This devoted dad drove more than 1,000 miles round trip just so he could spend half an hour with his daughter and wish her a happy birthday during lockdown.
53-year-old Julio Cesar Segura spent 17 hours on the road driving across Texas from El Paso to Austin and back so he could join his daughter, Diana Segura Lerma, for a socially distant lunch on her 19th birthday.
The realtor drove 8 and a half hours each way for a total of 1,152 miles on May 8th.
Segura called his daughter to wish her a happy birthday and pretended he was simply out ordering her favorite takeaway lunch—a chicken sandwich from fast food chain Chick-fil-A.
“He told me that since he couldn’t do much he wanted to know what I’d like for lunch and he would send an Uber Eats order,” said Lerma. “So I texted him what I wanted—the chicken fillet sandwich with pepperjack cheese, buffalo sauce and mayonnaise.
“He brings me that sandwich for lunch on my birthday every year—so far, he hasn’t missed a year,” she added.
SWNS
What Lerma didn’t know was that her dad had actually woken up at 3:30am to get on the road in time to surprise her with the same birthday lunch she has every year.
“I left my house at 4:15am. I was missing her and I wanted to give her a surprise,” said Segura. “I decided to go the day before. I love her and I wanted to make sure she had a good birthday.”
After placing the sandwich order with her father, Lerma opened the door to her apartment building expecting to find a delivery driver—instead, she was amazed to find her dad standing outside with balloons and a happy birthday sign in hand.
“He showed up with the food and a poster board and balloons,” recalled Lerma. “I was so excited. I haven’t seen him in months, since winter break. I didn’t think that I would see him again until August.
“He has always been someone who loves gestures, but I never imagined he would do this in a pandemic.”
Segura and Lerma then enjoyed their meal outside, all while respecting social distancing guidelines and sitting six feet away from each other.
Quote of the Day: “Never tell me the odds.” – Han Solo, in The Empire Strikes Back(premiered 40 years ago today)
Photo: by Rupert Britton, public domain
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In Asia, elephants working in the tourist trade have been idled by the COVID-19 worldwide shutdowns. It’s not cheap to feed elephants, especially when they’re not bringing in income for their owners to feed properly.
Thankfully, Carol Buckley and her organization Elephant Aid International (EAI) have created a win-win-win solution for tourist trade elephants and farmers in Nepal.
Over the course of the last decade, EAI has been striving to improve the treatment of elephants in captivity by working directly with elephant owners, government officials, charities, tourist facilities, and elephant welfare groups. The organization is also in the midst of launching a new elephant sanctuary in North America so pachyderms being released from captivity can finally have a place to retire.
More recently, the group has been working in the Nepali province of Sauraha, which is known as the gateway to Chitwan National Park—the nation’s first national park famous for its majestic wildlife, including tigers, rhinos, and elephants. Since thousands of tourists visit the park each year, the region maintains a healthy tourist trade.
Now that there are no tourists amidst the novel coronavirus outbreaks, however, elephant owners were quoted in the Kathmandu Post saying that they have been having difficulty finding food for their elephants, which could have disastrous short- and long-term consequences for the pachyderms.
Ordinarily, privately-owned elephants are prohibited from entering the park—but after Buckley alerted the Nepali government to the predicament, the ban was lifted so the elephants could graze during the day.
The elephants are still prohibited from being in the park at night—and since elephants normally spend about 20 hours a day eating, their owners were left with the challenge of finding enough food for them to eat at night.
Buckley then assembled a team of Nepalis and together they came up with a simple, but elegant solution.
Because of the COVID-19 lockdown, local farmers have had no one to harvest the produce growing in their fields. Rather than being forced to let the food rot, Buckley and her team found farmers who were willing to sell their produce, arranged for workers to harvest the food, and then delivered it to the delighted elephants and their owners.
Now that the elephants are fed and the local farmers are generating income, Buckley plans on continuing the initiative for as long as necessary.
“I have provided assistance to the elephants of Sauraha for 10 years. Seeing them enjoy the delicious produce is heartwarming,” Buckley told Good News Network in an email.
“Working together with the farmers, locals, and mahouts has improved the lives of these hard working elephants,” she added. “It is a joy to know that our efforts are pleasing to the elephants and their mahouts.”
To learn more about EAI, you can visit the organization’s Facebook page or website.
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Photo by Elephant Aid International
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Although many restaurants have struggled to stay afloat during the coronavirus pandemic, many of them have also found innovative ways to stay in business while serving their communities—in California alone, the state is now paying restaurants to deliver food to seniors in need.
