This tea-riffic police officer wasn’t just attending this adorable party to get free Oreos – it was a celebration of the day he saved one 2-year-old’s life in 2015.
Almost a year before this photo was taken, Corporal Patrick Ray was dispatched on a call to save 22-month-old Bexley Norvell from choking on a coin.
Thanks to his quick actions, the little girl was able to breath again, while the officer’s bodycam filmed the whole scene.
Bexley’s mother – eternally grateful for her daughter’s hero – invited the policeman back to their house a year later to celebrate with some tea at their home in Rowlett, Texas.
Chelle Cates, a professional children’s and newborn photographer, captured some snapshots of the adorable exchange to commemorate the anniversary.
Photos by Chelle Cates Photography
You can check out more of Chelle’s work on her website and Facebook page.
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As a thank you to his favorite civil servant busting his butt during the hottest days of the year, this little boy put out a cool surprise for his beloved mailman.
Before 8-year-old Carmine McDaniel and his mother left their home in Virginia for the day, he left a note with a smiley face on top of a welcoming cooler filled with icy Gatorade and water.
Though no one was home to see Henry Bailey the mailman discover the boy’s gift, the home security system taped the whole thing.
With temperatures rising into the triple digits, it’s easy to see Bailey’s appreciation and relief.
This isn’t the first time that Carmine has celebrated his local postal workers —the little boy dressed up as a mailman for Halloween and even got a tour of the post office because of his enthusiasm.
Aikins has over 18,000 jumps and has performed a variety of skydiving stunts.
“I pushed myself further physically and mentally than ever before,” said Aikins, who practiced the dive, called ‘Heaven Sent’, using an even smaller net.
“I had to prove that it could be done.”
In the amazing aerial footage below, you can see Aikins practicing his landing move, flipping over on his back, in mid-air.
Not every person could walk away from $3,000, but this Ukrainian emigrant is lucky enough that his Uber driver was the kind of man who would.
Jose Figueroa picked up a passenger from O’Hare International Airport who had just sold his business and emigrated from Ukraine.
Once Jose dropped off the man at his destination in Chicago, Illinois, he noticed that the Ukrainian had left his wallet – with all $3,000 of his life savings inside – in the backseat of the car.
Even though the temptation was strong, he knew he had to do the right thing.
Jose returned to the house with the wallet and money where the man’s sister saw his arrival and burst into tears. The grateful siblings urged the driver to join them for dinner and take $100 as a reward for his good deed.
Carla Welch may have been in real trouble if she hadn’t been saved by a courageous 7-year-old pit bull appropriately named Hero.
When a man was assaulting an unidentified woman with a knife on July 22nd, Hero came to the rescue with barred teeth at the ready.
Though he managed to separate her from the attacker, Hero was stabbed five times and rushed to the local Baldwin, Georgia animal hospital by police officers arriving on the scene thanks to a call about the disturbance.
After learning of the pooch’s survival from Facebook, Carla from the Fighting For The Bullys pit bull rescue in Knoxville, Tennessee raised all the money to pay for his medical bills – all which had been discounted by the vets in honor of Hero’s bravery.
It’s every mother’s nightmare. Somehow a toddler had a mishap in the water and was next seen floating lifelessly down the stream.
A Seattle mom of three, Darci Gillen Dawson, was vacationing in Montana with her family when she looked over her shoulder and saw the boy’s body, and took off running.
When she scooped him up, his face was gray and he was “not alive”.
She told KING-5 News he likely had been in the water for at least six minutes.
Darci performed CPR on the boy for twenty minutes until he finally took a breath.
“There’s no better feeling than that, that’s for sure—you can tell by the huge grin on my face,” she said looking at the photo taken after that moment.
What could be more perfect than using the “sharing economy” to deliver food that people don’t want to those who desperately need it?
That’s what the Unsung app sets out to do. Being tested in Austin, Texas, the app has delivered 1,000 meals that would have otherwise gone into the trash.
The Unsung app works kind of like Uber’s ride-sharing service to “hack hunger,” as it’s creators say.
