72% of Americans in a new poll said that they are more likely to find “little joys” during the summertime—and that’s especially true this year.
83% of respondents agreed: it’s the little things in their day that bring the most joy—and just as many say these little things have become even more important to them in the past few months.
Luckily, the average respondent experiences four of these small things every day.
Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Bubbies Ice Cream, the survey found many of the little things respondents look forward to relate to nature and the great outdoors. The third most-popular ”little joy” was ‘feeling the sun on my face’
Listening to rainfall or a thunderstorm while inside, the arrival of a blue-sky sunny day, and the smell of the ocean, all made it into the top 30.
But it was family and friends that were a key factor in a third of the top ten “little joys”. Not surprisingly in 2020, seeing a loved one after being apart was #1.
Sleeping in a freshly made bed, having time to myself, and getting something for free rounded out the top five answers. Who doesn’t love finding money? That was also mentioned.
For many, who look forward to something in the kitchen, the smell of freshly-made baked goods and the first sip of coffee in the morning was a favorite answer.
“We’ve seen the joy that comes from these indulgences and know that celebrating the small moments in life is critical when it comes to navigating stressful times,” noted Katie Cline, Vice President of Marketing at Bubbies Ice Cream.
AMERICANS’ TOP 10 “LITTLEJOYS” 1. Seeing a loved one after being apart for a while 40%
2. Sleeping in a freshly made bed 39%
3. Feeling the sun on my face 39%
4. Getting something for free 39%
5. Having time to myself 35%
6. Hugging a loved one 33%
7. Finding money I didn’t know I had 32%
8. The first sip of coffee in the morning 30%
9. The clean feeling after a shower 30%
10. Receiving an “I’ve been thinking about you” type text 28%
What are your favorite little joys? Would sunshine and a freshly made bed make your top five?
GIVE A Little Joy To Others And Share This Story Today...
Quote of the Day: “Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
Photo: by Sebastien Gabriel
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?
One English vicar just overcame his fear of heights—by climbing 165-feet to the top of his church spire.
Credit: SWNS
Reverend Sam Leach says he’s always had a fear of heights, but he wanted to set himself free by undertaking the ultimate vertigo challenge, while raising money for urgently needed repairs at his church in Devon.
He attached himself to a rope on Thursday and successfully scaled the church spire all the way to the top, despite feeling violently sick at the prospect.
Sam joined three others in climbing up and down in just under an hour. The feeling he had at the top? It was “exhilarating.”
“Actually,” says Sam, “I would do it again. The view was so amazing looking out over the town center.
“The fear this morning when I first got up there left my knees trembling. It was unnerving seeing a 25m (82ft) ladder on top of ten flights of scaffolding.
In the past, even going up an escalator was too much without hanging onto the rail.
“I was not worried about my safety as I was attached to a rope, I was worried about whether I would freeze on the rungs and not be able to go up or down.”
“I was really nervous but, strangely, not quite as terrified as I thought I would be. Maybe it was people praying or something, but when I got to it, I just looked straight ahead. I was not looking up as that’s what makes me go giddy.”
Credit: SWNS
Sam’s tip for others with a fear of heights? Just focus “on one step at a time.”
Hospitality Is The Key
Sam’s church, St Mary Magdalene in Torquay, is covered in scaffolding at present for external repairs which were funded by a grant from the UK’s National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Credit: SWNS
But while the work has been ongoing, $9,000 (£7,000) in new repairs became necessary in the kitchen—a vital part of the church’s outreach to the community.
Hospitality is a key value of the church, Sam says. ”It’s not about the building, it’s what we can offer the community—and the kitchen is vital to that.”
If you’d like to donate to Sam’s church, visit here.
Build Up Some Positivity By Sharing This Inspiring Story With Your Friends On Social Media…
One very fun uncle made his young nephew’s dream come true by building a rollercoaster in the backyard that was based on the 11-year-old’s design.
Credit: SWNS
Leigh Downing used the sketches made by his nephew Calden Ashley to bring to life a 230-foot-long ‘Big Dipper’.
Leigh, alongside his 20-year-old son Charlie, used plastic pipes for the rails. They then put together old bits of scrap metal and wood to make the frame of the coaster.
The inventive duo even used an old wooden cutting board as the seat of the ride which circles Leigh’s green space in Llandyrnog, Wales.
