“Good News Network is an amazing find for me. I stopped watching the news on TV, listening to the radio, and discontinued my donations to Public Radio last year because of the explosive and exploited media that was generated throughout all the stations. It is really dumbing us down.
I have traveled to 37 countries and experienced the lives of many cultures and find that we all want happiness, basic respect and want to proud of where we live. The media has created such divisions within our countries to the point where educated people have biases with not an ounce of true experiences, knowledge, or reason. Often times when I return from my travels, friends, acquaintances, and family ask me: ‘Is it dangerous over there? Did you feel afraid that your life was in danger?’ Why do we assume that any place has different values than the place we live or that someone out of our inner circle is a threat? People need to get out of their bubble and explore new place and build new relationships to discover that our world is not the scary place that the mass media portrays it to be.”–April Choi
“I was thrilled to find GNN and I read and share stories all the time. You’re doing a necessary work in a society dominated by bad news. There are bad things we all need to be aware of, to be sure, but there’s a lot of good happening in the world, and people need to read the good alongside the bad to maintain hope for a better future.”–Jonathan Leger
Upon being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, Walt Hollier was given just months to live – but thanks to a Facebook post gone viral, his final wish was granted just in time.
The Austin, Texas resident wanted to make sure that both of his dogs would be taken care of after his passing. Hollier’s family members had already agreed to adopt Doc, the elderly of the two hounds, but he still had to find a home for Diego; an affectionate 8-year-old red healer.
Last month, Hollier took to Facebook with a plea for someone to adopt Diego and give him a good home.
“He has not shown ANY aggressive behavior in 8 years,” wrote Hollier. “He is in great health and loves to run, play, swim, and ride in cars or trucks … He is a great watch dog, and real low maintenance.
Hollier wrote: “Diego has been adopted by The Last Resort. It is a men’s recovery center in Smithville, Texasx. He lives on 50 acres of beautiful land with horses and cows and free range. He has 40+ new friends and is acting as a service dog for men in recovery. He is getting lots of TLC, and only being 50 miles away, I can visit him a lot.”
“I could have not asked for a better conclusion. It’s a win for Diego, a win for me, and a win for men who need a buddy right now. So thanks to all of you for your thoughts and prayers, and have made me aware of how many good folks there are out there.”
Click To Share The Pawesome Story With Your Friends (Photo by Walt Hollier)
“THANK YOU for this site! I love getting inspired, encouraged and reminded of the many wonderful ways people are making a positive difference in our world. I am determined to increase my compassion for others … You should get some kind of award. We need more of this and of you.”–Brenda Zallito
Nadia Sparkes doesn’t care about the bullies who try and ridicule her for her eco-friendly habits – she will continue doing all she can to save the environment.
The 12-year-old high school student has spent the last six months picking up all of the trash that litters the 2-mile stretch between Hellesdon High School and her home. The student says that picking up trash is her way of making the community – and the planet – a little bit tidier.
Every day that the youngster heads home from school, she fills up her bicycle basket with the litter that she finds on the side of the road. Since she began her mission, she has filled up two recycling bins of trash.
Unfortunately, some local bullies started making fun of her routine and calling her “Trash Girl”.
Instead of being dissuaded by their rudeness, however, Sparkes is more determined than ever.
“I’m not going to stop doing the right thing because of them, and if they are going to call me trash girl, they can say it with respect,” said Sparkes, according to the Eastern Daily Press.
“I’m doing something to protect the world they also live in. It’s everyone’s job. We are all responsible for keeping this world safe, instead of believing that it’s always someone else’s job.”
Since news of Sparkes’s hardworking spirit has gone viral, the teen has received an outpouring of support on her Facebook page, which is appropriately called “Team Trash Girl”.
One reader left a comment saying: “I just read your story, and you are truly a strong and independent person. The world need more people like you. It’s hard to keeping doing the right thing when dealing with bullies, but you’ve just become stronger and started something beautiful. Thank you.”
Another supporter wrote: “I am a diehard fisherman and I do everything I can to keep plastics and other waste out of the waters I frequent. Thank you so much for doing your part in your locale. You are a blessing to this Earth and I look forward to seeing you inspire others!”
In light of her latest slew of fans, Sparkes has asked all of her readers to join her mission by picking up at least three pieces of trash today in their community.
Clean Up Negativity: Click To Share With Your Friends (Photo by Paula Sparkes)
Quote of the Day: “In the hour of adversity be not without hope for crystal rain falls from black clouds.” –Persian poem
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
These children won’t have to meet the devil at a crossroads to bring their musical spirits to life – instead, a young woman became their angel when she started serenading the African kids with her fiddle.
Thanks to the intervention of an American Airlines employee, two teenage girls have been saved from almost falling victim to a human trafficking plot.
The airline worker, Denice Miracle, first guessed that something was afoot when a 15 and 17-year-old girl approached the counter at the Sacramento International Airport in California back in August.
For starters, the girls were traveling alone with only a few small pieces of luggage. In addition to having no forms of identification, they had first-class tickets to New York City that had been bought with a fraudulent credit card.
