Holiday travel is “ruff” stuff, but these therapy pups can pick you up, even if you’re dog-tired.
United Airlines is bringing out 200 dogs at seven major U.S. airports this week to help travelers wind down while waiting for layovers or delayed flights.
United Paws is providing the professionally trained comfort dogs from local organizations so travelers at the busiest airports can relax from the stress of traveling home for the holiday.
“Research shows that just petting a dog releases oxytocin, the hormone associated with bonding and affection, and also decreases levels of stress, helps us breathe easier and lowers our blood pressure,” Veterinary Consultant Dr. Walter Woolf (yes, that’s his name) said in a statement from the airline.
Expect to see therapy dogs on duty Tuesday through Thursday greeting passengers in terminals at Chicago O’Hare, Denver International, Newark Liberty International, Washington Dulles International, George Bush Intercontinental Houston, Los Angeles International, and Cleveland Hopkins International.
Travelers who want to post photos of their own dogs in travel settings and raise a little money for dog charities can enter to win round-trip tickets. Just post your pictures on Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #unitedpaws. The airline will also donate a dollar for each picture to local comfort dog groups that are taking part in the holiday travel sessions.
(SEE more photos on Twitter and Instagram) — Photo: United Airlines, Twitter
Commuters at this train station might have expected to see a sleigh and reindeer parked outside after a jolly telephone call urges them to deliver Christmas presents to complete strangers.
“The Christmas Gift Experiment” starts with a phone call from Santa — ringing from an over-sized gift box placed in the middle of the Birmingham New Street station in the UK.
Passersby who answer the ringing phone hear Saint Nick start a real conversation with them. After a Christmas present drops from a chute, they are delighted at the prospect of getting a gift–but then told to deliver it to someone in the crowd.
The twist on giving was devised by a television channel, called Christmas 24, that is broadcasting nothing but Christmas movies.
A simple conclusion was proven by this cheerful experiment: giving a gift to a stranger will generate a lot of fun, and epitomizes the holiday spirit of giving.
(WATCH the video from Christmas 24) — Photo: Christmas 24 video
A veteran broke into tears when complete strangers reunited him with his two dogs after he couldn’t afford to get them out of a shelter.
James Pack suffered a massive heart attack in September and complications kept him hospitalized until just this month.
With no one to care for his dogs — Bailey and Blaze — the First State Animal Center and SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) in Camden, Delaware took the dogs in and put them up for adoption.
They surprised Park with the news while a camera recorded the moment — filled with two emotional dogs that were a blur of licking tongues and wagging tails.
“I didn’t think I would have my dogs back,” Park told the Delaware State News. “This is the best Christmas ever.”
(WATCH the video from Lindsay Marie’s Facebook page below) — Photos: Lindsay Marie, Facebook
Saturday was a fairy tale for a teen battling cancer.
“Suddenly the most amazing miracle happens,” Delaney Clements wrote on her Instagram page. “Taylor Swift walked into my bedroom and spent the afternoon with me just talking and hanging!!!!”
Alfie and Lily must have known they were on the nice list this year when they saw the giant Christmas gift waiting for them downstairs in their English home.
They didn’t expect their father to be back from three months of military service, so they got quite a surprise when opening the wrapping paper.
Their mother, Ruth Stevens, made sure to record the holiday reunion.
A settlement has been reached in a U.S. lawsuit with Warner/Chappell Music over the copyright to “Happy Birthday to You” that will put one of the world’s most recognizable songs in the public domain, according to court papers filed last week.
A Chief U.S. District Judge in Los Angeles ruled that Warner/Chappell, and its music publisher, did not own a copyright to the Happy Birthday lyrics.
Now artists are free to use the song in films, on TV and anywhere else without shelling out millions each year to the company that claimed ownership of the song lyrics.
The holiday season is a time when we’re inspired to give back.
One way, of course, is to donate money to a good cause. Good News Network has found a great one: taking care of one mother and her 4-year-old daughter, who are being asked to leave a women’s shelter because of hitting the allotted time limit.
A GNN reader met Francesca because she had volunteered to cook for the man, who has stomach cancer. To reward her constant generosity, he set a goal of raising enough money to build her a tiny home that is solar-powered–but not only that, the tiny home will be the start of a pay-it-forward housing program, which will grant the home to another homeless person, once she is back on her feet again. If you have enough money to donate and boost our Christmas campaign, which is off to a slow start since I first wrote about it in detail on Friday, PLEASE contribute what you can, here on the fundraising page.
If you don’t have money in your budget for donating, here’s how you can make a real difference with ten simple good deeds for the holiday season…
Think of the amazing people in your life. Take an hour to write those people a letter telling them why they’re awesome.
