Quote of the Day: “That old September feeling, left over from school days… There was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year’s mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.” – Wallace Stegner (Angel of Repose)
Photo: by Autumn Mott Rodeheaver
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
A rooftop greenhouse in Montreal has become the largest of its kind, and can now produce enough food to feed nearly 2% of the city’s population even in winter.
Rooftop gardening is becoming very popular as a means of getting high-quality produce into the hearts of the world’s great cities, a method that has the double-advantage of cutting back on tailpipe emissions and spoilage from the otherwise necessary transportation of food.
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Launched in 2009, Lufa Farms now has four such rooftop gardens. The latest addition, built atop their own distribution center of 160,000 square feet (15,000 square meters), is about the size of three football fields, and cultivates 100 different varieties of fruits and vegetables using hydroponics.
Looking like something out of a Star Trek episode, hydroponic gardens utilize pipes in which the roots of the plant can dangle freely, and where a steam bathes them in essential nutrients and water—eliminating the need for soil entirely.
While headquartered in Canada, Lufa Farms was founded in 2009 by Lebanese-born Mohamed Hage and his American wife Lauren Rathmell from Vermont.
Lufa Farms spokesperson Thibault Sorret explains to Phys.org that they produce food next to where most people live, and in a sustainable way, which some experts believe is the future of agriculture.
“We are now able to feed almost two percent of Montreal with our greenhouses and our partner farms,” says Sorret.
“The advantage of being on a roof is that you recover a lot of energy from the bottom of the building,” he adds, noting that they can save a significant amount on heating during the notoriously cold Quebec winters.
Savings can also be found in the water-use department where Lufa Farms has a rainwater collection system that reduces time spent running taps by 90%, while ladybugs, wasps, and bumblebees work in tandem as both pollinators and pest control.
These energy-efficient and environmentally friendly practices are on top of a year-on-year profitable business that employs 500 people and sells $30 produce baskets for 20,000 families a week—all while running a distribution service under the greenhouse that connects local artisan food makers that produce things like fresh pasta to Montreal houses with home delivery.
It’s the kind of service that’s exploding in popularity in both the restaurant and grocery industry around the world, and Lufa is now capitalizing on that to export its model to cities across the U.S. and Canada. That’s good food news for everyone.
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An English woman who lost her wedding ring in the garden almost four decades ago has just found it buried in the soil—just days before her 40th anniversary.
65-year-old Paula Walter lost the precious wedding band back in 1983 when she was playing catch with her son outside their home in Plymouth, Devon.
The ring flew off her finger as they were frolicking in the garden, and despite conducting a lengthy search of the grounds with a metal detector, it was never found.
Paula, who tied the knot with her now 73-year-old husband Joe on August 28th, 1980, was heartbroken by the disappearance of her cherished 18 carat gold band.
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“My house backs onto woodland and I thought possibly that the ring flew in there. I thought it was gone forever,” recalled Paula. “Over the years—whenever we’ve been in the garden or out there—I’ve always said ‘have a look for the ring,’ but we never found it.”
To her delight, however, the missing ring was finally rediscovered last month.
Paula’s lucky break came when she hired local landscaping company Man for All Seasons to clean up her garden a few days before her wedding anniversary.
“We had a gardening company come in and landscape our garden and I told them about the ring and the whole story,” says Paula.
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Although the yard had been dug up multiple times in the past, the gardeners struck gold.
“They called me out into the garden a while later saying they had a surprise for me and then handed me my wedding ring,” she exclaimed. “It was in the garden where I was standing and where I had been playing ball with my son all those years ago.
“I was so shocked, but incredibly grateful. It’s wonderful to have it back.”
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Millennials are getting handier around the home since COVID-19 lockdown measures began, according to this new survey.
In fact, the poll of 2,000 homeowners found that compared to other generations, millennials have been the busiest, with 81% having tackled a home improvement project since March.