Instead of allowing the girls to board the flight, Miracle called the police.
Airport police officers later discovered that the girls had been contacted on Instagram by a man named “Drey” who had offered them $2,000 to fly to New York for a modeling gig. The girls, who had not even told their parents about the venture, were shocked to discover that the tickets were one-way.
The teens were later reunited with their parents, and Miracle – whose name is appropriate for the rescue – is being hailed as a hero for her quick thinking.
Click To Share The Inspiring Story With Your Friends (Photo by Patrick Cardinal)
It’s a gimmick that is straight out of The Little Rascals.
Two youngsters from Carson, California are going viral after they tried to sneak into a screening of the new Black Panther movie by sitting on each other’s shoulders under a trench coat.
Unfortunately, when they were asked about whether the trick worked, one of the pranksters simply said: “Nah. I don’t know how, but he knew something was up.”
The guys had been hoping that their creativity would get both of them into the theatre for the price of one ticket – but the ticket worker was not having it.
Upon ambling up to the counter and asking for one ticket, the theater employee can be heard saying: “You gotta get down, man.”
“Get down from what?” the unusually tall and absolutely normal looking guy responds.
In the course, the women are taught how to cut hair, shape eyebrows, give manicures, and apply makeup. Once the inmates complete over 1,600 hours of training, they can apply to the state board for a cosmetology license.
This course does not just offer them a chance at work outside of prison – it also gives them hope and inspiration for a more beautiful life.
“These life skills have changed me. I came from nothing to something,” said one of the participants. “I had zero self-esteem, I had zero confidence, I didn’t believe in myself. These life skills have given me hope. I am confident in what I do.”
(WATCH the inspiring video below)
Click To Share The Beautiful Story With Your Friends – Photo by Barcroft TV
Even though convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, Nick Yarris turned his life around while on death row in prison, after he became addicted to books. An amazing story of overcoming, as told in the hit Netflix documentary, Fear of 13, this man’s positive attitude is contagious and inspiring.
He joined us in studio to chat and answer audience questions, streaming LIVE on Facebook.
Author of The Kindness Approach, he has raised forgiveness to an art form and his life will be the subject of a Hollywood movie produced by our co-host, Anthony Samadani. Hear the interview below. (Note: We were experimenting with a new 3-camera set up, which occasionally produced some glitches, but hope you find it inspiring, nonetheless.)
You can jump past the good news segment, right into his interview beginning at 12:20…
Quote of the Day: “Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.” –Mother Teresa
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
It’s been seven years since Nicole Grimes was forced to give up Chloe: her beloved canine companion.
When the girl was 14 years old, her father began a job outside the home and since Chloe was suddenly alone for long periods, she would bark all day long. The Grimes family was forced to consider the neighbors’ complaints about the young noisy pup, and had to give her up for adoption at a local shelter.
Though Nicole understood the reasoning behind her parents’ decision, she was still heartbroken over her lost friend and never forgot her.
Now a 21-year-old mother living in Brownsville, Pennsylvania with her husband, Nicole noticed one of her Facebook friends had posted a photo of a senior dog needing a loving home.
The elderly couple who’d been caring for the dog had died recently so the couple’s neighbor posted the adoption ad on Facebook. The hound looked a lot like Chloe, so she decided to adopt it.
“It just reminded me of my old dog. So I decided to take her in,” Grimes told TODAY.
Even more strangely, the dog was similarly named Chloe.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the resemblance to her childhood pal, so one day Nicole took the dog in for a microchip scan: in a strange twist of fate, the new canine family member was the exact dog that she’d been forced to give up so many years ago.
Republished with permission from Peace News Network (Written by Kate Roff)
Online ‘bots’ are normally viewed in a negative light, but this social enterprise is proving that they can also be used for good.
In light of the increasing political divisions in online media, the organization Build Up is using social media bots to help depolarize conversations. Their project called The Commons contacts people who may want to connect with others and look for common ground.
Jacob Lefton from Build Up says: “What polarization is as a phenomenon, is that groups of people are separating from each other and building stereotypes of the other groups of people, and losing shared facts and losing shared language to talk about the issues, and it doesn’t matter if one side is right or wrong in this if there can’t be a healthy civic conversation.”
“And for us it’s one of the indicators for a society that’s sliding toward conflict,” Lefton said. “And we’re seeing more extreme hate speech… and these stronger and stronger divisions.”
So first a bot contacts them, and says, ‘Hi, it’s interesting that you’re talking about this.’ Then, they are asked an open question about what they think regarding the broader topic of polarization, which tries to invite a response.
“Then if they respond, we follow up with a facilitator who then takes it and attempts to have a longer conversation with them to find out what their core values are and their issues and invite them to further action in depolarizing the way that these conversations are happening.”
“It’s really hard to bring people together, and so that’s why we think it’s necessary… basically saying ‘Can we do the same types of active interventions in these platforms as people who are using it as adversarial technique, but can we do it as a connecting technique?’”
The project is explicitly non-partisan and has reached out to over 12,400 people online. Build Up will present its full findings at MIT in March – and they hope that the research will show that they have built a little peace online.