They built it as a surprise for little Calden who was fed-up after being unable to see his friends during summer vacation with its bummer lockdown restrictions.
Former engineer Leigh said, “Calden has been rollercoaster mad for as long as I can remember.
“Even before he was tall enough to ride, he was designing them on a computer. It all started a couple of years ago when I had an operation and was off work for a couple of months. I gave Calden a wooden marble rollercoaster kit I had when I was a child. He was so thrilled with it.
“My son Charlie built him a small wooden rollercoaster that he could ride.
“He was absolutely ecstatic with the end result, but a couple of years on had got a little bored with it. We hatched this latest idea during lockdown… We did it all in eight days.”
Charlie, who passed his maths GCSE when he was 11-years-old and skipped his A Levels to go straight to university to study maths and science, is a hobby mechanic.
Leigh, who has a background in engineering, added: “We said to Calden, you do the design. He designed it from start to finish including every twist, turn and bunny hop.
Leigh said the build has brought Charlie, Calden, and himself together. He added: “I feel we did something absolutely amazing.”
“Our next plan is a full steel rollercoaster with a corkscrew and a loop which, of course, will rely on Charlie’s maths degree coupled with Calden’s rollercoaster designs.”
Paris Williams is six years old. Like many of her first-grade peers, she’s adorable, but this little girl is also driven by a mission to help others who are less fortunate. So driven in fact, that she’s launched her own nonprofit foundation, Paris Cares, to feed the homeless in her area.
Credit: FOX/YouTube
Paris’s mom, Alicia Marshall, says her daughter’s inspiration to become a hands-on good Samaritan was the title character of Cari Chadwick Deal’s children’s book, “One Boy’s Magic,” who also uses his powers to feed the homeless.
“She was reading books at school about giving and she came home one day, and she was like, ‘I want to give back to the homeless. What can we do to help the homeless?’ Marshall told KTVI FOX 2 News. “We kind of brainstormed some ideas and we came up making care packages.”
“I wanted to give something to the homeless,” Paris explained, “like the boy in the book.”
Paris might not have had a magic wand, but she didn’t let that stop her.
Turning instead to more practical magic and the help of her parents, Paris assembled and delivered (via non-contact drop off) more than 500 care packages containing food and other essentials to downtown St. Louis’s homeless, as well as handing out approximately 250 meals to essential workers.
But Paris wasn’t satisfied to simply donate goods. It was important to her to forge a bond with the people she was trying to help. After filling each package herself, Paris drew a picture or wrote a personal message on each one to create the kind of human connection so many of the homeless sorely lack.
“It makes me really proud because with everything that’s going on in the world this small child who is entering first grade has such a big heart,” Marshall said. “She wants to give. She wants to help others.”
Paris has already accomplished a lot by anyone’s standards, but if she has her way, she’s only just getting started. She’s looking toward holding a Thanksgiving hot-food drive for the homeless and also hopes to start a Christmas toy fund for kids in need.
“I want to inspire people to do good things,” Paris said.
Out of the mouths of babes, it seems, comes not only wisdom and truth, but kindness and generosity as well.
If you’d like to pitch in to help Paris feed the homeless, donations can be made directly to Paris Cares Foundation, or you can purchase Paris Cares masks and T-shirts via her Bonfire Account.
(WATCH Paris’ adorable story below.)
Be Sure And Share This Inspiring Story With Your Friends On Social Media…
Separated from his mother as a puppy, one lucky pooch by the name of Foxtrot has become a UN refugee camp mascot in a ‘bare bones to milk bones’ story that could bring a smile to any face.
Credit: UN World Food Program
When the Myanmar military began a brutal crackdown on the country’s Rohingya Muslim ethnic minority in 2017, hundreds of thousands fled over the border. A million displaced people are now sheltering in refugee camps in the Cox’s Bazar area of Bangladesh.
The UN’s World Food Program (WFP), along with a number of other charities, has been there from the beginning, working to ensure every refugee is fed.
”Foxtrot was found when a variety of charity organizations were participating in a beach clean-up,” Colleen Callahan at WFP USA told GNN. “A four-month old puppy followed them until finally Gemma [one of the volunteers], decided to take him under her wing. After that he almost died—there was no vet in Cox’s Bazar, so a nurse brought him back to life.”