Now, chefs around the country are seizing the moment by keeping restaurants open while simultaneously delivering food to those who need it most.
The newly-launched “Restaurants for the People” initiative was launched by World Central Kitchen (WCK): a Washington DC-based charity whose “Food First Responders” program has already served millions of meals to people in dire circumstances around the world.
Internationally-recognized Chef José Andrés founded the organization after visiting post-earthquake Haiti in 2010. Over the course of the last WCK has made headlines for feeding furloughed workers during the US government shutdown, first responders fighting the California wildfires, hurricane-ravaged communities, and—more recently—people struggling amidst the COVID-19 crisis.
WCK is now promising to cover the costs of one million meals prepared by more than 400 restaurants across the United States. Since the nonprofit will reimburse restauranteurs at a rate of about $10 per meal, the businesses will able to rehire staff members in order to help prepare the meals while WCK handles the delivery logistics.
Among the restaurants involved is Reem’s California, a famous Oakland-based Middle Eastern bakery owned by Reem Assil, who told The Washington Post that her kitchen is “serving anywhere from 200 to 500 meals a day, and growing, to vulnerable populations and first responders.”
A tiny West African eatery in Washington DC called District Chop Bar, which has only had three full-time employees in its two years of existence, has even been able to hire more part-time staff as a result of its partnership with WCK.
So far, WCK’s various #ChefsForAmerica programs have worked with a total of 1,500 restaurants across the U.S. and injected $18 million into the beleaguered industry. The charity has committed $50 million to its COVID relief programs, and is hoping that its programs will serve as a model to governments.
“Our hope is that we can show that this works and get the powers that be, in our state governments and our federal governments, to recognize that this is a solution,” WCK chief executive Nate Mook told The Post. “We have people we need to feed. We have restaurants that we need to put back to work, and we’re showing that this is doable, that it’s scalable.”
In the meantime, WCK’s relief team launched operations on the Navajo Nation this week. The indigenous reservation has been hit particularly hard hit by the pandemic, and Jose Andreas himself is on the ground, helping his organization get meals to people in hard to reach communities.
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(WATCH the video below)
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Captain Thomas Moore—the WWII veteran who captured hearts around the world after successfully raising millions of dollars for healthcare workers fighting the novel coronavirus—has been officially knighted by the Queen of England in honor of his incredible campaign.
Moore originally started walking around the his back garden on April 6th with the intention of raising just £1,000 solely by doing 100 laps before his 100th birthday on April 30th.
Over the course of just one month, however, Moore’s fundraiser topped a whopping £32 million ($40 million) for NHS Charities Together—a new Guinness World Record for money raised on behalf of the healthcare system.
In recognition of his awe-inspiring achievement on his 100th birthday, the war veteran was officially promoted from the rank of captain to honorary colonel in a letter presented by Lt. Col Thomas Miller and approved by Her Majesty the Queen.
More than 1 million people from around the world also signed a petition to have him knighted—but despite all the appreciation and praise, Moore remained humble during his birthday celebration with the press and requested that they end the event with a round of applause for healthcare workers.
Thanks to a special nomination from Prime Minister Boris Johnson which was approved by Queen Elizabeth II this week, however, the veteran’s official new title is Captain Sir Thomas Moore.
2/2 This started as something small and I’ve been overwhelmed by the gratitude and love from the British public and beyond.
We must take this opportunity to recognise our frontline heroes of the National Health Service who put their lives at risk every day to keep us safe.'
— Captain Tom Moore (@captaintommoore) May 20, 2020
Since the news was officially declared on social media, millions of people have been using the hashtag #SirCaptainTomMoore to celebrate his achievement.
“On behalf of everyone who has been moved by his incredible story, I want to say a huge thank you. He’s a true national treasure,” said Prime Minister Johnson.
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(WATCH the captain’s heartwarming response the news below)
The British Columbian government has managed to provide housing for more than 200 homeless Canadians while simultaneously bringing economic support to struggling hotels during the COVID-19 crisis.
This week, provincial legislators purchased the Comfort Inn Hotel in Victoria for $18.5 million as a means of sheltering homeless people living in street encampments amidst the pandemic.
In addition to the hotel being equipped with 65 rooms for temporary accommodations, the province is also rehiring laid-off hotel workers to help manage the facility
“Often people experiencing homelessness are not able to access the support and services they need,” said Shane Simpson, Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. “The purchase of the Comfort Inn, combined with medical and social supports, will help people make the transition from the street to permanent housing.”