Conducted by OnePoll in conjunction with blow torch manufacturer Bernzomatic, the survey examined the various home improvement projects that American homeowners have completed while stay-at-home orders have been in effect—and why they chose to take them on in the first place.
Two-thirds of the respondents say they tackled their project to save money while 49% simply needed something to keep themselves busy during lockdown.
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Overall, the average homeowner has attempted four different home improvement projects since March and saved an estimated $160 simply by attempting to complete a project themselves.
From painting the house (32%) and working on landscaping projects outside (29%) to re-caulking (27%) and re-tiling kitchens and bathrooms (24%), homeowners have kept themselves busy these past six months.
Not only have these projects kept homeowners busy, they have also led to new hobbies; 73% of those who tackled a home improvement project on their own revealed that afterward, they felt resilient enough to keep taking on more projects and 67% of homeowners look forward to tackling more projects in the future.
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And there’s more to be done, as 71% of homeowners still said their home is a “work in progress.”
It’s no wonder that half of the homeowners surveyed (50%) plan on doing a DIY home improvement project before the end of this year.
Twenty-nine percent plan to work on landscaping projects outside, while 57% plan on taking on projects ahead of the holiday season.
Holiday-prep projects include bathroom and kitchen renovation, filling driveway cracks, fixing the patio landscape and replacing countertops and kitchen floors.
10 HOME IMPROVEMENT PROJECTS AMERICANS LOOK FORWARD TO CREATING FOR THE HOLIDAYS
1. New lighting system
2. Bathroom renovation
3. Kitchen renovation
4. Fill a driveway crack
5. Create handmade gifts
6. Improving patio landscape
7. Complete woodworking projects
8. Replacing flooring
9. Replace the windows
10. Replacing countertops
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Chrissy Teigen has some impressive credits: Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, cookbook author, television personality, Internet sensation.
Now, thanks to a recent Twitter gift-giving bonanza, she can add fairy godmother and education warrior to the list.
Teigen, who will be homeschooling her daughter Luna this year, posted a photo of their home classroom to Twitter, then generously invited teachers to send her their Amazon wish lists. “If you are a teacher in need of supplies for the upcoming school year, please drop your amazon wish list here, I will do as many as I can!” she tweeted.
If you are a teacher in need of supplies for the upcoming school year, please drop your amazon wishlist here, I will do as many as I can!
— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) August 23, 2020
The response was overwhelming. Teachers, as well as their friends and family, all reached out to take Teigen up on her generous offer.
While teachers have traditionally purchased classroom supplies that school budgets don’t cover, COVID-19 has totally changed the landscape of education.
Virtual classrooms or hybrid learning that combines at-home and onsite classes have become the new normal.
Although the fundamental educational supplies and equipment needed to meet these changes continue to evolve as we feel our way through the pandemic by trial and error, teachers are still the ones who must often pick up the slack.
After making her announcement, Teigen spent the rest of the day fulfilling requests, only taking time for a much-needed snack break, tweeting: “ok I’m gonna take a little break to eat my 12-inch subway meatball sub (you cannot tell me this is gross, I know, I don’t care!) but I’ll be back at it.”
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By day’s end, she’d chalked up 50 wish lists fulfilled plus a few added extras for teachers in need.
Today I cleared 50 entire lists and countless extra items were purchased from lovely people just passing through. Will do more this week and would love to focus on struggling districts and special needs. Please keep posting in this thread!
— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) August 24, 2020
For that, we give this generous mom an A-Plus.
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Shockwaves through spacetime from the largest intergalactic explosion ever recorded since the Big Bang recently passed our solar system.
In a fraction of a second, an amount of energy equal to one quadrillion atomic bombs was released into the universe in the form of gravitational waves. Traveling at the speed of light, they only reached Earth seven billion years after the detonation.
The shockwaves were discovered by the gravitational wave detectors LIGO in the U.S., and VIRGO in Italy. Researchers concluded that the cataclysm was the result of a galactic merger, perhaps the most dramatic event in space, when two black holes find themselves caught in each other’s orbit before spiraling into one another.