“Since then he has been given the official title of ‘chief mascot and mood manager’ at WFP,” explains Callahan.
Regularly led about the camp to visit temporary schools and canteens, as well as different WFP events, the chief mascot is usually “wearing a WFP cape, or special capes for big days like International Women’s Day.”
Credit: WFP
The photograph above features Foxtrot entertaining the kids at one of the camps’ learning centers, and perfectly captures his importance in the relief efforts.
Humanitarian Pup
“One of the jobs I like the most is making sure no one gets too stressed out,” writes one of Foxtrot’s human team members on his adorable biography at the WFP website. “If I see someone looking like they need some stress relief, I run up to them with a toy in my mouth and push my head against their leg.”
WFP
“Humans are simple creatures and it’s amazing how well this works in relieving any tension,” ruminates Foxtrot.
Through his Instagram, Foxtrot helps to raise money and awareness of the crisis the Rohingya people are facing while reaching people the WFP wouldn’t normally be able to reach.
Even though he’s just a small dog, he has a big job. An inspired and happy volunteer worker is an effective one, and for the Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar, a reason to smile is a very valuable thing.
Credit: WFP
If you’d like to donate to Foxtrot and the team of World Food Program heroes in Bangladesh, just head here.
Howl Your Praise For Foxtrot By Sharing This Story On Social Media…
A lot of entrepreneurial energy has been thrown into using algae as a replacement for petroleum-based plastics in the creation of consumer goods, and now some California researchers have applied this technology to one of the ocean’s greatest polluting burdens—flip flops.
Credit: Stephen Mayfield, UC San Diego
The world’s most popular shoe, the flip flop accounts for a huge amount of plastic waste that ends up in the ocean: Some models have suggested they account for a quarter of all plastic in our seas.
UC San Diego partnered with the startup company Algenesis Materials to produce a commercial grade polyurethane foam from algae oil to create a sturdy flip flop that will biodegrade in around 16 weeks.
With a biomass content of around 52%, the flip flops are still entirely biodegradable, but that hasn’t stopped the collaboration from looking to create a 100% biomass shoe.
“People are coming around on plastic ocean pollution and starting to demand products that can address what has become an environmental disaster,” said Tom Cooke, president of Algenesis, to UCSD news. “We happen to be at the right place at the right time.”
A biological loop
In testing to see whether or not the polyurethane algae flip flops would degrade, Steven Mayfield, professor of biology at UC San Diego, and his team buried them in compost and normal soil.
Having discovered the 16-week decomposition time frame, Mayfield et al. also discovered that the varieties of bacteria and other microorganisms that were working to break down the shoe left parts of it intact in a way that would allow them to be reused.
“We took the enzymes from the organisms degrading the foams and showed that we could use them to depolymerize these polyurethane products,” said Mayfield. “We then showed that we could isolate the depolymerized products and use those to synthesize new polyurethane monomers, completing a ‘bioloop.’”
Monomers and polymers refer to the molecular structures that make up plastic.
“Our polyurethane can be used for foam cushions in chair seats or car seats, padding in luggage straps, yoga mats, foam insulation, and even car tires,” Mayfield told Digital Trends.
The hard work of the scientists like Mayfield, and the manufacturers at Algensis, led to the establishment of the Center for Renewable Materials at UC San Diego, which focuses on the development of sustainable solutions to consumer plastic pollution using algae.
Pass The Positivity On By Sharing This Fascinating Story With Your Friends On Social Media…
Quote of the Day: “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” Rabindranath Tagore
Photo: by Gary Bendig
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?
Weddings are meant to be joyous celebrations. Of course, even the best-laid plans can run into a snag or two, but when Texas couple Carlos Muniz and Grace Leimann were confronted with the ultimate wedding crasher—COVID-19—it looked as if their dreams for a shared future were about to be shattered. Thanks, however, to the inspired intervention of one caring nurse and his co-workers, tragedy was averted.
Rather than partying with bachelor pals during the week of his scheduled wedding, the groom found himself fighting what looked to be a losing battle with coronavirus in San Antonio’s Methodist Hospital ICU. Hooked up to an ECMO machine (an advanced form of life support), Muniz’s condition continued to steadily decline.