This is not the first facility that the province has purchased to accommodate homeless people. In the city of Prince Rupert, the province purchased the former Raffles Inn motel in order to convert it it into a permanent supportive housing building with up to 48 units, each with private washrooms, showers and mini kitchens. Once complete, the building will have the capacity for a 35-space temporary shelter or an extreme weather response shelter by 2021.
Both of these purchases are part of a province-wide mission to build roughly 3,300 new affordable housing units for seniors, Indigenous people, low-income families, women and children escaping abuse, students, and people experiencing—or at risk of—homelessness.
According to the BC Housing Twitter page, 289 rough sleepers have already been moved into temporary housing for the duration of the pandemic.
“This is a substantial investment in our community and will provide housing for those who need it most,” says Lisa Helps, mayor of the city of Victoria. “This site has significant redevelopment potential to provide a range of affordable housing in the long term. I look forward to working with the community and with BC Housing to determine the long-term use of this site.”
People will have access to services such as meals, health-care services, addictions treatment and harm reduction, storage for personal belongings and other supports, including 24/7 staffing to provide security to residents of the building and the surrounding neighborhood.
After spending several months in self-isolation with their kids, some parents might be running out of ideas on how to keep their kids entertained for the remainder of quarantine.
Thankfully, IKEA has published a set of how-to guides for the perfect family activity: building blanket forts.
Now just like every other set of IKEA furniture, there is some assembly required—but the Swedish company made sure to include illustrated instructions for each of their designs.
Photo by IKEA Russia
The Russian IKEA Instagram page published 6 blanket fort designs earlier this month, all of which can be made using such household items as pillows, chairs, tables, standing lamps, laundry pins, and—of course—blankets.
Photo by IKEA Russia
The designs range from classically modern blanket structures—like the Höuse and the Cåmping Tent—to more fantastical setups like the Cåstle and the Förtress. For a more outdoorsy housing design, blanket architects could try building the Wigwåm or the Cåve.
Photo by IKEA Russia
Although IKEA used a lot of their own furniture products for the designs, they did encourage parents to replace them with whatever home furnishings and supplies are at their disposal.
Photo by IKEA Russia
IKEA Russia developed the blanket fort illustrations in collaboration with advertising agency Instinct as a means of encouraging families to stay at home during quarantine—because after all, who doesn’t love blanket forts?
Photo by IKEA Russia
If you’ve also happened to work up an appetite from building your elaborate blanket fort structure, IKEA also released a recipe for Swedish meatballs so that families in quarantine could enjoy the delicacy from home.
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Quote of the Day: “There’s hope in being united. When I look down at the planet, it’s just a big beautiful spaceship that has 7 billion astronauts on it.” – NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy
Photo: by NASA, public domain
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“Springtime in Ha Giang” by @thongnguyengallery — Hmong girls on the side of the road in Vietnam.
“Flower bloom” captured by Jörg Petermann in Lago di Sorapis, Italy.
As flowers bloom and the weather warms for the coming of spring, photographers from all over the world were asked to capture the essence of the season in an international photography contest—and the finalists are all dazzling.
“Spring brings smiles and happiness” captured by Kate Omely in Moscow, Russia.
The contest was held by Agora: a free-to-use photography app with a global community of more than 3.5 million users from 193 countries.
“Spring in the desert” captured by Ester Turri in Petra, Jordania.
“Spring touches” by Tamzeed Alam Token — An Indian Paradise Flycatcher in the scorching heat of India.
“Spring is the symbol of life and rebirth in all civilizations, a time when seeds come to life and flood our beloved Earth with colors,” said Agora CEO and co-founder Octavi Royo. “Through Agora, we get the opportunity to discover the best images of this wonderful period of the year—enjoy the show!”
“Spring: the ideal time to transplant” by Mari Carmen Ruiz from Palma, Spain.
This striking photo of a group of Vietnamese lily pad harvesters was voted the winner of the competition after the photographer, Tran Quang Quy, beat finalists from 19 other countries around the world.
The winning photograph “Water lily season” by Tran Quang Quy depicting water lily harvesters in Hannoi, Vietnam.
“With this photo, I wanted to show the beauty of Vietnamese culture to the world,” said Quy, who was rewarded $1,000 for his winning photograph. “This group of friends were all wearing an ‘Ao Dai’, Vietnam’s national garment.
“This outfit is inseparable from the image of Vietnamese women, both within Vietnam and beyond its borders, and especially at official ceremonies, conferences, and weddings,” he continued. “In this poetic setting with blooming flowers floating on the river, the authentic bamboo bridge symbolizes the connection between the past and the present.”