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Speculating for National Geographic, Caltech astronomer Matthew Graham described it as “probably the largest explosion we’ve ever known in the universe,” while his university colleague Alan Weinstein remarked to the Guardian that the 0.10 second event just “sounds like a thud,” and that “it really doesn’t sound like much on a speaker.”
Galactic mergers are known and recorded events, but scientists’ models suggest this one created a previously unknown interstellar object: a black hole 142 times the mass of our sun. It is previously unknown because black holes are recorded as either a few times bigger than our sun, or millions and perhaps even billions of times bigger than our sun, around which entire galaxies revolve.
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The recent explosion figure sits in a place where traditional astrophysics state it shouldn’t be, based on the understood mechanisms by which a star becomes either a black hole or a supernova.
As gravity compresses the mass of a star inward, the light it generates pushes it outward, creating a delicate balancing act.
Changes in the amounts of positrons and electrons can result in a drop in pressure within the star, causing it to compress further and heat up. As this result replicates over time, a pair-instability supernova will blast the star’s matter outward, preventing a collapse into a black hole.
Continuing the coverage of the monumental event within the astrophysics community, Nat Geo interviewed LIGO team member Christopher Berry who noted how the recent explosion and subsequent black hole merger is impossible within current models.
“This is shocking, because it’s where we expect black holes not to exist,” he says. “[it’s] smack-bang in the range you’d expect pair instability.”
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Along with setting the record for biggest bang since ‘Big,’ the recent merger-explosion has opened up an entirely new avenue of research for the infinitely dense and infinitely curious objects.
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Quote of the Day: “It’s so easy to look at all the problems and let them dominate you… but there’s so many reasons to be positive.” – Sylvia Earle
Photo: by Tj Holowaychuk
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
When a young father went to the local animal shelter to look at chickens, the last thing he was expecting to come home with was a puppy.
But when he saw a black-and-white pup with a cleft lip just like his son’s, he knew the sweet dog would make a perfect addition to the family.
As you can see from the photos, Little Bentley, who’s now aged two, was so delighted to meet his new best friend.
Bentley’s mom, Ashley Boyers, is excited about the budding friendship between the pair too.
She explained to ClickOnDetroit that seeing her toddler son ”have something in common with a puppy means a lot because he can grow up and understand that he and his puppy both have something that they can share in common.”
As for the team at Michigan’s Jackson County Animal Shelter? They’re equally happy to see the “instant love” between the two-month-old pup and Bentley.
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Writing on Facebook, they said, “It’s so hard to put into words how meaningful this adoption is to all of us… We wish many years of joy as this special pair grow up together!”
(WATCH the pawsome video of Bentley and his new friend below.)
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Instruments come in all shapes and sizes, but a company called Playtron has created a MIDI device that allows you to play fruits and vegetables.
While this seems ridiculous, a YouTuber called MEZERG created a viral electronica song and corresponding music video called “Watermelon,” in which, you guessed it, he plays slices of watermelon like Stevie Wonder played his synthesizer on “Superstitious.”
The device, called a Playtronica, works on smartphones and tablets provided you have the correct adaptor and a music application such as GarageBand.
It’s compatible with most synths and musical gadgets with a USB MIDI input.
Simply connect cables to your fruits and veggies, and complete the circuit by touching the ground wire with one hand and note wire with another.
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After the world’s largest landfill closed down, New York State officials and nonprofits facilitated a decades-long transition from dump to green outdoors space.
Creating a park three times the size of Central Park? That’s not so easy. The conversion has involved goats, using landfill fumes to methane-power homes, and plenty of manpower as buried trash gets turned into rolling hills of native grass.
Fresh Kills landfill, once the dumping site for all of New York City’s garbage, was a place that once terrorized Staten Islanders with odors and the sight of trash mounds said to have reached 20 stories high.
Now it’s just months away from reopening as one of the world’s great rewilding projects in the boundaries of one of the most densely populated areas in the Western Hemisphere.