After learning of his patient’s derailed nuptials, nurse Matt Holdridge was immediately struck with an idea shot straight from Cupid’s bow. The original ceremony might have been scuttled, but why not organize a wedding for Muniz and Leimann in the hospital instead?
“The ball just kind of got rolling from there,” Holdridge said in an interview with CNN. “A lot of people started volunteering for it. Before you knew it, every nurse in the unit knew about it and was trying to figure out ways to make it more special.”
For many critically ill patients, having a positive frame of mind can sometimes be as integral a component to recovery as medical treatment. As it turned out, giving Muniz the extra incentive of matrimony proved to be just what the doctor—or in this case, nurse—ordered.
With the wedding back on, Muniz rallied remarkably. “We were able to remove his feeding tube and he was able to eat on his own and drink on his own,” Holdridge reported. “Everything about his overall picture got better and better.”
The couple tied the socially-distanced knot with a bedside ceremony held on August 11. Leimann wore a traditional white dress accessorized with a matching veil and hospital mask. Muniz, along with best man Holdridge, sported matching tuxedo T-shirts. Rather than the bride walking down the aisle, the groom was wheeled in—bed and all—to the accompaniment of stirring music by a wedding party of elated hospital staffers.
It’s been said that “marriage is about two people and weddings are for everyone else.” Nowhere could that adage have been more true than on this particular occasion.
Holdridge told CNN that planning and bringing off such an uplifting event in these trying times proved to be a huge morale booster not just for the happy couple, but for the entire hospital staff as well. “We needed that just as much as they did,” he admitted.
Guess it just goes to show that even in the age of Coronavirus, sometimes love really does conquer all.
WATCH the beautiful wedding below…
SPREAD The Love By Sharing This Story On Social Media
Just over two years since Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC) promoted their ’25 Most Wanted’ list of ‘lost species’, a series of rediscoveries has reduced that number down to 20.
On expeditions around the world, in recent months scientists have been going into the deepest jungles, and to the remotest parts of various countries, all in the name of preserving biodiversity.
Take a look at the charismatic flora and fauna that are now known to still be with us, and celebrate these fascinating finds.
From ‘Lost’ to Found
1. Jackson’s Climbing Salamander
Last Seen: 1975. Rediscovered: 2017
Credit: Carlos Vásquez Almazán
The first species on the 25 Most Wanted list to be rediscovered happened by complete accident, and actually occured months before a GWC-planned expedition to Guatemala’s Cuchumatanes Mountain range to look for the animal.
Discovered by a guard at the GWC-founded Finca San Isidro Amphibian Reserve while on patrol, the story of the “golden wonder” rediscovery will make your heart swell with joy, and includes the culmination of herpetologist Carlos Vásquez Almazán’s life’s work, as well as the rediscovery of two other lost salamander species in the process.
Long and gold like crystallized honey, with a black racing stripe down its back, the salamander’s rediscovery was “for me personally… a moment of sheer joy,” says Vasquez.
2. Wallace’s Giant Bee
Last Seen: 1981. Rediscovered: 2019
38 years is a long time to go without seeing the world’s largest species of bee, one that possesses a wingspan of 2.5 inches. Four times larger than the European honey bee, this giant insect was rediscovered in 2019 on the Indonesian islands known as the North Moluccas.
You can hear the passion in Clay Bolt, the man responsible for its rediscovery, when he spoke to GWC about what it was like to scratch the second species off the 25 Most Wanted List.
“It was absolutely breathtaking to see this ‘flying bulldog’ of an insect that we weren’t sure existed anymore, to have real proof right there in front of us in the wild,” said Bolt, who spent years researching the right habitat type with trip partner, Eli Wyman.
“To actually see how beautiful and big the species is in life, to hear the sound of its giant wings thrumming as it flew past my head, was just incredible. My dream is to now use this rediscovery to elevate this bee to a symbol of conservation in this part of Indonesia, and a point of pride for the locals there.”
3. Velvet Pitcher Plant
Last Seen: 1918. Rediscovery: 2019.
Illustration credit: Originally published in Danser, B.H. 1928
As mentioned above, this species disappeared from the scientific record just as quickly as it entered. Hailing from the bizarre world of carnivorous plants, the velvet pitcher plant was rediscovered in May 2019 on the slopes of a mountain called Kemul, which GWC describes as sitting in the “most remote, last-remaining large patch of true wilderness in Borneo.”