“Valley of flowers” by Nguyen Tung Viet — “With a total area of up to 7,000 square meters, the West Lake flower valley is like a garden of Eden in the heart of Hanoi, Vietnam.”
Although Quy’s photo was declared the winner by Agora’s online photography community, several other breathtaking entries from Vietnam were nominated as finalists as well.
“Watering flowers” captured by Bùi Gia Phú in Mỹ Tho, Vietnam.
Meanwhile in Italy, photographer Mary Bassani managed to capture a snapshot of a peaceful-looking fox that almost seemed to be smiling as it sat among a field of tall lavender.
“I was photographing blue magpies, and suddenly this beautiful red fox appeared from the bushes,” said Bassani. “The fox is one of my favorite animals and I never imagined seeing it in these circumstances, surrounded by lavender flowers. It was an exciting day.”
“A beautiful red fox smelling the lavender perfume” by Mary Bassani in Castilla y León, Spain.
One of the competition’s Greek photographers, Iro Kiorapostolou, managed to capture the moment that a honeybee moved to pollinate a sunflower in Pentapoli Serres.
“Bee” by Iro Kiorapostolou — “I was lucky to capture the moment where a bee collected the pollen from a sunflower … As I watched the whole process, I felt excitement and admiration for their work, transferring the pollen tirelessly from one flower to another.”
In another heartwarming photo from Vietnam, photographer Nguyen Huu Thong captured two young girls smiling at each other as they sat side by side, carrying on their backs huge baskets filled with yellow flowers.
“Springtime in Ha Giang” by Nguyen Huu Thong — Hmong girls on the side of the road in Vietnam.
“They had spent the afternoon picking these beautiful flowers that would be used for medicinal purposes in their tribe,” said the photographer. “Their lovely faces and beautiful smiles made me appreciate the moment.”
“Collecting waterlilies” by Azim Khan Ronnie — “If you look closely, you’ll see two umbrellas in the middle of the water lilies: they belong to two brothers who collect the flowers to sell them in the local market.”
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Scientists have come with a groundbreaking new way for blind people to “see” by delivering visual information directly to the brain, rather than through damaged eyes.
For most adults who lose their vision, blindness generally occurs as a result of damage to the eyes or optic nerve while the brain remains intact.
Researchers have long proposed a workaround to this condition by developing a device that could pass images from a camera straight to the brain, skipping the eyes in the process.
Now in a new paper published in the journal Cell, a team of investigators from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston revealed that they are one step closer to that goal.
The researchers describe an approach in which they used implanted electrodes to “trace” shapes on the surface of the visual cortex that participants were able to “see”.
“When we used electrical stimulation to dynamically trace letters directly onto patients’ brains, they were able to ‘see’ the intended letter shapes and could correctly identify different letters,” said senior author Dr. Daniel Yoshor, a professor of neurosurgery at Baylor. “They described seeing glowing spots or lines forming the letters, like skywriting.”
Previous attempts to stimulate the visual cortex have proven far less successful. Earlier methods treated each electrode like a pixel in a visual display, stimulating many of them simultaneously. Participants could detect spots of light, but found it hard to discern visual objects or forms.
Photo by Baylor College of Medicine
Study first author Professor Michael Beauchamp said: “Rather than trying to build shapes from multiple spots of light, we traced outlines. Our inspiration for this was the idea of tracing a letter in the palm of someone’s hand.”
The investigators then tested the approach in four sighted people who had electrodes implanted in their brains to monitor epilepsy, and two blind people who had electrodes implanted over their visual cortex.
Stimulation of these multiple electrodes in sequences produced perceptions of shapes that subjects were able to correctly identify as specific letters.
Researchers believe that the new approach demonstrates that it could be possible for blind people to regain the ability to detect and recognize forms, although there are many obstacles to perfecting the technique.
“The primary visual cortex, where the electrodes were implanted, contains half a billion neurons. In this study we stimulated only a small fraction of these neurons with a handful of electrodes,” said Beauchamp. “An important next step will be to work with neuroengineers to develop electrode arrays with thousands of electrodes, allowing us to stimulate more precisely.
“Together with new hardware, improved stimulation algorithms will help realize the dream of delivering useful visual information to blind people,” he concluded.
This figure illustrates how dynamic stimulation to the visual cortex enables participants to “see” shapes.
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A devoted Tennessee dad went above and beyond the call of duty in order to host a proper commencement ceremony for his daughter.