If you’re buying gifts on Amazon, use the Amazon Smile URL and a percentage of your purchase price will go to the charity of your choice at no extra cost to you.
When you buy gifts from one of 1,700 participating online retailers, you can use iGive to have that retailer donate money to your favorite charity. This includes major retailers like Best Buy, Expedia, Bed Bath and Beyond, and others.
Get ready for the new, by getting rid of the old . . . Use those boxes piling up from your online gift buying to pack up clothes, household items, games or other items you no longer need, and Givebackbox.com will provide a prepaid shipping label so you can have the items shipped to Goodwill at no charge. This can be done from any state in the US. (Goodwill is a nonprofit that provides job training and jobs.)
Other organizations will pick up donations from your house…
(CONTINUE Reading the article in Brad Aronson’s blog)
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” is an all-new adventure returning us to the wizarding world created by J.K. Rowling.
Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”) stars as a magizoologist in this Harry Potter spin-off directed by David Yates, who also helmed the last four Hogworts blockbusters.
The story is set in 1926 as Newt Scamander has just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures. Arriving in New York for a brief stopover, he might have come and gone without incident … were it not for an American Muggle named Jacob. The escape of some of Newt’s fantastic beasts could spell trouble for both the wizarding and Muggle worlds.
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” marks the screenwriting debut of J.K. Rowling, whose script was inspired by the Hogwarts textbook of the same name which was written by her character, Newt Scamander.
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” is being filmed at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, which was home to the “Harry Potter” films, the top-grossing franchise of all time. Some scenes were also shot on location in Liverpool, England.
The Warner Bros. movie is set for worldwide release in 2D and 3D in November 18, 2016.
Photos and story by Julie Makarewicz
Originally published by School News Network
Dale Allers isn’t related to anyone at Sparta’s Ridgeview Elementary School, but he’s “Grandpa Dale” to the 600-plus students who affectionately greet him every week with smiles, fist bumps and hugs.
“That’s why I do it. I love the kids and their smiles,” said Allers, who has volunteered at the school the last eight years and has no plans of stopping anytime soon.
“He comes over and says ‘Just try your best’ and he always helps us out. And he fixes everything! He makes our whole school a better place,” said first-grader Madison Sackett.
The 70-year-old volunteers two full days in the first grade classrooms of Marcia Powell and Megan Taylor. He comes in early to make coffee for the teachers, and on Wednesdays he volunteers a half-day to copy papers, laminate student work and do whatever else is needed.
Powell said she doesn’t know what they would do without him.
“He does everything we ask and more. And he always does it with a smile on his face, no matter what it is,” she said. “He has such a great relationship with the kids. He’s a great male role model for them, and we don’t have many male role models in early elementary.”
Finding His Purpose in Retirement
Allers started working in the school through the Gerontology Network of Grand Rapids as a way to supplement his income. The organization placed him at Ridgeview and after a year, when he no longer needed the supplemental pay, he had already fallen in love with the students and school.
“I couldn’t leave. I just love it here,” he said.
Allers said Powell and Taylor have become like daughters to him. “They’re just so good to me and I love being here. I would hate to sit around home and do nothing. That’s not me,” he said.
Taylor and Powell organized a special Veterans Day surprise recently for Allers, who served as a U.S. Marine in the 1960s. He was greeted by the entire school and presented with a special Marine flag with an engraved plaque from Ridgeview.
“I couldn’t believe they did that for me. It was so nice and something I never expected,” Allers said. “That’s why it’s so special here. Everybody cares.”
Powell couldn’t say enough about Allers and his work in her classroom. “I can’t imagine teaching without him,” she said. “I wish every classroom could have a Grandpa Dale.”
Taylor agreed. “He’s a cool dude. He’s a tough Marine, but he’s a big teddy bear with the kids, and that’s what makes him so endearing. We are so fortunate he chose our school.”
What would persuade officials at the San Francisco Bay Ferry to allow its first private event ever on its iconic ferry? How about a Magical Winter Ferry Ride for 75 children fighting cancer this Christmas?
It all started when the people of a community outreach group called Vallejo Together wanted to do something special for these California kids struggling with illness. The group turned toward the Waterfront because it is one of the best things about their city.
After calling Vallejo Mayor Intintoli to pull some strings, the ferry tour was booked, but kept a secret from families who arrived downtown for a mystery date.
“A mother came to us and said that her son was in line and when he saw the ferry, he wanted to ride it,” says the Vallejo Together Facebook page. “His mom told him that maybe one day he will be able to. He said that he hoped so because it was his dream. When the families found out that they were in fact going into the ferry the young boy jumped up and down raising his hands and said “Mom! My dream came true!”’
The cruise visited hot spots like Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, Pier 39, and Angel Island.