4. Silver-Backed Chevrotain
Last Seen: 1990. Rediscovery: 2019.
Credit: Global Wildlife Conservation
Knocking three species off the 25 Most Wanted list in a year, GWC was delighted when they were able to confirm the existence of the aptly-named “fanged mouse deer”—the first mammal on the list to be rediscovered.
Scientists know almost nothing about the general ecology or conservation status of this species, making it one of the highest mammal conservation priorities in the Greater Annamite Mountains of Indochina, one of GWC’s focal wildlands.
Using local knowledge, the GWC-backed research team placed camera traps around areas where locals claimed to have seen a chevrotain with a silver stripe down its back, distinguishing it from the lesser mouse deer, which is far more common.
This resulted in 275 photos of the species. The team then set up another 29 cameras in the same area, this time recording 1,881 photographs of the chevrotain over five months.
5. Somali Sengi
Last Seen: 1968. Rediscovered: 2020.
Credit: Steven Heritage at Global Wildlife Conservation
The discovery, as GNN reports, of the “tiny elephant shrew” marks the first African animal on the 25 Most Wanted list to be found, as well as the only one to be found living in relatively stable and healthy populations.
A distant relative of goliaths like the manatee and elephant, this tiny incarnation of trunked-mammals races around as fast as an olympic sprinter, vacuuming up ants with its nose in much the same way as the aardvark.
An expedition beginning in 2019 looked to utilize local knowledge about the sengi from the people of Djibouti, rather than the country of the sengi’s namesake. The locals got it completely right, and it took only one trap filled with coconut, peanut butter, and yeast to find the little guy.
“It was amazing,” Steven Heritage, a research scientist at Duke University in the US, told the Guardian. “When we opened the first trap and saw the little tuft of hair on the tip of its tail, we just looked at one another and couldn’t believe it. A number of small mammal surveys since the 1970s did not find the Somali sengi in Djibouti—it was serendipitous that it happened so quickly for us.”
Looking forward
Using renowned and talented artists to help depict the 25 Most Wanted on the GWC website, the conservation charity tries to portray the animals as works of art, and their potential extinction as akin to losing a priceless painting or sculpture.
GWC is currently awaiting a DNA test result to confirm whether or not the Fernandina Galapagos Giant Tortoise can become the first reptile on the list to be rediscovered. So who knows? Soon that Most Wanted list may go down to just 19.
SHARE News Of These Fab Five Finds With Your Friends On Social Media…
After six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a body of scientific work is emerging that shows our immune system is capable of remembering COVID-19 and producing a lasting immunity.
This immunology work also supports the theory of cross-protection, whereby the body can mount a timely and appropriate defense on the simple inference that Sars-CoV-2 is a lot like other coronaviruses.
Over the course of the pandemic, medical fears have been shaped as much by what the future holds in terms of second waves and mutations during the cold of winter, as by what has been happening in the world at any particular moment.
However, studies both peer-reviewed and not, are seeing positive changes in the human innate immune response to COVID-19 that suggest the diseases’ days of unfettered infection are numbered.
For example, in one peer reviewed study from Nature, immunologists in Singapore studied the cellular memory of T-cells, an important immune cell that weaponizes other immune responses in addition to tracking and eliminating pathogens on their own.
People with or recovering from COVID-19 displayed immediate memory T-cell activation to the virus’ proteins.
People with an infection history—going back as far as 17 years—of SARS-CoV-1 which emerged in China around 2002-2003, had long-lasting memory T-cell responses that ”displayed robust cross-reactivity to the N protein of SARS-CoV-2.”
And, perhaps most interesting, SARS-CoV-2-specific memory T-cell activation was found “in individuals with no history of SARS, COVID-19 or contact with individuals who had SARS and/or COVID-19.”
The last point is certainly enough to give us hope. And yet more positive research emerges.
Antibody Activation
Another study, this one not yet peer-reviewed, found that the response of antibodies—one of the primary classes of immune cells used to defend against pathogens—stayed active in saliva up to 115 days after the onset of symptoms in COVID-19 patients.