Restaurants, grocery stores, or even individuals click on the app to announce they have food to give to the hungry. The app sends the information to nearby volunteer drivers who pick it up and deliver it to people in need.
The app will even calculate the value of your food donation so you can declare it as a tax deductible contribution on your income taxes.
Every meal that’s donated appears on the app’s live feed. This video shows how the app works.
Some French media outlets are refusing to publish or air photos of terrorists involved in recent attacks across the world as a way to keep them from gaining “posthumous glorification.”
The newspaper Le Monde set off the trend by announcing in an editorial after the Bastille Day attack in Nice it would no longer run photos of terrorists, except for mug shots. The newspaper had already stopped publishing photos of ISIS propaganda documents.
Following their lead, Europe 1 radio will no longer publish photos on its website and the France 24 TV channel has also banned the photos from their broadcasts.
The decision isn’t universal, with some news organizations saying they will continue to publish the photos out of a responsibility to provide “the full story.”
But following Tuesday’s attack on a church in Normandy, BFM-TV and the Catholic newspaper La Croix joined the photo ban.
The psychoanalyst, Fethi Benslama, who teaches in Paris, pointed out on French radio: “It’s a really big boost to their efforts to make themselves world famous, even while their victims are anonymous and will remain anonymous.”
(LISTEN to an NPR interview with Le Monde editor below) — Photo: Mark Mitchell, CC
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Nick Bayer, who owns 30 Philadelphia-area restaurants agreed to give a job to someone living at the local shelter for homeless youth.
“I told Covenant House I’d be there the next morning, and I told her to have the most hirable person ready for me,” Bayer said. “So I get there, look in the window of this little conference room in the homeless shelter and Dante Wilson is sitting in a room by himself, in a blazer smiling… You go in thinking it will be a sad place and there is a young man by himself with a huge smile on his face. I saw him smiling, and I knew I was going to hire him.”
Nick hired Dante for one of Saxbys café’s— in Rittenhouse Square—and because Dante didn’t have job experience he started by cleaning the café and busing tables.
Within a week, the manager said things were going so well that they’d decided to put Dante through barista training. A month later the team wanted to create an award for team member of the month just so Dante could see how appreciative they were of his incredible work ethic. Dante wound up winning the award seven months in a row.
The job changed Dante’s life, but even better is what happened after a few years of this successful partnership—more homeless teens were hired and Dante became their mentor.
It’s bad enough for teens to be stuck in the hospital instead of hanging out with friends, but to be seen in a drab, and overly baggy gown might deliver the ultimate humiliation. Thanks to these stylish creations, a cure for their fashion blues comes straight from the red carpet.
A partnership with top designers and artists is the key to The Ward+Robe initiative which creates fashion forward gowns for young people recuperating or receiving treatment in a hospital.
Clothes can mean so much to a teenager’s identity — what they wear is a way of expressing who they are. Hospital gowns can strip that individuality from a patient trying to heal from a disease or injury, when they are in most need of confidence.
The nonprofit Starlight Children’s Foundation in Canada created the Ward + Robes project, to stitch together designers who’ve worked for Hollywood stars and even tattoo artists to create one-of-a-kind gowns for teens.
Some of their designs look more like heavy metal rock band t-shirts and retro flower-power tunics than hospital gowns.
“I hope when someone puts this gown on, I hope they feel like they’re stepping into their power.”
said India Amara, one of the designers, in the video below.
Jim Hawkins may not have been in a rodeo before, but his lassoing of a stampeding 2-year-old black bear with a rope has crowds cheering.
The bear, with his head trapped in a cheese puff container, was destined to starve if he wasn’t freed from the barrel. Although locals kept calling the animal authorities for help, the creature always wandered off before assistance could arrive.
Things looked dire for the bear until he wandered into a backyard where Hawkins decided to lend a hand.
With a length of rope and some work gloves, the 66-year-old former firefighter lassoed the bear’s waist and pulled with all his strength – that’s when the bear realized he was caught and turned on Jim to attack.
After a bit of a tussle, the bear scurried up a nearby tree. Jim tied the rope to the trunk so it wouldn’t run off until authorities arrived.
