Good News Tuesday: Kids and Dogs

Seeking Balance One Tuesday at a Time

 

Sending Food Home with Students

An Indiana school district rescues unused food and sends it home with elementary school students for the weekend.

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A 13 Year Old Boy Buys His Mom a Car

William Preston did yard and house work in the neighborhood and traded his X box to buy his single mom a car.

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Board Games on Bed Sheets

Kevin Gatlin got the idea to put board games on bed sheets after he visited his friend’s child in the hospital.  NBC Charlotte reports on the successful results:

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Affirmations

Three year old Sammy Silver was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bones. He’s had 40 bone fractures and six surgeries. Doctors called him a “glass baby.” His mom teaches him affirmations, and Sammy says them with conviction:

“I’m tough. I’m brave. I’m strong. I’m Sammy Silver.” 

You can read more in this article from Good Morning America.

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The Man Who Adopts Senior Dogs

Steve Greig from Colorado started adopting senior dogs after one of his dogs died. Now he has ten dogs and a pig. Read about him in this Epoch Times article and be sure to watch the short video included.

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Got good news? Please Share in the comments!

WATWB: The Principal who Reads Bedtime Stories to Students

Welcome to #WATWB # 22! We are sharing stories about people doing good work and bringing hope to the world.  To learn more about this monthly blogfest, visit

https://www.damyantiwrites.com/we-are-the-world-blogfest/

and the WATWB Facebook page for more positive posts.

My story this month is about Dr. George, the elementary school principal who reads stories to her students every Tuesday night on a livestream from her home. I love her genuine, fun nature and her messages like, “It’s okay to be weird,” and “Anything that’s  loving and kind, it grows much faster….”  I bet you’ll enjoy this video!

 

It’s hard to believe that WATWB has been going strong for two years! Happy Anniversary to all! There’s still plenty of good in the world. We are the world!

Our cohosts for this month are:  Shilpa Garg,  Sylvia McGrath , Belinda WitzenHausen, Dan Antion, Damyanti Biswas.

WATWB: Book Club for Minority Boys Takes Off

When school administrators found a book about real life, the students at this Washington high school got into reading. They formed a book club that meets  once or twice a week at  8:15 in the morning. The students are enthusiastic and have started their second book.“They are now seeing that reading is amazing…” says the vice principle in charge of literacy. I commend not only the school administrators for thinking outside the box and supporting the students, but also the students for supporting each other.

This hopeful article in The Washington Post tells more about how it happened and why this book club is going strong. Now, there’s a girl’s book club at the school, too.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/these-kids-started-a-book-club-for-minority-boys-its-the-most-popular-one-in-school/2018/01/21/c15620e2-fc6d-11e7-ad8c-ecbb62019393_story.html?utm_term=.4792678287de

This post is part of We Are The World Blogfest sharing stories that show love, humanity, and brotherhood but go beyond religion and politics. This month We Are The World is co-hosted by:  Shilpa Garg, Simon Falk, Lynn Hallbrooks, Eric Lahti, Damyanti Biswas and Guilie Castillo.  Click on the WATWB link to read more or join in.

Reaching Out to Newbies and Loners

Since my dad was in the Marine Corps, we moved around a lot. I went to kindergarten in Newfoundland, Canada, attended elementary school at Camp Pendelton, California, then on to the Philadelphia naval base followed by Michigan, New York, and Quantico, Virginia when Dad was in Vietnam. His final assignment was to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina where he retired from the Corps. Then, I went to a civilian school a short distance away which seemed almost like going to another country.

You’d think I would have gotten used to being the new kid in school, and I did learn to adapt, but it was always hard. Wondering who I’d sit with at lunch was always awkward at first. Being naturally shy, I learned to depend on myself for company when necessary. But sometimes, students reached out to me in friendship giving me the confidence to eventually reach out to others. Maybe that’s why I was moved by this news story about a student who started a club to reach out to newbies and loners.

Do you remember being the new kid? What helped?

 

 

Back in First Grade

I recently started volunteering at an elementary school one day a week helping first graders with reading and writing. My job is to invite one student at a time to a back table where we read a book together, or I help them with a worksheet.

Three days after my first visit, I came down with a bad summer cold and had to miss the second week. (This happened after saying to myself, “I never get sick.”) So, I stocked up on vitamin C, echinacea and zinc, and I’m making a renewed effort in my goal to get more sleep.

Yesterday, I helped the first graders write stories using the prompts, Who, What, Where, When, and Why with the theme of what they like to do for fun. One student said she liked to go to “Jungle Rabbits.” I had to smile, because I remembered my daughter, many years ago calling the water slide park “Jungle Rabbits” when it’s official name is Jungle Rapids. The word, rapids, makes no sense to first graders, but rabbits do. It doesn’t matter that there are no rabbits there. When I said, “I think it’s called, Jungle Rapids, she insisted it was Jungle Rabbits, so I joined the journey and helped her spell rabbits. The next student who said he liked to go to Jungle Rabbits, got no argument from me. Jungle Rabbits it is!

But my favorite experience, so far, was when it was almost time for recess. Two boys in the back of the room started getting on each other’s nerves. I re-directed them to their work and wondered it I was going to need to get the busy teacher’s attention. A third boy came to one of them with a letter he had written. It said simply,  “I love you,” followed by the author’s name. Then the letter writer went back to his desk and wrote another letter, and brought it to the other boy. It said the same thing. “I love you.”

“Isn’t that nice?” I said.

The restless boys didn’t say anything. They didn’t quite know what to make of the letters. But they were distracted from their irritations and settled down long enough to make it to recess without any problems. There’s just something about a hand-printed letter.

I think I’m going to like first grade a lot better this time around.

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(The images are from Pixabay)