The inside of the boat was even more exciting for the kids – community businesses and volunteers created 18 stations throughout the ferry, all featuring different activities and food, like cotton candy, face painting, and hanging out with Santa.
Known as SOCK (Supporting Our Cancer Kids), the initiative is just one of many projects that reaches out to those in need.
Making it harder, these children are all from low-income families — many that can’t even afford a tree this holiday. So, there might not be any chance later to get the Christmas gift they, themselves, wanted.
You’ve probably already figured out the choice each kid made, but be sure to watch them explain why.
ReWalk robotics developed the powered legs that have given partially paralyzed people the ability to walk, but most veterans can’t afford the steep price tag.
Army veteran Gene Laureano started crying when he tried the legs two years ago in a demonstration.
“The tears came down,” Laureano told the Associated Press. “I hadn’t spoken to somebody standing up in so long.”
About 42,000 veterans are paralyzed but not all will qualify. Use of the robotic legs, which are not usually covered by private insurers, are limited by the physics of height and weight and they won’t work for quadriplegics.
It was a Christmas miracle. Well, more of a Christmas trick played by a soldier on his two daughters with the help of the big man himself, Santa Claus.
When Jordan Baskerville and her little sister went to see Santa at a mall in Clarksville, Tennessee, Saint Nick asked them what they wanted for Christmas.
Her father, Trent Baskerville, had been deployed with the Army to Afghanistan for nine months.
Santa already knew Trent was home, and waiting just out of the girls’ sight. He had them cover their eyes and motioned for the soldier to come over and made him appear like magic to his kids.
A homeless mom who is always volunteering her time to help others is about to move out of a public shelter and into the first solar-powered tiny home born of a plan to launch a pay-it-forward housing movement.
Especially around the holidays we have the chance to make a difference in people’s lives.
Last year Good News Network held a Christmas fundraiser for a family that was about to get evicted, after falling behind on rent. Peter Campillo, his wife, mother and son, were overwhelmed by the warmth, generosity and positive messages from our community. On Christmas Eve, we got his bills paid, allowing hope to be revived in Peter’s heart. And, six months later he found a job in his field.
“It feels wonderful, I feel like I am worthy of breathing the air and of being called dad and husband again. If not for your help I don’t think we would have made it.” He added, “The one thing I would like to do is take the same good will and generosity I received and pay it forward to some other family in need and it would feel real good.”
Help GNN Jumpstart a Pay-It-Forward Tiny House
Paying it forward does feel ”real good” and our Christmas fundraising choice for 2015 will make you feel extra powerful because it is the start of a unique venture that will allow the homeless to help the next in line, while building a transition to success, living in a tiny home.
Canadian Brice Royer, 31, who has been dealing with stomach cancer, wanted more loving kindness in his life so he started a “Gift Economy” from Vancouver in which members ask for, and give, goods and services to each other.
Recently, a woman, Francesca Murray, responded to Royer’s plea for someone to cook for him during his illness. When he found out she was homeless and yet so generous with all the women in her shelter, it inspired him to do something special for her, something big that would top all the giving that had come before.
This Mom is Proof That Homelessness Could Happen to Anyone
Francesca used to work as a business analyst for ICBC insurance. After leaving a difficult relationship while struggling with physical and mental health issues, she and her beautiful 4-year-old daughter, Charlotte, had to move into a shelter. Brice learned that their one-year shelter allowance expires in February and their stay would be terminated. He decided this was the time to start a unique “pay it forward” housing program–and build a tiny solar-powered house for Francesca and Charlotte.
“We envision the tiny home being owned and run by a local non-profit,” Royer told Good News Network. “Families could stay by donating part of their monthly government stipend, which would then be used to build more homes.”
Royer met with Heather Deal, who is on the Vancouver city council, and she loved the idea, and saw the community of tiny solar homes as a great way to transition people out of homelessness or prison, and even to assimilate refugees. Each resident would donate part of their government rental assistance, which would then be used toward building another house.
Help Reap a Giving Community By Sowing a Seed
“What they really love is the idea of paying it forward and the sense of belonging to a community that such a group of homes would offer,” Royer told us. “Part of creating a community comes from the giving… When they are giving to a fund that will create another home, it generates the feeling of belonging.”
Also on board with the project is Kayla Feenstra, a woman who builds the 300 square-foot solar-powered tiny homes, and knows at least five options of where they could park it; a husband-wife team of architects, Peter and Alex Smith, who are working to get supplies donated, and have already acquired windows and doors.
There are only 5 days left to raise the final $12,000. This will pay for first home to be built by February, the time Francesca and Charlotte need it.
Please join Good News Network in supporting and pushing Brice past his goal. You will not only be helping Francesca, but the next person to move in, once she has transitioned to permanent housing and a job, like Peter did this year. Donate now because the fundraiser ends on December 25. Here is the link. We can do this together!