Originally promised as a park by former mayor Michael Bloomberg during a dip in the polls, the dump closed in 2001, allowing sanitation department officials to begin work to control the pollution.
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The desire to turn it into a park led the Department of City Planning to host an international design competition—the project for creating New York City’s largest park construction in over a century eventually went to the Field Operations firm.
Trucks of iron-rich soil were brought in from New Jersey to cover plastic sheeting that “capped” the garbage mounds, staining local roads red, while methane extraction pipes channeled the fumes of the underground detritus into Staten Island homes to power heating and stoves.
Next, concrete troughs were constructed to funnel rainwater quickly away from the trash hills, and a local park was restored, along with the baseball diamond, handball courts, and playgrounds. Goats were brought in for their ecological restoration abilities in 2012.
Centered around four capped garbage mounds, fields of native grass species sparkle and wave under the sun, and trails through sun-dappled groves give habitat to mid-Atlantic birds like the grasshopper sparrow.
The mounds are separated by tidal creeks and natural waterways which recapture the image of the Dutch word (kille) for tidal marsh and wetlands that gave the area its curious name “Freshkills” back in 1930.
Turning the world’s largest landfill, once home to 150 million tons of trash, into a 2,200 acre state park takes time. The plan is for Freshkills to open in stages, starting with the North Park Phase 1, in which 21 acres will open to the public next spring, and continuing incrementally for another decade and a half.
The Freshkills website features some 360° pictures that allow you to understand not only the scope of the park, but a chance to imagine what was there before.
The ultimate image of renewal, Freshkills social media pages take advantage of the triumph of all parties involved to educate people on the importance of wetlands, grasslands, animals, and outdoor recreation—all things which New Yorkers will be overjoyed to experience in earnest once the lockdowns lift.
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One unexpected upside to the coronavirus lockdown is that for many, it’s become a time of great creativity. When interdisciplinary designer Rhea Shah found herself stranded in her hometown of Vapi in India’s western state of Gujarat, and not attending her doctoral program in the Netherlands, she was frustrated.
“I was grappling with helplessness, thinking about what I could do with my talent and the resources available,” Shah told NPR.
The time Shah spent sequestered with her family led to a brilliant COVID-19-related brainstorm that was both organic to her family business and 100% recyclable to boot.
With the number of coronavirus cases in India escalating daily, hastily organized makeshift isolation wards were springing up across the country—which in turn, required an unprecedented need for hospital beds. Shah’s solution? A line of affordable, disposable cardboard versions.
Since Shah’s family owns and operates the Aryan Paper Group, an industrial paper manufacturing business, it didn’t take long for the Harvard-educated architect’s idea to make the leap from the drawing board to the production floor to the supply chain. In fact, the process took only about a week from concept to prototype.
Shah’s user-friendly corrugated cardboard design requires no tools, fasteners, or glue to assemble and takes only a few minutes of setup time. The beds measure 6.5’ long by 3’ wide by 3’ tall. Weighing less than 25 pounds apiece, they can be stacked flat for shipping and moved easily when in use.
In addition, the beds are water resistant, so they can be cleaned and disinfected as needed—and with a maximum weight-bearing load of 440 pounds, they’re pretty darn sturdy as well. If that weren’t enough, they’re also 100% recyclable, for which the environment says a big, “Thank you!”
Trying our bit to contribute pic.twitter.com/CZ3DCqYzh8
— AryanPaper (@AryanPaper) April 22, 2020
It’s small wonder, then, that Aryan Paper Group has been included in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s list of the Top 21 Solutions/Innovations in the ongoing battle against COVID-19.
While, at around $13 each, the cardboard beds cost less than half the price of basic metal ones, the company’s concern isn’t about the bottom line: It’s about doing all they can to help out in these trying times. To that end, Aryan has donated more than 1,200 units and sold approximately another 10,000 at cost to those locations where they are most needed.