Once the Colorado Parks and Wildlife showed up, the critter was tranquilized, lowered from the tree, and had the barrel safely removed from its head so it could be returned to the wild once more.
Jim claims this is not the first time he’s dealt with bears, but it is the first time he’s ever had to wrestled one.
Someone said that cats are afraid of water, but they have never seen Didga and Boomer riding these waves.
The dynamic feline duo have become internet superstars ever since their California-born trainer Robert Dollwet taught them how to surf, skate, and skin board.
Didga was a lonely tabby adopted from an animal shelter, but now has risen to fame with over 49 million people viewing his videos.
A CEO’s decision to set a $70,000 minimum wage for his employees more than a year ago isn’t just paying off for his company, his workers are paying him back with a huge thank you gift — a new Tesla.
Dan Price went through a range of emotions, crying, laughing, hugging, and even jumping into the arms of his employees when they surprised him with his $70,000 dream car outside the Gravity Payments headquarters in Seattle, Washington.
A plaque attached to the car read: “Thank you for always putting the team before yourself. This gift is our way of showing how much your sacrifice means to us.”
Price decided to raise the starting wage at his company in April, 2015 after he overheard a worker talking about how she could barely make ends meet on her salary. He cut his own salary to $70,000 a year to help pay for his employees’ raises.
Some in the business world criticized his move, saying it would run the company out of business and drive higher salaried workers away. But the exact opposite has happened.
Turnover is at the lowest level in Gravity’s history, the company received an influx of 30,000 resumes, and added 50 additional positions since the raises were enacted. The company, which processes credit card transactions for small businesses, has also seen its own business boom. The number of transactions for clients have increased 30% and profits have nearly doubled in the past year—from $3.5 million to $6.5 million— with more companies signing up.
Price also likes to talk about the quality of life for his employees since taking home the extra pay.
It’s let them move to more pricey homes and apartments closer to the office, cutting commute times by six hours a day, and increased contributions to retirement accounts by 130%. He even credits the added financial security with a “baby boom” in the office — where in the past there were no more than two birth announcements annually, but ten in the last year.
The car’s $70,000 price tag is also symbolic of the life-changing minimum wage he set.
“I think this is just the ultimate way of saying, ‘Thank you,’” employee Alyssa O’Neal says in the video below. “He’s been up to bat for us, so we figured we could do something nice for him.
Finding a Pokemon will be as easy as a walk in the park with these shoes. They’re designed to play along with the Pokemon GO app, lighting up and playing music whenever you’re near one of the animated game’s monsters.
High Beam Shoes says their new line of footwear syncs with the app on the wearer’s phone and includes extra safety features.
Because of accidents and injuries caused by people passionately playing Pokemon GO, the company added headlights to their gaming shoe.
What may be the longest bike path in the world is in the works — stretching the entire length of the Eastern United States coast, from Calais, Maine to Key West, Florida.
Since 1991, the East Coast Greenway Alliance has been working on plans for the 2,900 mile-long Greenway bike path. It would incorporate existing bike paths along the coast, connecting them with new trails along rivers, canals, and former railroad lines.
When finished, it will connect 25 major cities and 16 states. The nonprofit group is working with communities and states along the route to build the connector sections, which would be maintained by local governments.
When it’s completed, you should be able to ride the entire length in about two months — by pedaling 50 miles a day.
The project is about 31 percent complete, Dennis Markatos-Soriano, executive director of ECGA, told CityLab. He estimates it will be ready to ride within four years.
If you’re already a fan of the Little Free Libraries that provide free books to anyone passing by, then get ready for the Little Free Pantry – a project that is erecting tiny boxes stocked with goodies that leave no small impact on neighbors who don’t have enough to eat.
The Little Free Pantry project has been giving communities the chance to provide for local people living in poverty, by erecting small cabinets and filling them with food and school supplies, free for the taking.
Even if your neighborhood is not suffering from impoverishment, the pantries can still be used as a method of sharing your surplus with those around you.
Since its first unit was erected by Little Free Pantry founder Jessica McClard in 2016 in Fayetteville, Arkansas, dozens more have been constructed around America by people eager to spread the compassion.
