official winner of the "Great Grocery Grab," sponsored by the Rotary Club of Petal. Instead of taking three minutes to grab as much food as possible for himself, he decided to fill a shopping cart full of food for kids in need.

The grocery grab took place at the Petal Corner Market early Tuesday morning. Griffin raced up and down the aisles at Corner Market, filling one shopping cart with nearly seven hundred dollars in groceries. Lots of folks bought several raffle tickets to get in the running for the grocery grab, and Griffin only purchased one. He says he's donating all food collected at the grab to the Petal Children's Task Force.

"The supermarket has donated and said they will actually slice this for us into portions so they can distribute it to more people," Griffin said.

"It feels good because a lot of times we're given blessings in life and this is just one that we can turn around and give back to others."

The fundraiser benefits the Dolly Parton Imagination Library Project, and Griffin's contribution, in turn, will benefit kids in Petal.

[kuhio98]

Matthew Nalywaiko Helps Hundreds of Single Working Moms With Much-Needed Repairs

Sometimes a broken down car or leaky faucet are just added stressors in the lives of already struggling single working mothers. But Matthew Nalywaiko is doing something about that – times more than a hundred.

His organization, Serve A Little, has helped more than 200 women, including those whose husbands are away serving in the military, by matching volunteer handymen, mechanics and construction workers to complete "honey-do" projects like minor home and car repairs.

"The name, Serve A Little, comes from the idea that you don't have to do much to make a major impact in someone's life," Nalywaiko says. "It might only take a few hours for a mechanic to fix the car or for someone to fix the door in a house, but for that person it can mean the world."

For Nalywaiko, 32, of Sonoma, Calif., giving back has been life changing. A severe case of dyslexia, coupled with ADD, had him wondering if he would ever have a purpose in life.

"I could barely read, so I couldn't imagine how I was going to make a living or find someone who would want to marry me or accomplish anything," says the high-energy Nalywaiko, a videographer.

But he did just that. He managed to get a job in construction after graduation, "building million-dollar staircases in multimillion dollar homes," and married Amanda, a social worker.

Then in 2009 he launched Serve A Little.

"We all have the ability to impact somebody's life," Nalywaiko says. "It's just a matter of looking outside your own world and realizing there are needs right next door."

Helping single working moms, including those trying to get an education, is something Nalywaiko says has an immediate positive impact.

"It's not a population that gets a lot of respect," says Amy Ethington, a Santa Rosa College student advisor who refers student single moms in need of assistance to the Serve A Little program. "And here is Matthew giving them respect for what they're trying to accomplish."

Nalywaiko doesn't just help out his own community. He discovered a Haitian village of about 10,000 where more than a dozen kids had drowned trying to cross the treacherous river to attend a school nearby. Nalywaiko has raised money through 80 for Haiti, an effort connected to Serve A Little, to build a closer school, using local labor and materials to boost the the economy.

"Children shouldn't have to die just to get an education," Nalywaiko says.

Matthew Nalywaiko (center) with Serve A Little volunteers.

[kuhio98]

Shelter dogs from Phoenix flown to Idaho to find new homes

PHOENIX - Thirty dogs from a no-kill shelter in Phoenix were transported to a no-kill shelter in Idaho where they will be put up for adoption.

The small dogs from HALO Animal Rescue were transported by plane courtesy of Dog is My CoPilot, a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving homeless dogs and cats by flying them to areas in the western United States where they are more adoptable.

“When DIMC moves large groups of animals from an area where they are harder to adopt out and flies them to another area where they are in demand, the animals are quickly adopted by loving “furever” homes,” explains Judy Zimet, a Phoenix attorney who also serves as executive director of Dog Is My CoPilot. “A Chihuahua in Idaho gets adopted in a heartbeat, but that same Chihuahua in Phoenix is often harder to place in a new home,” says Zimet.

Phoenix continues to see large numbers of stray and abandoned pets entering Phoenix shelters, especially Chihuahuas and pit bulls, said Heather Allen, HALO Animal Rescue president and CEO.

The small dogs were headed to All Valley Animal Rescue in Meridian, Idaho.

“We’re very grateful to DIMC for their dedication to animal welfare. Not only are we saving more animals from euthanasia because of their program, we’re able to place homeless pets with loving families who really want them,” says Jason Lee, President and marketing director for All Valley Animal Rescue.

[kuhio98]

Church to give away free lunch to cab drivers

TAMPA, Florida -- If you drive a taxi in the Tampa Bay area, your lunch could be free on Labor Day.

Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg is giving away a coupon for a free lunch to the first 100 cab drivers who show up to the church in their taxi.

The church partnered with the McDonald's next door to do something nice for people they know work hard year-round.

"We thought we would reward them," said Wesley's pastor, John Ekers. "If nothing else we thought they would get some recognition."

The church wants to be known as the little church with a big heart.

To get the free lunch, drivers have to show up in their taxi at the intersection of 4th Street and 38th Avenue North in St. Pete. Head inside the church and ask for your coupon, which can be used anytime in the month of September.