“We wanted to help in this crisis, and so we are not making any profit from the sale of beds,” Aryan Executive Director Param Gandhi told the Times of India. “The idea has also kept our company working which means we can continue to pay our staffers as well.”
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For her own part, Shah is just gratified her contribution has been so well received. As she told NPR, “It’s heartwarming to know that in spaces where it was most needed, it was useful.”
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Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg announced a new financial gift in support of four historically Black medical schools to increase the number of Black doctors in the U.S.
The money will significantly reduce the debt burden of approximately 800 medical students, many of whom face increased financial pressure due to COVID-19.
The Bloomberg Philanthropies gift is the largest-ever received by Meharry Medical College, Howard University College of Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science.
Currently in the U.S. only five percent of practicing physicians are Black, while 13 percent of the U.S. population is Black, and data shows that Black patients have better outcomes with Black doctors because they are more likely to follow their directions.
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The medical school grants will allow officials to provide scholarships up to $100,000 to nearly every medical student currently enrolled and receiving financial aid over the next four years.
“COVID-19 has been especially devastating for the Black community, and the scarcity of Black doctors practicing in Black communities is one reason for it,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and Bloomberg LP, and three-term mayor of New York. “More Black doctors will mean more Black lives saved and fewer health problems that limit economic opportunity in Black communities.
“During my campaign for president, I proposed a set of bold policies—which we called the Greenwood Initiative — to increase generational wealth among Black families and shrink the racial wealth gap. The commitment Bloomberg Philanthropies is making today is just the first step we will take to bring that work to life.”
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Meharry Medical College, Howard University College of Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science will each determine the eligibility of their students currently enrolled. In 2020, over 50 percent of all students enrolled at these four schools should benefit from this gift. The grant, unveiled on September 3, also includes “wrap around” services, such as financial counseling for students.
“Meharry graduates overwhelmingly choose to go into primary care so they can make the largest impact on the most people,” said Dr. James Hildreth, President and CEO of Meharry Medical College. “But primary care, particularly in rural areas, does not provide the same level of financial security as other medical specialties.”
“This transformative gift from Bloomberg Philanthropies will significantly ease the burden of debt for our students, allowing them to make the decision of what and where they practice based on passion, not a paycheck.”
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Quote of the Day: “You may handicap your children by making their lives easy.” – Robert A. Heinlein
Photo: by Danielle MacInnes
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
A woman whose picture was once on the ‘Most Wanted List’ in Franklin County, Alabama is so grateful to the officer who arrested her, that she is giving him a kidney.
Jocelynn James was addicted to opioids and supported her drug habit by stealing and breaking the law. Between 2007-2012, Officer Terrell Potter arrested her multiple times.
Now, the woman is saving Potter’s life because she believes he saved hers—by helping her turn it around.
Last November, the former police officer learned that his kidney was failing, but doctors said the waiting list meant that a replacement organ was 7-8-years away.
As soon as Ms. James saw the Facebook post about Potter needing a kidney, she said she heard God tell her right then to donate her organ—and as fate would have it, the two were a perfect match.
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The surgery was performed a month and a half ago, and all went extremely well.
Ms. James currently runs a non-profit organization that provides drug counseling to women, and this November she will celebrate eight years sober.
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The former officer told KTTV he now considers James like another daughter. “It’s made a great relationship and a bond between us that can go forever.’
“To be able to give another human a kidney to extend his life is really rewarding,” James said.
WATCH the inspiring local coverage below…
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When your young son asks you to grow a sunflower “as tall as the house” you do what you can. But nobody expected a plant like a magic beanstalk that kept growing and growing.
Douglas Smith was forced to use a ladder to tend to the lofty giant, which he first planted at the end of March and tended lovingly throughout lockdown.
The 42-year-old’s four-year-old son Stellan certainly got his wish. The gardening project turned into a 20-foot high monster plant that almost dwarves his two-story home in Stanstead Abbotts, England.
The current record for the tallest sunflower in Britain is held by Richard Hope, of Wigan, Greater Manchester, who set the record in 2012 with a whopping 26-foot tall flower.