It’s such a great idea that it has spawned a spin-off organization known as the Blessing Box—run by a Christian church group and filling their own set of pantries in Ohio.
“How I’d love to have it function is that it would not necessarily be a place for people who are really in need, but just for anyone,” Jessica told Shareable. “On the last day of school, I put some bubbles and jump ropes, and sidewalk chalk, and balloons in the pantry. I had to encourage the parents to send their kids there because they didn’t think it was for them.”
And while regular food kitchens have set hours of operation and requirements, the LFP’s accessibility makes it an easy 24/7 fix for anyone nearby.
“I feel that the Pantry could potentially be for everyone. I took something out of it and took it home because I wanted to know what that felt like. It felt really good. It felt like community.”
If you want to build your own LFP, you can Google “Little Free Library plans” to find different specifications, measurements, blueprints, and tips. Once you have your pantry at the ready, you can organize a group of friends, family, or church-goers to keep it stocked during the week.
Check out the Little Food Pantry’s Facebook page and website to hear about new boxes being erected by generous folks around the world.
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This pitbull, rescued from Michael Vick’s dog-fighting operation years ago, was never meant to be a fighter — he’s a lover. He even has a “Kitten Cuddle Tent” to prove it.
Cherry was one of 53 pit bulls rescued from Vick’s property in 2007, and is provides solid evidence that even dogs trained to fight can lose those tendencies in favor of tenderness.
Photo courtesy of BarkPost
Best Friends Animal Society rehabilitated Cherry and nine years later, the dog has a little boy, a family, and two cats he loves to snuggle with. His story even inspired a special play date for a pile of shelter kittens.
The Friends of Berlin Animal Control shelter threw him a backyard beach party with doggie cookies and ice cream — and they brought along a truckload of kittens for him to love.
Watch Cherry as he can’t stop wagging his tail and kissing the kitties that climb all over their new friend.
There were no losers at this year’s World Softball Championships in Surrey, British Columbia. The U.S. may have beaten Japan for the gold medal on Sunday, but the 10-day tournament featured a grand slam of random acts of kindness that made everyone — from players to spectators — a real winner.
When New Zealand’s team found out that many players on the Kenyan squad had no shoes, the Kiwis bought the team new cleats.
Families from around Surry put together gift packages for teams and a business paid for airline tickets for the Venezuelan team when their fundraising efforts fell short.
The French players from Nice – which was recently victim to the Bastille Day terror attack – were met with French flags, flowers, and a limo tour of the area.
When India’s team showed up with ill-fitting uniforms, local businessman Dave Mann, who’d immigrated from the country to Surry more than 40 years ago, not only took them shopping for new gear and picked up the bill, but he also hosted all 30 members of the Indian team for dinner at his home after they lost to Switzerland 5-1 on Friday.
“The random acts of kindness … It has been non-stop, it has been without fanfare. I’ve cried more in the last six days than probably the last six years,” tournament spokeswoman Laura Ballance told the Vancouver Sun.
Oxygen masks designed just for pets are saving animals’ lives in Ohio —and a new law could save even more.
Passed in May, the law takes effect August 31, making it clear that first responders can administer first aid to pets rescued from fires.
The previous law suggested pets had to be taken to a licensed veterinarian but it wasn’t clear on what what treatment was allowed if an animal wasn’t breathing.
Firefighters around the state now stock oxygen masks made specifically for different size dogs, cats, and other animals. The masks have a record of saving pets’ lives.
The masks cost about $90 each and first responders need several different sizes for different animals. Private donations to buy the devices have spurred some departments to realize their effectiveness and include new purchases in their budgets.
The Newark, Ohio Fire Department reports using the masks eight times in the last two years to save pets’ lives. Other departments also report they often put animals’ lives ahead of early confusion over the previous law.
“Society expects us to be able to handle every single situation,” Lancaster Fire Chief Dave Ward told the Columbus Dispatch. “When we’re able to see that the positives outweigh the negatives in terms of treating animals with simple oxygen, it was a no-brainer for us.”
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