After years of working towards her bachelor’s degree in public health science, Gabrielle Pierce was devastated when she learned that she would not be able to walk across a stage to receive her diploma like she had always dreamed of.
Although Pierce graduated from the Xavier University of Louisiana in December, the school only hosts one commencement ceremony every year—so Pierce spent months waiting for her chance to walk.
When Pierce received an email from the university in mid-March about how their ceremony would be canceled amidst the COVID-19 shutdowns, she told CNN that she had been crying over the news for one week straight.
Pierce wasn’t the only one heartbroken by the cancellation; her father Torrence Burson could hardly bear to see his daughter so sad.
Rather than accept his daughter’s dream as forfeit, however, Burson became determined to host his own commencement ceremony for Pierce at their home in Memphis.
Over the course of just six weeks, Burson managed to reserve a photographer, stage, and podium without his daughter’s knowledge.
When the big day finally came, Pierce was shocked to find a full-sized stage waiting for her in her front yard. There were 40 people in attendance, all sitting six feet apart with masks on—and her father even played “Pomp and Circumstance” as she walked up to get her diploma.
“Gabrielle never saw anything until she came out to walk,” Burson told CNN. “At that moment, I didn’t have any worries. I was speechless. To see my baby walk across the stage and all her friends, family, neighbors and people that we don’t even know stopped in the street to witness this. I couldn’t ask for anything better.”
Burson’s next-door neighbor Delandrion Todd praised the father for the heartwarming initiative in a series of Facebook photos which have since been shared hundreds of times across social media.
“My next door neighbors daughter couldn’t have her official graduation due to the pandemic so he created one for her!” wrote Todd. “Now that’s a great/proud father for you. He made it happen!”
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File photo by Airman 1st Class Azaria E. Foster / US Air Force
File photo by Airman 1st Class Azaria E. Foster / US Air Force
As scientists around the world race to develop an effective vaccine for COVID-19, thousands of young people have volunteered to willingly contract the virus in order to accelerate the research process.
The “1 Day Sooner” campaign is an initiative that is rallying for healthy, low-risk adults to participate in a “human challenge trial” (HCT) for developing a novel coronavirus vaccine.
Typical medical trials test the safety and efficacy of a vaccine by administering the treatment to several thousand people and comparing the outcomes to a control group of patients who have not received the treatment.
“In these traditional trials, after receiving the treatment, participants return to their homes and their normal daily lives so as to test the treatment under real world conditions,” reads the 1 Day Sooner website. “Since only a small proportion of these participants may encounter the disease, it may take a large number of participants and a good deal of time for these trials to reveal differences between the vaccine and placebo groups.”
An HCT trial, on the other hand, could only require 100 participants to willingly contract the infection so that researchers can immediately begin to test the vaccine’s efficacy. In the past, HCT trials have been conducted on treatments for typhoid fever, cholera, smallpox, dengue, and Zika.
Although a coronavirus HCT would obviously come with its own risks, there are a few ways that researchers can minimize the dangers of the trial. For starters, the trial would likely only recruit volunteers between the ages of 20 to 45 who have no underlying health risks. Volunteers would also probably be adults with a high risk of contracting the virus outside of the trial anyway.
“Finally, study participants would be isolated in highly controlled environments under constant observation,” reads the campaign website. “If infection is detected, they would be provided with excellent medical treatment. Hopefully, pharmaceutical treatments will also be available by the time a study is conducted.”
Adults who have signed up as volunteers for the 1 Day Sooner campaign are not currently bound to any legal obligation to follow through on their offer—but the initiative has already been flooded with support. Since 1 Day Sooner began searching for potential volunteers, almost 24,000 adults across 102 countries have expressed interested in an HCT trial.
The 1 Day Sooner campaign was aptly named because of statistical models estimating that accelerating a vaccine’s approval by one day could save as many as 7,120 lives; speeding up development by three months could save as many as half a million.
Additionally, preliminary studies from two different COVID-19 vaccine trials in the UK and US have shown promising results in safely producing antibody reactions in humans—and scientists are increasingly suggesting that an HCT trial could dramatically accelerate the treatment’s approval while simultaneously weeding out unsuccessful vaccines.
Earlier this month, the World Health Organization released new guidance on how an HCT trial could be ethically justified in the case of a global pandemic. The guidelines emphasize that the participants would have to be thoroughly informed of the risks involved in the trials. For Abie Rohrig, a 20-year-old college student who signed up as a volunteer for the 1 Day Sooner campaign, the risks are worth the reward.