While antibody and T-cell responses in the blood have been extensively studied, this work, published in the preprint publication, has been one of the first to look at responses in mucus cells. The scientists note this is an important area of research since the virus infects in the upper respiratory tract.
“The immune response is doing exactly what we would expect it to,” Gommerman, an immunologist at the University of Toronto who worked on the study, told CNN. “At least at about four months, which is, as far as, most of us can measure at this point in the pandemic.”
Work on yet another kind of immune cell, the ‘helper’ T-cell as opposed to the ‘killer’ T-cell, was completed earlier in the year when several studies published in Nature and Science found that the helpers could also, more than half the time, identify COVID-19 and sound the alarm, and that these helpers were present in patients that had never been exposed to COVID-19.
The evidence of re-infection is, at this point, non-existent, which suggests humanity’s collective immune system is working well to combat it.
“So that is all good news,” Gommerman said. ”That means that people who are infected with this novel coronavirus should have the capacity to mount what’s called a memory immune response to protect themselves against infection.”
Need more positive stories and updates coming out of the COVID-19 challenge? For more uplifting coverage, click here.
SHARE the Hopeful Immunity News With Friends And Family On Social Media…
This is the heartening moment a tiny premature baby helped his dad propose to his mom on the hospital ward.
Credit: SWNS
Little Cobie Sellors was born ten weeks early, weighing just 3lb 9oz, and it was a tricky time for his parents Sian Stafford and John Sellors.
Unable to introduce him to family and friends due to COVID-19 restrictions, romantic John enlisted the help of his two-day-old son and the nurses to help him surprise Sian.
On August 3 popped a note in Cobie’s incubator alongside the engagement ring, asking if ‘Mummy would marry Daddy’.
Sian was so overwhelmed at seeing her son had been able to stop using his breathing machine, at first she didn’t notice the note—but of course eventually said yes.
John, from Pinxton in Derbyshire, England said, “I’m not usually the romantic type, but I really wanted to do something to lift Sian’s spirits and she had been dropping hints for a while about wanting to get married.
“The nurses were great and really helped make it a special proposal to remember,” added the 29-year-old new father. “They just told me to take Sian for a coffee and that they would sort it out for when we got back.
“When we got back the message and ring were there and it was such a lovely moment, I can’t thank them enough.”
Credit: SWNS
The 26-year-old woman said, “I was so shocked, I really didn’t expect it and I was really overwhelmed.
“I was concentrating so much on Cobie that I didn’t even notice the note and the ring at first!
“But then John said, ‘look, I think Cobie wants to know something!’ Then I read the note and it was such a surreal but happy moment.”
The pair, who have a daughter Ruby, four, have been together for eight years. They’re going to start planning the wedding once they have Cobie safely home.
Lynsey Lord, a deputy sister on the neonatal ward at Mansfield’s King’s Mill Hospital, helped with the planning of the surprise proposal. She said, “It’s not often we get the chance to be involved in a proposal on the unit and this was certainly a first for me, but it was so lovely to see the family all so happy, especially during what has been such a difficult time for everyone.”
Have you heard of a proposal as sweet as this one? We’d love to hear about it.
Send This Romantic Story To Your Friends By Sharing It On Social Media…
Quote of the Day: “Be positive, stay strong, and get enough rest. You can’t do it all, but you can do your best.” – Doe Zantamata
Photo: by Shifaaz shamoon
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?
It looks like the frequency of charitable giving by individuals in the US is continuing—and even increasing—during the economic uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic.
The report from Lending Tree reported that about two-thirds of respondents said they had not changed their charitable giving habits from previous years—with 34% donating more than once within the last year.
The report also uncovered increases in forms of giving which aren’t usually recorded due to the inability to write them off on income taxes. These included donating to a local relief fund (13%) and sending money to a loved one who was laid off (12%).
56% said they make recurring donations, meaning they donate to the same charity or organization once a month or more often.
The generosity was impressive when it involved people they knew personally who are affected by the lockdowns: “Some consumers (30%) continue to pay for services they can’t use due to social distancing guidelines, like housekeeping and babysitting.”
There was a lot of public debate before the first U.S. stimulus package was passed about whether people who had monetary means or property would—upon recognizing the gravity of the financial blow the country was about to receive—continue to support people who relied on them for their livelihoods.
The survey shows that many did indeed choose to make sure person-to-person service providers did not fall on hard times.