Watch the videos below and meet these wonderful people who live by the golden rule of helping others.
PLEASE Share With Your Community, to Make This Vision Possible…
This mom’s expression says it all, after she – first missed, then – sank a seemingly impossible basketball shot from half-court at her daughter’s school.
The basket won her daughter half-priced tuition next year — worth about $5,000.
Angela Ramey got the chance at the “Half-Court/Half-Tuition” shot after her family turned in the most money for a school fundraiser in Bloomington, Minnesota.
She only had one shot as daughter Grace urged her to “just throw the ball at the goal.”
Angela made an under-handed, alley-oop shot from between her knees, and the ball fell short…
But, then it took a bounce and landed on the rim, where it tipped over and fell into the net.
“You have actually done it. You have effectively ended veteran homelessness,” U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro told city leaders. “The thing is that we can’t stop our work until every single veteran has a place to call home in the United States.”
The Philadelphia effort was led by Philly Vets Home, a coalition of local government agencies, nonprofit groups and the local Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital in the city.
It developed a program that moved vets into emergency housing within just a few days of becoming or being identified as homeless. Veterans were then moved into transitional housing within 47 days and into a permanent home within 105.
Since 2013, veteran homelessness has been cut by about a third nationwide, reports Philadelphia Daily News, as states, counties, and cities have stepped up efforts to find every vet a permanent home.
The discovery of the tallest Chestnut tree left in North America may mean new hope for an iconic species nearly wiped out by disease.
Why this tree was able to survive for 100 years to become 115 feet tall, when billions of others died-off is the latest clue for activists and scientists who have been working for decades to save the species.
Ever since the accidental importation of an Asian virus in 1904, the American Chestnut, once abundant along the U.S. East Coast and Canada has become “functionally extinct” leaving ghostly gaps in the landscape.
It’s believed this tree (pictured left, in the center), and other survivors, are immune to the disease and its DNA could help restore the species. Meanwhile, the American Chestnut Foundation (ACF) with its 6000 volunteers has supported a breeding program to develop a fungus-resistant tree that could be reintroduced to the wild.
ACF’s Lisa Thomson calls the discovery a “unique, unusual, and hopeful chance” of saving an entire species.
A team from the University of Maine, led by researcher Brian Roth, found the tree during an aerial search in July. Chestnuts flower at this time of year when no other trees do in Maine, so they’re easy to spot from the air when the brilliant, white blossoms bloom.
“Old-timers talk about the hillsides in the Appalachian Mountains being covered in flowers as if it was snow, and so we were able to key in on the particular week that these were blooming and … find this tree,” Roth told Maine Public Broadcasting.
Their find could let future generations one day witness a cathedral of blossoms like snow just as the “old-timers” did nearly a century ago. Support the work of ACF with a donation here.
(WATCH the video below from WMTW News) — Photos: WMTW video; Brian Roth, University of Maine
Despite what you might believe, American teens are not smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol at nearly the rates their parents did – in fact, today’s youth are abstaining more often than any time since surveys began in 1975.
On top of that, 40 percent fewer teens are participating in extreme binge drinking compared to ten years ago —10.6% of teens in 2005 down to just 6.1% this year.
The University of Michigan’s annual “Monitoring the Future” study has been one of the most extensive annual surveys of teen drinking, smoking, and drug use for 40 years. It questions 40,000 eighth, tenth, and twelfth grade students every year from 400 public and private schools around the U.S.
Some of the highlights from the 2015 survey include the fact that the percentage of kids who’d had an alcoholic drink in the past year fell to 40%, and in the 30 days before being surveyed, the number was just 22%. Those are the lowest numbers in the survey’s four decade history.
At the high point of teen smoking numbers, 49% of eighth graders said they’d smoked a cigarette in 1996. Nineteen years later, that number has fallen to just 13% — again, the lowest number ever recorded.
Monitoring the Future also shows a decline from recent years in the use of several illicit drugs—including heroin, amphetamine, MDMA (also called ecstasy or Molly), and synthetic marijuana.
Actually, teen heroin use has been in decline since 2009, points out WWJ News, while other narcotics declined in parallel, indicating no evidence of switching from one to the other.
(Photo: Hepingting, CC; Tim Simpson, CC)Don’t Bogart This News… Share it!
The former detention center guard, who during the day delivers donated bread to the neediest in her neighborhood, isn’t afraid to confront the teenage tough-guys hanging out on street corners–but she does it with compassion and the concern of a grandmother.
Both young and old call her “mama”, and she earns that respect every time she goes out on nightly patrols through poor neighborhoods, telling folks they don’t have to settle for a life of crime — because they’ve got her tough love to fall back on.
(WATCH the video below from CBS News) – Photo: CBS News video