“I know that there are risks, and if I were to do this, and it were to go poorly, then that would be terrible, my family would be really sad,” Rohrig told CNN. “But someone has to step up. It seems like this just needs to happen.”
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(WATCH the interview with 1 Day Sooner founder Josh Morrison)
Thousands of people in US want to volunteer for Covid-19 vaccine trials. We speak with founder of 1-Day-Sooner, Josh Morrison for more pic.twitter.com/GnAJNKBuHg
Your friends and family members aren’t the only ones who may be suffering from stir-craziness in quarantine—these little birds have been missing social interaction with humans as well.
Since the Kansas City Zoo in Missouri has been closed to visitors amidst the novel coronavirus outbreaks, their resident penguins have been eagerly awaiting the return of their beloved human admirers.
As a means of keeping the penguins entertained during the facility’s closure, however, their caretakers decided to stimulate their cultural senses by taking them on a field trip to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
“Taking care of the wild animals at the Kansas City Zoo, we’re always looking for ways to enrich their lives and stimulate their days,” said zoo director and and CEO Randy Wisthoff. “And during this shutdown period, our animals really miss having visitors come out and see them.”
After allowing the birds to frolic freely around the museum, museum director and CEO Juliàn Zugazagoitia joked that the penguins “seem to react much better to Caravaggio than Monet.”
“These are Peruvian penguins so we were speaking a bit in Spanish—and they really appreciate art history,” he added.
Although this is not the first time that penguins have been allowed to roam free since the start of the pandemic, this particular video of the penguins wandering through the museum has already been viewed more than a million times since it was uploaded to social media last week.
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(WATCH the video below)
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Quote of the Day: “If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high, you’d laugh and say nothing’s that simple… I’m free.” – Pete Townshend (75 years old today)
Photo: by Peter Conlan, public domain, cropped
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On average, Americans do 4.45 charitable acts every week—more than 200 charitable acts each year, according to a new poll.
A survey of 2,000 Americans that explored their thoughts on charity found that—even more so now—Americans are ready for the task of giving back and helping others.
According to the results, over half of the respondents (55%) have “paid it forward” to a complete stranger.
The survey, conducted by OnePoll for Cooper Tires, found that Americans are much more altruistic than they may get credit for.
Not only that, but 53% of the adults report that if someone in front of them in line at the drive-thru paid for their meal, they would happily pay for the person’s meal behind them.
And a surprising 45% of those surveyed would pay for that meal even if it was double the price of the meal they originally ordered.
They would be even more likely to pay for someone’s meal if the recipient of their kindness was a first responder—results found three in four Americans (76%) say they gladly would pay for a first responder’s meal if they saw them at a restaurant.
The survey shined a light on our first responders, and it turns out Americans feel we could be doing a lot more to show our appreciation for them.
“With Public Service Recognition Week falling in May, now is the perfect time to recognize and honor our first responders,” said Jessica Egerton, Director of Brand Development at Cooper Tires.
The company has teamed up with the Gary Sinise Foundation for the second consecutive year to give back to first responders by donating new tires to fire stations and EMT departments in need across the country—making sure they can serve their communities and stay safe while doing so.
More than 7 in 10 of those surveyed (73%) agreed that they wish their community was doing much more to assist first responders in some way.
Though only half of respondents said they personally know a first responder, 77% said they’d go out of their way to thank a first responder if they saw one in public.
The survey also delved into the various charitable acts respondents are doing, beyond “paying it forward.” The results show that the average respondent will volunteer four separate times and donate $178 to charity every year.
It’s not just good for others—three in four respondents (75%) say they feel “a lot better” after donating to, or volunteering for, a cause.
According to the results, over three-quarters of Americans (78%) always make an effort to give back to their local communities, and many find it so important that they instill these same values in their children.
While donating to charities with a national impact is popular, being able to see the impact their efforts made first-hand would have 83% of Americans more likely to donate to a local charity, and 79% more likely to volunteer in their community.
Donating to a food drive (46%) was found to be the most popular way Americans “give back,” but the results point to a trend, too: 55% of those polled say they are more charitable now than they were just six months ago.
TOP 10 WAYS AMERICANS GIVE BACK TO THEIR COMMUNITY
1. Donated to food drives 46%
2. Donated to a local charity 44%
3. Supported local farmers 38%
4. Donated blood 38%
5. Participated in a local fundraiser walk or race 30%
6. Taken part in a community clean up 28%
7. Volunteered at a local senior center 25%
8. Joined a community garden 24%
9. Served meals at the food bank 21%
10. Volunteered as a firefighter 20%
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Last week, Disney announced that they would be publishing the critically-acclaimed Broadway play to their Disney Plus streaming service 15 months ahead of schedule as a means of keeping people entertained during quarantined.