But product manager from East Hertfordshire says his sunflower is now worthy of the ‘honorable mentions’ list on the website Giant Gardening.
Douglas’ flower stands in a large wooden container 20 inches tall, and three foot in length by two foot in depth.
And Douglas has to climb to the top rung of a ladder propped against his house, where he lives with wife Piper Terrett, 44, in order to just about reach the flower at the top of the stem.
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He said, “I had high hopes that it would still be growing – but I am glad that it’s topped out a bit now.
“I think it’s probably got maybe another inch or two left in it to grow, but it’s pretty much done.
“I’ve had to rig the flower up on something that’s a little bit like a flagpole, attached to the top of the wooden stake, so that it doesn’t curve down too much under its own weight.
“It’s flowering at the moment – there’s probably another week or so of flowering left, and then I’m hoping to leave it standing for as long as I can, to collect most of the seeds.”
And the sunflower started off with a fighting chance of growing this tall because Douglas was given the seed in a swap with John Butler, who holds the current record for tallest sunflower in North America, growing one that is 26 feet 8 inches.
“I’m not sure specifically what variety of sunflower this is, but it’s a bit like a thoroughbred horse – it came from a good start in life.”
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In Branson, Missouri, an old Days Inn hotel which has been vacant for 8 years has found new life, and been given a noble purpose.
A Los Angeles-based construction company purchased the property, along with other shuttered hotels, fulfilling its mission to turn failing commercial spaces into affordable housing.
The company envisions that these kinds of efficient fixes can help address the low-income housing shortage in the nation today. By breaking through certain walls, they were able to create studio and one-bedroom apartments that would rent for $495-$695—a sweet spot in terms of income brackets, where the individual might not make enough for normal housing, yet not qualify for assistance.
And, these spaces are upgraded with plenty of amenities.
Richard Rubin, founder of Repvblik, started doing these kinds of conversions in his native country of South Africa, and believes the price of the Missouri Days Inn units fall into the perfect price range for those who “might not be poor enough to get subsidized housing.”
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But affordable doesn’t mean barren or slumlike, the Days Inn project, known as Plato’s Cave, comes with freshly painted walls, included utilities, a rich assortment of amenities including a gym, basketball court, and onsite laundry, smart tvs, laminated wood floors and air conditioning.
The need for affordable housing is so urgent, not just in states where the lack thereof is famous such as California, but nationwide, that Rubin is trying to push the projects through to success without federal funding, which, as he revealed in a recent article with Fast Company, is something critics of his model believe isn’t possible.
“We were told with this market that it couldn’t be done,” says Rubin. “Everyone said, ‘You can’t do it without low-income housing tax credits,’ which is completely incorrect. You absolutely can.”
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Naturally he struggled to find investors to fork over a large check to buy old commercial spaces and sell them as cheap rental properties to higher-risk renters, but good-guy investing is still alive, and Repvblik is now juggling 10 such properties totaling 2,000 units – a number he hopes will grow to 20,000 in a few years.
MORE: Canadian Government Buys Hotels to House Homeless People—And Also Rehire Workers
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Quote of the Day: “Being an entrepreneur is about seeing connections others can’t, seizing opportunities others won’t, and forging new direction that others haven’t.” – Tory Burch
Photo: by Dmitriy Frantsev
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
This is the moment a paddle boarding family in England had a shocking but happy encounter with a hitchhiking seal.
At campingfunzone.com you will everything you need to know about paddleboarding so that when you start doing it yourself, you won’t look like a dweeb.
Daren Ford and Kerrie Rocket were paddling along the River Arun near Littlehampton in West Sussex when a playful seal swam up to the group and climbed right up onto Kerrie’s board.
Daren from Hayling Island in Hampshire was able to record the unusual encounter with his camera.
Daren, a roofing company manager said they were five miles up the river and had dropped their boards in from the pontoon boat and were paddling for an hour or so.