The CARES Act, the first COVID-19 stimulus package, encouraged donations by allowing regular household earners to write-off anything larger than $300 from their income tax total without requiring them to go through the process of itemizing their deductions.
Heavy duty giving – up a whopping 667%
While personal charity is a great marker to judge how charitable a society is, it’s equally amazing to note that large-scale corporate giving actually increased during 2020.
In June, Fidelity Charitable, the largest organizer of donor-advised funds (DAFs)—a kind of charitable savings account—reported that these funds have donated $3.4 billion in 2020, a 28% increase in giving in the first six months, over the same period over the previous year.
Together the donors directed a whopping 667% increase in their grants to food banks and other food assistance programs across the States.
In June, Good News Network reported that Schwab Charitable alone saw a 46% increase in DAF grants, totaling $1.7 billion across 330,000 separate grants, it was the most generous period of giving recorded in the history of one of America’s largest philanthropic funds.
“The last six months have been incredibly challenging, and I am truly inspired to see donors utilize their donor-advised funds to help communities and nonprofits impacted by health, economic, and social crises,” says Kim Laughton, President of Schwab Charitable.
Washington Examiner also reported on a statistic that found DAFs managed in 32 different community foundations in 21 different states “reported an 80 percent increase in donations… from March to May, compared with the same period last year.”
This is a heartening reminder once again that the United States has some very generous citizens, despite COVID-19 concerns.
Need more positive stories and updates coming out of the COVID-19 challenge? For more uplifting coverage, click here.
GIVING Your Friends Some Good News on Social Media Could Contribute to Their Well-Being…
A man in South Carolina learned how to cook by watching YouTube videos, and now he’s gone on to open a restaurant that has employed 60 people.
Octavius “Tay” Nelson grew up washing dishes in restaurants where his father served as cook. He always saw the joy that his dad’s food brought to so many people outside their family.
After his father and brother passed away, Nelson wanted to honor their memory by engaging in that shared passion for food. The problem? Nelson didn’t know how to cook.
Turning to YouTube, he watched endless “how to” videos to gain kitchen skills.
“I watched every video I could find,” Octavius tells GNN. In that way, he says, I “learned everything from how to cook different types of meat to business-related tips on how to run a restaurant.”
At home in Fountain Inn, South Carolina, Nelson eventually launched a line of all-natural seasonings inspired by his father’s recipes, but his ultimate dream was to open a restaurant. So he turned back to YouTube to search everything he needed to know about running a food business.
Through using the skills he learned on YouTube, Nelson started a catering business. He finally made his dream of opening a restaurant come true in 2018.
Bobby’s BBQ, named after his father and brother, has provided dozens of jobs for his community, and more than 35,000 people have come to taste his barbecue rubbed with the house-made seasonings.
”We are incredibly grateful that we’ve managed to keep our doors open through this pandemic, so we can continue to have a positive impact on our community, as well as keeping our staff employed.”
(WATCH Bobby’s amazing story in the video below.)
DELIVER The Delicious Inspiration to Hungry Friends On Social Media…
Joining a number of high-profile species rediscoveries in the last two years, a tiny elephant shrew—also known as the Somali sengi—has been found to still be with us, and in quite healthy numbers too.
Credit: Steven Heritage at Global Wildlife
Despite not being documented by researchers since 1968, the sengi, a tiny big-eyed mouse with a long tail and a trunk-like nose that’s native to Somalia, was rediscovered living in well-preserved habitat in neighboring Djibouti, and in relatively-stable populations.
An expedition beginning in 2019 looked to utilize local knowledge about the sengi from the people of Djibouti who said it was still there. Sure enough, it took only one trap filled with coconut, peanut butter and yeast to find the little guy.
“It was amazing,” Steven Heritage, a research scientist at Duke University in the US, told the Guardian. “When we opened the first trap and saw the little tuft of hair on the tip of its tail, we just looked at one another and couldn’t believe it. A number of small mammal surveys since the 1970s did not find the Somali sengi in Djibouti—it was serendipitous that it happened so quickly for us.”
A distant relative of goliaths like the manatee and elephant, this tiny incarnation of trunked-mammals races around, vacuuming up ants with its nose in much the same way as the aardvark.