“We can’t expect that everyone will become an actor,” said Lefton, “But we can believe that if we raise people’s awareness of it, and engage them in healthy conversations about it then maybe in future conversations they will have more tools to engage with them in a healthy way.”
Pass On This Positive Bot Bit to Your Online Friends, so they can be on the look-out for this…
Officer Jordan Gaiche was patrolling the neighborhood on a chilly Monday night when he saw a man walking down the sidewalk in a tee-shirt and shorts.
Since the temperature was only 7º Fahrenheit, Gaiche pulled his cruiser over and asked the man if he needed any help. To his surprise, the man said that he was on his way to help a senior neighbor who had gotten stuck in his chair, “as he had done many times before.”
The man asked if Gaiche could help them, and the Wausau, Wisconsin police officer readily agreed.
“The elderly gentleman had gotten stuck in his recliner and appeared to be immobile and on oxygen,” says Gaiche. “It was evident that this chair was the place this man spent most of his time.”
After he and the neighbor fixed the senior’s chair, Gaiche lamented the debilitated state of the recliner.
“It had become more of a trap for injury rather than an assistive device,” wrote the police officer. “The neighbor looked up at the man’s wife and said: ‘I think it’s time you guys got a new chair.’ The wife sadly replied that she knew they needed a new chair, but could not afford one, as they [cost] around $2,000.”
Upon finding out that the elderly man was also a Navy veteran who had served two tours in Vietnam, Gaiche was spurred to help. He told the vet’s wife to pick out a new armchair and he would cover the bill.
Once she picked out a new recliner model, Gaiche made a quick post on Facebook to see if anyone would help him buy the chair. To his surprise, he received dozens of donations from folks all over the country.
“Some of the people who donated, I have not seen for a decade… some I have never even met,” says Gaiche.
“The amount of compassion that was displayed for this elderly veteran was so incredible,” he added. “The moral of this story is to look around you and see all of the great things that people are doing. This world is a good place. Turn off the negativity and focus on making the world just a little bit better.”
Pass On The Positivity: Click To Share(Photo by Wausau Police Department)
So many of us dream of winning the lottery one day, but how many of us see the actual winning numbers in a dream? Victor Amole did just that.
According to WTTG, the computer programmer and resident of Virginia bought four tickets for the state Lottery’s “Cash 5” game. He decided to play the same numbers on all four tickets: 3-10-17-26-32.
The news station says that Amole had seen the lottery numbers in a dream. He told the Virginia Lottery that he knew he had to act on them because “I’ve never had a dream like that before.”
Although it was a risky move, buying the four tickets paid off: since each ticket was worth $100,000, Amole ended up winning it all and walking away with $400,000.
Winning like that is a rare feat, so it is hard to write off Victor’s dream as just a weird coincidence. Check out the interview at WTTG to hear about his dream and how he plans to use his winnings.
SHARE the inspiring luck with your friends on social media…
Quote of the Day: “It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.” – Desiderius Erasmus
Photo: by jinterwas, CC license
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Everyone needs a break from the seriousness of life – including the police.
This officer in particular took a break from fighting crime to write an amusing police report of an unlikely hitchhiker who somehow made its way onto his windshield.
Officer Brandon Dennington of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office in Oakland, California was on his way to a Golden State Warriors game when he saw a mouse on the hood of his cruiser.
Dennington snapped a photo of the furry passenger, which he later posted to the police department’s Facebook page with a few lighthearted jokes.
The post read: “We are not sure if this was an attempted car jacking but this little mouse popped up on the windshield of Deputy Brandon Dennington’s K9 vehicle. Further investigation revealed the suspect was likely a San Antonio Spurs fan trying to intimidate us.
“Deputy Dennington was able to use de-escalation techniques and get the rabid fan off his car. Luckily, he was able to snap this photo of the elusive bandit.
“The suspect was last seen on foot running to a hiding spot. The suspect is 4 inches tall, weighing 1 ounce and wearing a grey and white fury coat. Thankfully, the Warriors won and Deputy Dennington got to the game on time.
Click To Share This Pawesome Tail With Your Friends (Photo by Officer Brandon Dennington)
The police officers who arrived on the scene of Jennifer Lind’s car accident back in December 2013 say that she was lucky to come out of the incident alive. Not only lucky to have her life, but the wreck led to the love her life.
Lind was driving to River Vale, New Jersey when her car hit a patch of black ice. She lost control of the steering and skidded into the safety rail.
Nicholas Angelus was driving behind Lind when he saw the disaster unfolding. Though he tried to use his emergency break, his was the first car to collide with hers.
He quickly jumped out of his car, opened the door to Lind’s vehicle, made sure that she was okay, and offered her his coat so she could stay warm.
A while after the incident, Angelus called Lind’s phone. She thought that he might be trying to file a lawsuit against her – but he actually asked her out on a date.
Lind and Angelus tied the knot in October – and it’s all thanks to the car accident that sent them crashing into each other’s lives.
(WATCH the video below)
Click To Share This Romantic Story With Your Friends
Quote of the Day: “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” – Lao Tzu
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
