It had been a normal Sunday night for Dawn Ward, a waitress at the Olive Garden restaurant in Lubbock, Texas.
Then, a married couple were seated and Ward thought they deserved ultra-generous care.
“They said they had a special event happening and they wanted to spend it here at Olive Garden,” Ward said. “And so I inquired what it was and they said that he was going to be deployed the next morning.”
Our son, who moved to LA last month, was on the Redondo Beach pier and saw a guy wearing our GOOD HAPPENS shirt!
Andy walked up, introduced himself and they shared a wonderful moment of connection!
He told David that I lived in Virginia, and he only just moved to the area. He’s still looking for a job, and a room to rent, if you know of anything 🙂
In her final days of fighting cancer, Katelyn Norman, 14, of Campbell County, Tenn., created a bucket list.
She wanted to slow-dance at her prom and learn to drive, so her high school organized ‘Light the Night for Kate,’ preparing an elegant evening with all her favorite things and lining the road with candles for her to drive home.
The prom’s theme last night was “Katie in the Sky with Diamonds” and thousands of people lined Highway 63 to hold candles in honor of the courageous girl.
(READ the story in the NY Daily News)
You’re broke, you struggle with bills, then out of nowhere you find $30,000 in cash which only you will ever know about because the money belongs to someone who is dead. What do you do?
Carol Sutor of Bristol, Pa., was in that situation on Thursday and decided to return the money to the family of the woman who had spent years saving it.
“I had to give it back,” she said. “I believe in karma, whatever I do will come back to me, good or bad.”
While messing around and building things on his deck one day, Todd Bol took a dollhouse-size structure and turned it into a free community library that would have global impact.
He started a movement called Little Free Library, a nonprofit that seeks to place small book exchange boxes in neighborhoods around the world.
The idea has taken off, growing from 100 libraries in 2011 to 6,000 libraries in 2013.
You can find plans for building one of these boxes on their website, www.littlefreelibrary.org.
(READ the story, w/ photos, from Houzz.com)
Thanks to Susan Carr for sending the story!
It’s an unlikely pair of protégé and mentor that led Matthew Pakkala to go from street-savvy school dropout to focused high-achiever.
It’s a tale of a boy’s childhood overshadowed by addiction and mental illness at home and of a school principal who – as much a guardian angel as educator – helped him survive it.
A social enterprise founded by former gang members has helped to end a 20-year turf war in Birmingham.
The One Mile Away organization is the outcome of a feature-length documentary of the same name, just released nationwide in England.
One of Britain’s youngest Internet entrepreneurs has hit the jackpot after selling his top-selling mobile application Summly to search giant Yahoo.
17-year-old Nick d’Aloisio may be getting several million dollars for his news-summarizing program, if British newspapers are to be believed.
D’Aloisio taught himself to code at age 12 to create products for Apple’s new App Store, according to the Associated Press.
Imagine driving along and seeing someone standing in the road frantically waving their arms. Would you stop?
It’s a good thing Ryan Cornelissen did stop. He was the calm presence needed in a crisis to revive a newborn who was not breathing after a man’s wife had given birth in the car.
The Macomb County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Operations Center responded to Ryan’s 911 call on March 16, 2013.
Dispatcher Steven Kukuk guided Ryan so he could save the newborn’s life.
(LISTEN to the 911 call below, or read the story from the Macomb Patch)
You can still see more than 10,000 coin-operated phones around New York City today. What seems a relic of the past in this age of mobile technology, became a vital link in an emergency for those who had no power to charge their devices during Hurricane Sandy.
Still, many of the phone booths scattered across the city are rotting in disrepair, so Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched a design contest in December to “re-own the phone”. He invited designers to submit ideas that might include solar panels, wi-fi, charging station, and information kiosks — anything to give the booths a make-over and bring their communications potential into the 21st century.
You can still see more than 10,000 coin-operated phones around New York City today. What seems a relic of the past in this age of mobile technology, became a vital link in an emergency for those who had no power to charge their devices during Hurricane Sandy.
Still, many of the phone booths scattered across the city are rotting in disrepair, so Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched a design contest in December to “re-own the phone”. He invited designers to submit ideas that might include solar panels, wi-fi, charging station, and information kiosks — anything to give the booths a make-over and bring their communications potential into the 21st century.
Billy Ray Harris, the Missouri homeless man who returned the engagement ring dropped in his donation cup by mistake, now has a part-time job, new friends, and tens of thousands of dollars that were donated by admirers. But, he says the best part is reconnecting with his beloved sisters in Texas.
A family reunion was planned for later this year, but the TODAY Show planned a surprise during an interview on Sunday, bringing him into the arms of his family for the first time in 16 years.
(WATCH the video belows)
Billy Ray Harris, the Missouri homeless man who returned the engagement ring dropped in his donation cup by mistake, now has a part-time job, new friends, and tens of thousands of dollars that were donated by admirers. But, he says the best part is reconnecting with his beloved sisters in Texas.
A family reunion was planned for later this year, but the TODAY Show planned a surprise during an interview on Sunday, bringing him into the arms of his family for the first time in 16 years.
(WATCH the video belows)
Harvard pulled off a huge upset to begin the college basketball “March Madness” last week, but all eyes have turned southward to a little school with a load of confidence: No. 15-seed Florida Gulf Coast is in the midst of what could be the greatest Cinderella story in NCAA tournament history.
The FGC University men’s basketball program was formed just 11 years ago in 2002. Their record last year was 15-17, before getting a new coach, Andy Einfield, in April.
And now, in just their second year of postseason eligibility, the FGCU Eagles are headed to the Sweet Sixteen, having defeated No. 2-seed Georgetown and No. 7-seed San Diego State, winning by an average of 10 points per game.
(WATCH the video below, or READ the story from NBC Sports)
Angelight Films is a non-profit production company that gives children with brain and spinal cord tumors the opportunity to express themselves by creating and even starring in their own short film.
Inspired by her sister who died of a brain tumor at age 5, Stephanie Angel founded Angelight Films as a creative outlet that helps children heal and recognize their inner light.
Angelight Films is a non-profit production company that gives children with brain and spinal cord tumors the opportunity to express themselves by creating and even starring in their own short film.
Inspired by her sister who died of a brain tumor at age 5, Stephanie Angel founded Angelight Films as a creative outlet that helps children heal and recognize their inner light.
CBS shared an update to Steve Hartman’s story about the El Paso high school basketball game last month, in which a player threw the ball in the final seconds to a developmentally challenged boy, who was the manager on the opposing team, suited up for the final game of the season. The kindness allowed the boy to score, and the cheers to erupt throughout the entire gymnasium:
“After seeing our story, the chancellor of Texas Tech called Jonathon Montanez and offered him a university scholarship.
A group of Cree youth are beginning the final leg of their walk from Northern Quebec to Parliament Hill.
Six youths and a guide set out in January to snowshoe and walk to Ottawa in support of the Idle No More movement. But the walk now includes hundreds of people.
“It’s helping them deal with personal struggles, including depression and suicidal thoughts,” said an 18 year old, one of the original seven walkers.
There is nothing so contagious as a baby’s uncontrolled laughter.
The Bolivian government recently created the largest protected wetland in the world – an area bigger than the Netherlands and Belgium combined, more than 17 million acres (6.9m hectares).
The Llanos De Moxos wetland is prized for its rich natural diversity, as the home to 131 species of mammals, 568 types of birds, and 625 fish species. Several species – including the giant otter and the Bolivian river dolphin – have been identified as vulnerable, endangered or at critical risk of extinction.