“In this very difficult time, this story of leadership, tenacity, hope, love, and the power of people to unite against adversity is both relevant and inspiring,” Disney executive chairman Robert Iger wrote on Twitter. “Thank you [Lin-Manuel]!”
Prior to the announcement, the film production of Hamilton was set to hit streaming services on October 15th, 2021.
Now, however, the movie will be available to viewers on July 3rd—the day before the American Independence Day.
The movie, which was produced from segments of the hit play that were filmed at the Richard Rodgers Theater in June 2016, was reportedly directed by the musical’s stage director Thomas Kail.
The musical’s writer and lead actor Lin-Manuel Miranda welcomed the newly-announced release date on Twitter, saying that he has “never been so happy/nervous” for anything in his life.
Since the Broadway star published a teaser clip of the movie’s release to social media, it has been viewed more than 4 million times on Twitter alone.
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Portable sinks are being installed across the United States as a means of helping homeless people wash their hands amidst the novel coronavirus outbreaks.
Over the course of the last two months, Love Beyond Walls—a Georgia-based nonprofit dedicated to helping the homeless—has been setting up dozens of hand-washing stations in areas popularly visited by rough sleepers.
Terence Lester, the founder who had been homeless himself as a teenager, told Katie Couric on her new YouTube show, The Bright Side, that he started the “Love Sinks In” campaign with the hopes of supporting neglected people living in poverty during the pandemic.
“People would say things like ‘I’m fearing I’ll contract the coronavirus because I have nowhere to wash my hands’,” said Lester.
Thankfully, the group has been able to scale up their operations thanks to their support from Grammy award-winning hip hop artist Lecrae, who is also a friend of Lester’s.
Since Lecrae joined forced with the organization in March, several dozen sinks have been installed across the city of Atlanta—all of which are sanitized three times every day.
Love Beyond Walls has also teamed up with other homeless charities to install sinks in cities like Birmingham, Austin, Columbus, San Bernardino, New Orleans, Baltimore, and New York City.
Couric surprised Lester during their interview, by making a $10,000 donation that will pay for the installation of 50 more portable sinks.
Need more positive stories and updates coming out of the COVID-19 challenge? For more uplifting coverage, click here.
(WATCH The Bright Side surprise Lester, below…)
Clean Up Negativity By Sharing The Inspiring Story With Your Friends On Social Media…
It has been almost a decade since this ultra-rare species of bee was last spotted in the Florida wilderness—but conservationists are now rejoicing after it was rediscovered this spring.
First described in 2011, scientists weren’t sure the blue calamintha bee still existed. The species had only been recorded in four locations totaling just 16 square miles of pine scrub habitat at Central Florida’s Lake Wales Ridge.
Those apprehensions changed to delight in March when a Florida Museum of Natural History researcher rediscovered the metallic navy insects—a first step to conserving this understudied and imperiled species.
“I was open to the possibility that we may not find the bee at all so that first moment when we spotted it in the field was really exciting,” said Chase Kimmel, a postdoctoral researcher.
Kimmel and his adviser, Jaret Daniels, director of the museum’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, are working on a two-year research project to determine the blue calamintha bee’s current population status and distribution, as well as nesting and feeding habits.
Florida’s State Wildlife Action Plan lists the bee, Osmia calaminthae, as a species of greatest conservation need, and this project could help determine whether it qualifies for protection under the Endangered Species Act. A US Fish and Wildlife Service State Wildlife Grant administered by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is funding the project.
The bee is thought to live only in the Lake Wales Ridge region, a globally recognized biodiversity hotspot and one of the nation’s fastest-disappearing ecosystems, according to a 2015 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report. As a pollinator, it depends on another threatened species, a blooming plant known as Ashe’s calamint.
“This is a highly specialized and localized bee,” Daniels said.
Ashe’s calamint flower — Photo by Florida Museum / Chase Kimmel
The Lake Wales Ridge’s rare species are a product of Florida’s geological history. When much of the state was underwater, higher elevation sand dune areas along the Central Florida ridge behaved almost like islands, producing isolated habitats.
These unique environments led to pockets of specialized plants and animals, such as the blue calamintha bee, Daniels said. Today, the ridge is characterized by patches of pine scrub dotted among the orange groves along US Route 27.