“This was our first visit to this area and only my third time on a board,” he says. “We were chatting away oblivious that we were being followed by a seal.
“To our amazement the seal just started going from one board to another jumping on and relaxing!”
WATCH: Rescuers Scale Cliff to Save Crying 1-Day-old Seal
They had no food out and were not encouraging him in anyway, keeping their distance as much as possible.
At first they were worried that the seal was in trouble or maybe aggressive, but soon realized he was healthy and just being curious.
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“It was an amazing experience but it never really sank in until we got home and realized how rare this actually happens.”
WATCH the sweet family moment…
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Hormel Foods announced last week that it will begin offering two years of free college tuition to all the children of their American employees beginning next year.
Not based on achievement in test scores or GPA, the new program is a way to create equality in education admissions—and the company hopes many who take advantage of the offer will be first-generation college students in their families.
Called “Inspired Pathways,” the program will begin in the fall of 2021. A spokesperson for Hormel Foods told GNN the company has 16,000 domestic employees and the program is open to any dependent child of those workers. The company has more than 30 plant and office locations in the U.S., primarily in the Midwest, and the kids can attend any community college of their choice as long as they graduate from high school and meet the school’s entry requirements.
“When you think about how a college education can change lives and start a ripple effect that will be felt for generations, that’s the change-maker Hormel Foods wants to be,” said Jim Snee, the company president and CEO, in a statement.
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“Our goal is that it costs us a lot; we want as many people to go as possible,” said Jim Sheehan, an executive vice president and CFO, in a statement.
The company isn’t just investing money into the program. Sheehan said they’re making a large effort to make sure people know about it, encouraging supervisors to reach out to their employees about it and help guide them through the process if they’re interested.
The Hormel Foundation has offered a similar program the past couple years that allowed students from Austin, Minnesota, where the company is headquartered, to attend Riverland Community College free of charge.
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This is an expanded version of that highly successful Austin Assurance Scholarship, to benefit the high school graduates of Hormel employees across the country, rather than just students who live locally.
Austin Public Schools Superintendent David Kranz said the foundation’s program has been instrumental in getting students into college who might not have gone otherwise.
“We know that for a fact,” he said.
Additionally, the company offers tuition reimbursement for current team members who go back to school while working at Hormel Foods.
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Seniors who are social distancing to stay healthy during the pandemic are now gaining much-needed companionship, thanks to ultra-loud, easy-to-use devices that connect them directly to loved ones.
The Dreamweaver Foundation has provided 300 free Facebook Portals to seniors in nursing care homes in Nebraska and Iowa—and the grateful reactions have ranged from “tears of joy” to an overwhelming sense of relief.
Most seniors who received a Portal were connected to loved ones with a clear picture and sound for the first time in months.
The eight-year-old Omaha-based nonprofit usually grants wishes to seniors, like hot-air balloon rides or race car driving, but all that stopped when COVID-19 hit.
“We still wanted to serve seniors in a special way” said Cheri Mastny, Dreamweaver Foundation executive director. “Many families had been resorting to window visits or calls on smartphones which can be both expensive and difficult for seniors to operate.”
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With a Portal, the buttons are super large, so it’s very easy to touch and use. It has a big subwoofer speaker in the back, so the sound is much better for someone who is hard of hearing. Calls can be made seamlessly to and from smartphones and tablets.
“My grandma was a lucky recipient of a Portal and I could Facebook chat with her. It was the first time I had seen her in months,” said Jill Sauser Hamilton. “I can’t tell you how happy this gift has made her. Her daily video chats with our family give her something to look forward to.”
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“Residents are definitely missing their families,” said Teala Ward, a certified nursing assistant at Lincoln’s Sumner Place. “I set them up and add every family member possible.”
Since seniors began using them, Dreamweaver has been overwhelmed with requests for more, so they launched a fundraising campaign to purchase more of the Portals. Help them deliver family connections at DreamWeaver.org, and watch the local news coverage below…
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