Correcting The Record
One of the least understood members of the 20 species-strong elephant shrew genus, the sengi lives in habitat that is unsuitable to most human activities, allowing it to remain relatively undisturbed and secure.
“Usually when we rediscover lost species, we find just one or two individuals and have to act quickly to try to prevent their imminent extinction,” said Robin Moore, of the Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC) group, who had placed the Somali sengi on their 25-Most Wanted List of missing species.
According to the Guardian, the team set out 1,000 traps and caught 12 of the little shrews while obtaining the first video and photographic documentation of the animal for science.
Along with rediscovering the species, the team gathered DNA samples which later revealed the Somali sengi to be more closely related to sengis in other corners of the continent like Morocco and South Africa.
This finding has suggested that the Somali sengi needs to be placed in a new genus—moving from Elephantulus to Galegeeska.
Like all great discoveries in science, the questions answered are only equal to the new mysteries presented, but the researchers’ work has highlighted Djibouti as a biodiverse nation worthy of scientific study. With any luck, perhaps more discoveries are waiting to be made among its desert and salt lakes.
SHARE The Good News From Africa With Your Friends On Social Media…
What do you do when a stray dog shows up at your car dealership day after day? You give him a job, of course. Or at least, that’s what you do if you’re Emerson Mariano, a Hyundai Prime branch manager in Brazil.
Instagram
Mariano and his staff had taken a shine to a member of Brazil’s roving dog contingent who’d gotten in the habit of making regular visits. One rainy night the steadfast stray was invited to come in from the streets.
Little did the drenched pooch realize as he munched an impromptu meal, he’d found his “furever” home. But as far as the management was concerned, throwing the dog a lifeline instead of merely tossing him a bone only made sense.
“The company has always been pet friendly,” Mariano told Top Motors Brazil. “We decided to embrace this idea in practice too,” he said, citing the need for both heightened awareness and positive intervention to help curb Brazil’s growing population of abandoned animals.
After his adoption, the newly christened Tucson Prime was given the title of “Official Meeter & Greeter.” The staff says his “caring and docile nature” made him a natural for the role, but the persistent pup has already set his sights on climbing the corporate ladder.
In addition to his concierge duties, Tucson Prime is honing his marketing skills with regular posts to his “very own” Instagram account. While his musings have made him something of an Internet sensation, the handsome hound remains doggedly humble.
“Where I came from,” the doggo blogger reports, “I didn’t have this technology. Me and my humans are still trying to find a way to deal with so much love and affection.” (While he and his crew haven’t worked out all the deets, the caring canine is determined to answer all of his fan mail.)
Quote of the Day: “One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.” – Rita Mae Brown
Photo: by Matthew T Rader
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?
‘Fake it till you make it’ is an aphorism that suggests that by imitating confidence or an optimistic mindset, a person can realize those qualities in their real life.
A new study from researchers at the University of South Australia have confirmed that the very act of smiling by simply moving your facial muscles, can actually trick your mind into being more positive.
The study, published in Experimental Psychology, evaluated the impact of a covert smile on perception of face and body expressions. In both scenarios, a smile was induced by participants holding a pen between their teeth, forcing their facial muscles to replicate the movement of a smile.
Credit: Cherie Joyful
The results found that facial muscular activity generates more positive emotions.
Lead researcher and human and artificial cognition expert, UniSA’s Dr Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos says the finding has important insights for mental health.
“When your muscles say you’re happy, you’re more likely to see the world around you in a positive way,” Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says.
“In our research we found that when you forcefully practice smiling, it stimulates the amygdala—the emotional centre of the brain—which releases neurotransmitters to encourage an emotionally positive state.
“For mental health, this has interesting implications. If we can trick the brain into perceiving stimuli as ‘happy’, then we can potentially use this mechanism to help boost mental health.”
The study replicated findings from an older ‘covert’ smile experiment by evaluating how people interpret a range of facial expressions (spanning from frowns to smiles) using the pen-in-teeth mechanism. It then extended this using point-light motion images (spanning from sad walking videos to happy walking videos) as the visual stimuli.
Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says there is a strong link between action and perception.
“In a nutshell, perceptual and motor systems are intertwined when we emotionally process stimuli,” Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says.
“A ‘fake it ’til you make it’ approach could have more credit than we expect.”