Kimmel has been living at the Archbold Biological Station near Lake Placid since March, getting a first-hand look at challenges to the bee’s survival.
“It’s one thing to read about habitat loss and development and another to be driving for 30-40 minutes through miles of orange groves just to get to a really small conservation site,” Kimmel said. “It puts into perspective how much habitat loss affects all the animals that live in this area.”
Kimmel’s initial goal was to find the bee, which was last observed in 2016. He recorded it in three of its previously known locations and six additional places up to 50 miles away—good news for the species. The objective over the next year is to record the bee in as many locations as possible to determine its range and increase understanding of its biology.
After capturing a bee, researchers place it in a plastic bag with a hole to photograph its head before releasing it. Pollen left in the bag is analyzed to determine which flowers the bee visited. Photo by Florida Museum / Chase Kimmel
“We’re trying to fill in a lot of gaps that were not previously known,” Kimmel said. “It shows how little we know about the insect community and how there’s a lot of neat discoveries that can still occur.”
While visiting flowers, the blue calamintha bee bobs its head back and forth to pick up as much pollen as possible with its unusual facial hairs. Daniels and Kimmel also want to determine whether it visits other flowers apart from Ashe’s calamint by studying the pollen collected from bees and using visual surveys. So far, they have recorded one instance of the bee using another floral host.
The blue calamintha is a solitary bee, creating individual nests instead of hives like honeybees. While no nests have been found, the species is part of the genus Osmia, which tends to use existing ground burrows, hollow stems or holes in dead trees as nests.
To test whether this bee does the same, the research team made and deployed bee “condos,” 42 nest boxes, in locations where the bee or Ashe’s calamint have been found. Each box contains reeds and sand pine blocks with holes drilled in varying diameters and depths to reveal the bee’s nesting preferences. Researchers will periodically check the boxes over the next year.
With COVID-19 causing shutdowns around the world, however, Daniels and Kimmel’s research has faced some setbacks.
Kimmel initially received special permission from the University of Florida to continue working at the station, but the university’s prohibition on further travel prevented Daniels from joining Kimmel in the field.
Photo by Florida Museum / Chase Kimmel
The timing of the shutdown is also unfortunate as the bee’s flight season from mid-March until early May is the best time to find live insects and determine its range.
Florida Museum volunteers provided much of the initial assistance for the project, including mapping and sorting potential sites of Ashe’s calamint. Their help was expected to continue with fieldwork at Archbold Biological Station and other parts of Lake Wales Ridge, but the pandemic has suspended volunteer operations.
Daniels and Kimmel are hopeful questions about the blue calamintha bee’s interaction with other insects and foraging behavior can be addressed when normal fieldwork resumes. But for now, Kimmel is adjusting to working like the bee itself—alone.
“All of this work is a collaboration,” Daniels said. “It takes an army to make it happen, you couldn’t do it without all the broader community of assistance that makes a project work to generate good results.”
A rogue peacock who was found wandering the streets of Boston has safely been returned home thanks to a police officer’s brilliant rescue strategy.
A team of Boston Police Department officers had reportedly been patrolling the Roxbury district last week when they were approached by a concerned citizen who said that an animal may have escaped from the nearby Franklin Park Zoo.
Upon tracking down the runaway critter, the officers “arrived at the scene and were met by an extremely large, slightly intimidating, and quite beautiful, male peacock,” the police department wrote in a statement.
“The peacocks at Franklin Park Zoo are free-roaming, and while they typically wander throughout the zoo, it is currently mating season, and it’s possible he ventured out looking for love in search of a peahen (female peacock),” a zoo spokeswoman told CNN.
Thankfully, one of the officers managed to find and download a bird-calling app on his phone so he could play a peacock mating call through his speakers—and his scheme worked.
The officers successfully lured the bird into a fenced-in yard so they could keep it in check until animal control arrived to transport it back to the zoo.
“Upon learning of the peacock’s adventure, our animal care team at the zoo worked quickly with the Boston Police Department and Animal Control to recover the peacock, and we’re happy to report he is now back at the zoo and doing well,” the zoo spokeswoman told the news outlet.
Photo by the Boston Police Department
Birds Of A Feather Flock Together; So Be Sure And Share This With Your Friends On Social Media…
Quote of the Day: “Not only to say the right thing, at the right place, but far more difficult to leave unsaid the wrong thing, at the tempting moment!” – George Sala
Photo: by Brian Wangenheim, public domain, cropped
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