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KINDNESS • InspireMore
A man sleeping on a bench saved a wandering boyA 6-year-old boy was found wandering alone late at night near Northwest Seventh Avenue and 17th Street in Miami on April 8, after a man named Arnett Johnson spotted him and called police. Johnson lives on the streets and had been sleeping on a nearby bench since his release from prison. He looked for the boy's parent and found no one, which left him with one option. He stayed put and waited. "I'm looking around for a parent, but I looked, and I don't see nobody," Johnson told Local 10. He kept the boy company until officers arrived. "This was a good Samaritan that was sleeping in the streets, and he called us and gave us that information," Miami police Officer Mike Vega said. "Kudos to him. We don't know what would have happened if he would have remained on the streets." Johnson had a simpler explanation. "God sent me there."
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KINDNESS • Sunny Skyz
A teacher's goodbye gift, one quilt per student, no two alikeKim Rohlf spent months at her sewing machine making a custom quilt for every student in her second-grade class, a goodbye gift before she retired after 35 years of teaching. Rohlf, who taught at Westwood Elementary School in Ankeny, Iowa, presented the quilts ahead of her final day. No two were alike. Some carried holiday themes, others featured a kid's favorite dinosaur or sport, each one designed around the child it belonged to. "I love teaching and I love quilting, so it gives a little to share my love with them as they leave and I end my chapter of teaching," she said. She also wrote each student a personal note. Gabrielle, one of her second-graders, noticed the care. "Every quilt is made based on our personalities," she said. Rohlf had planned to walk out quietly at the end of the year. Her students, she admitted, were making that harder than expected.
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KINDNESS • InspireMore
50 years married, and 100 people drove to celebrateRalph and Cindy Zingarella married in 1976, which makes this the year of their 50th wedding anniversary. Their daughters, Andrea Bodin and Dayna Ferraro, decided the milestone deserved more than a card. They planned a surprise party at a local steakhouse and told their parents it was for Dayna's birthday, a small deception that held all the way to the front door. When Ralph and Cindy walked in, more than 100 family members and friends shouted, "Surprise." Some had driven seven hours from Maine. Others flew in. "Some of those people there have been in my parents' lives since they were teenagers," Dayna told People. "It just goes to show you how loved they truly are." The Zingarellas, expecting a quiet birthday dinner, found half a century of their friendships standing in one room. They had no idea what they'd walked into, which was rather the point.
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DELIGHT • Good News Network
They grow chairs from living trees. Six are ready to sit.Alice and Gavin Munro have spent 20 years growing chairs straight out of the ground in Derbyshire, England, pruning young tree branches over metal frames until they fuse into the shape of a seat. Each chair takes six to nine years to grow, then dries for a year before it can hold a person. The couple have worked with willow, apple, oak and hawthorn through their business, Full Grown. Gavin first had the idea as a child in hospital, recovering from operations on his spine and watching the woodland from his bed. His parents kept overgrown bonsai, and the silhouette, he thought, looked like a throne. "It's like bonsai meets 3D printing," he said. The chairs sell as artworks worth around 75,000 pounds. Out of a few hundred started, the Munros expect roughly a dozen to survive 20 years of labor. Six are currently sittable. The rest are still making up their minds.
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MOTIVATIONAL • InspireMore
She took her graduation photos with two alligatorsKatalina Daley posed for her college graduation photos with two alligators named Big Al and Tex. The recent graduate has worked at Gator Country Adventure Park & Sanctuary in Beaumont, Texas, for the past year, and the idea came from her boss, Shannon Saurage. In one shot, Daley kissed an alligator on the snout. Her Instagram bio reads, "Pretty girls care about wildlife," which she means literally. Working with the animals feels natural to her, she told People, though she keeps her guard up. "I always keep in mind that these are still wild animals at the end of the day," she said. "I think it is always important to remember what they can do." The photos drew thousands of comments, including one from a viewer in Liberty whose family had met Gator Country during rescue calls. Daley wanted her graduation to say something about reptiles people tend to fear. The alligators sat for it.
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Did today's letter lift you? Pass it to someone who'd want the same.
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With love, The Editor
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