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Five good things · Three minutes
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MEDICINE • Woman's World
Turned away by nursing homes, she built 500 friendshipsEvery home said no. She asked one for a single visit.
Jiya Joshi was 14 when she started calling Houston nursing homes, asking to volunteer, and getting turned away. One coordinator told her flat out that staff didn't have time to mind both children and seniors. So she changed her pitch. "Could I come just once, a trial visit?" she asked Sharon Williams, activities director at Landon Ridge Assisted Living. "If it doesn't work, I won't bother you again." Williams said yes. Joshi, still grieving her grandmother Saroj, who had died that year, showed up with a box of art supplies and asked a group of residents if they wanted to paint. A woman named Betty said she loved painting, then talked about nursing in Vietnam. Another resident produced a chunk of the Berlin Wall he kept in his room. By the end, Joshi had a dozen new friends. She returned every Saturday, then founded Young and Old United. Within two years, more than 500 students were making regular visits across the state. Read the full story → | |||
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KINDNESS • NPR Stories
A 92-year-old still plays softball, and they call her MomShe almost stayed home. Then she hit her first home run.
The Colorado Peaches, a women's softball team where the youngest player is 60 and the oldest is 92, marked 35 years on the field this season in Lakewood. Barbara Johnson, 92, still turns up on Tuesday mornings in peach-colored sneakers, bat in hand. Her teammates call her Mom. She grounded out on the day KUNC visited, couldn't quite reach first in time, and said, "Ah, shucks." The team formed in 1991 to keep older women moving and connected. Around a quarter of Colorado residents will be over 60 within a few years, and researchers link social isolation to dementia and heart disease. Laura Clemons, 77, has leukemia and nearly skipped a recent morning for lack of energy. She went anyway, and hit her first home run. "I don't know where I would be without them right now," she said. Johnson wears number 24 and plans to keep swinging. "It's up to me to keep doing it."
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KINDNESS • Sunny Skyz
A whole neighborhood kept one coyote alive for a yearA wild animal on the streets. A whole neighborhood watching out for her.
A coyote with a badly swollen face was rescued this week in Studio City, California, after roughly a year of neighbors quietly keeping her alive. They named her Wendy. When Barbara Perrin's son spotted the animal recently, he called his mom, knowing she would want to help. Perrin normally rescues cats and dogs through the nonprofit Saving Grace LA, but Wendy became a group project. A newspaper delivery boy had been texting Perrin photos of the coyote and leaving out water and scraps of food. "People really cared about her, which was amazing to see," Perrin said. Once she shared Wendy's story online, Wildlife Care of Southern California stepped in, and Southern California Pitbull Rescue set up cameras to track her movements. After weeks of coordination, Wendy is now on antibiotics and resting. The cause of the swelling is still unknown. The community has donated thousands of dollars toward her care. They didn't have to. They decided she mattered. Read the full story → | |||
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KINDNESS • Woman's World
Two teens rescued school supplies for 20,000 studentsIt started with a pencil on the floor. Just needed sharpening.
Two Connecticut teenagers have supplied nearly 20,000 students with free school materials in two years, all of it rescued from the trash. It started with a pencil. Grace Millard and Jordan Chen, then freshmen at their Woodbridge high school, kept noticing what their classmates threw away: half-used notebooks, poster boards, markers that still worked. Grace picked up an abandoned pencil in the hallway one day and pointed out that it only needed sharpening. The two, former elementary classmates reconnected over a shared frustration with waste, emailed local libraries and museums asking for leftovers. One replied with a box of half-used markers. A library offered 200 children's books it had no room for. They named the nonprofit Restoring Rainbows and set out donation bins around town. It has since grown to more than 3,000 volunteers in 53 countries. Grace now writes guides for strangers who email asking how to start the same thing in their own towns. Read the full story → | |||
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KINDNESS • InspireMore
Strangers cheered until a scared boy found his courage.He stood at the edge a long time. Then the strangers started cheering.
A little boy in Texas stood at the edge of a diving board last week, toes curled over the lip, trying to decide whether the water was worth it. He hesitated long enough that the other swimmers noticed. So they started cheering. A video of the moment, posted to TikTok, has since drawn nearly 9 million views. As the crowd's noise built, the boy's nerves settled. He jumped. When he hit the water, the whole pool erupted. Viewers picked out a woman on a blue towel wiping away tears. One commenter turned out to know the family. "She's not on social media but I shared and she's cracking up and said it was a great moment," she wrote. The boy has no idea a few million strangers watched him work up the courage. He was mostly concerned with the water, which was the point. Read the full story → | |||
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THE HONEYMAP
Sweet news is everywhere, if you know where to look.
• Every good thing we have reported, pinned where it happened •
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With love, The Editor
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