Author: Darby Jones

With 97 years between them, these neighbors formed an unlikely bond due to the pandemic. 99-year-old Mary and 2-year-old Benjamin became friends through their shared fence between their homes in Minneapolis. “Benjamin just turned two years old, we’ve been neighbors with Mary long before he was born,” said Benjamin’s mom, Sarah Olson, to CBS. During the pandemic, the Olsons started playing in the yard more, and Mary would be in hers. As Benjamin got older and started to walk and talk, he would play with Mary more often. "He would run over to Mary when he would see her in the yard and he would bring her a ball," Olson said. "And she created this game that we call Ping Ball, where Benjamin brings her a ball and Mary reaches her cane over our fence, flips it over and kind of kicks it to Benjamin back and forth." Benjamin does not see the 97-year age gap, he just sees his friend. "She's just Mary, or in the past couple of days, he's been calling her 'Mimi,'" Olson said. "We'll be playing inside and he'll go, 'Mimi? Mimi?' and we'll go outside and look for Mimi." "She'll call out, 'Hey Benjamin!' when she sees him, and it's just been so cute to watch it," she said.  Mary was isolated and alone during the pandemic, so she looked forward to seeing Benjamin in the yard. He kept her going when she was unable to see anyone else. Mary has one granddaughter, who is already an adult, so Benjamin is the closest thing to grandkids or great-grandkids that she has right now. Even with most pandemic restrictions lifted, Mary and Benjamin still see each other nearly every day. “Friendship can just happen so many different ways,” said Olson. “I’m happy they formed this friendship because it means a lot to her and it means a lot to him too.” Image source: CBS News

Jim Williams often lies awake in the middle of the night in his prison cell, thinking about his next quilt design. “I’m kind of a perfectionist,” Williams told St. Louis Public Radio. “I’ll wake up at 2:30 in the morning and think, ‘That color really isn’t going to work.” There is a small group of volunteers at South Central Correctional Center in Licking, Missouri that spend their days sewing intricately designed, personalized quilts for every foster child in Texas County. The group of seven men relies entirely on donations and meets every day in the prison’s sewing room. Richard Sanders is one of the more experienced quilters of the group, but never intended to join the program. After visiting the sewing room one day to help fix a broken machine, he realized he wanted to enroll. “It’s just a real peaceful environment,” said Sanders. “These places, the more you stay busy, the better you are.” Sanders has been incarcerated for over three decades and made hundreds of quilts, sending photos of each one to his elderly mother. The program offers the inmates a temporary escape and opportunity to engage with the community. To join the group, an inmate cannot have any recent conduct violations on his record.  “You can see the change in their attitude,” said Joe Satterfield, a case manager at South Central who runs the quilting program. “A light flips on like, ‘Oh, this is a new avenue. I can actually be a part of something.” The project is rooted in restorative justice, which emphasizes community building and rehabilitation. There are many other similar groups, including training shelter dogs and growing vegetables for food banks. For the sewing group at South Central, the men design quilts for children in the Texas County foster care system with individual children in mind, embroidering their names in each one. For Rod Harney, it is an attempt to let the children know that they have not been forgotten. “You see the names of these kids in foster care; you see a 1-year-old or 2-year-old, and it kind of breaks your heart,” said Harney, who learned to sew in his seventh-grade home economics class. “But that lets us know we’re human still. You can’t express enough how it feels to do it.” Image source: St. Louis Public Radio

Tripp Hughes of Kansas City, Missouri just overcame his fight against cancer and completed his final round of chemotherapy, so he decided to express his gratitude to Children’s Mercy Hospital for helping save his life. Tripp and his mom, Krista Hughes, started a toy drive where they collected approximately 4,400 toys that were packed into over 100 boxes. “They’d offer anything to make us just feel at home as possible,” Tripp said to KMBC. “So, we just wanted them to also feel the way that they made us feel.  Due to the pandemic, patients at Children’s Mercy are not allowed to share toys, so they go home with the children. Supplies were low and this is usually a slow time for toy donations.  “We just wanted to make sure that we got everything the hospital needed to be able to give back what they gave us,” said Krista Hughes. Tripp could not wait to make the donation and he got a surprise, too — another chance to celebrate his last cancer treatment by ringing a Kansas City Fire Department truck bell. “Every time that we go there, they’re willing to give anything and everything we need for Tripp,” said Krista Hughes. “I just hope this inspires other kids to do other helpful things,” said Tripp.

The Morris, considered one of San Francisco’s most beloved restaurants, located in the neighborhood known as Potrero Flats. Tables are booked a month in advance, and the restaurant has even limited the number of reservations due to the high demand.  Restaurants across the country have had trouble hiring and keeping workers amid a labor shortage. This is no different for The Morris. The restaurant, known for its extensive wine list and high-quality service, is understaffed, which has put more pressure on the employees who are currently overworked. The owner, Paul Einbund, even shortened the menu, stopped to-go service, cut hours down from six to five days per week and has kept the bar closed. Still, the service and staff are suffering. This prompted Einbund to close the restaurant for four days to give his staff a desperately needed “mental health break.” “Unlike the restaurant that closed down because people were yelling at their employees, most of our clients are really good. On occasion you get some people who are not realizing what’s happening, but for the most part everyone’s been really amazing and supportive,” Einbund said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. “But the team is still working their butts off. Even though we went down to five days a week, it’s too many hours in the day. It’s too exhausting. We just don’t have enough hands.” Einbund said he thought it would be best to take a few days off and recharge the batteries to come back a little stronger. “If the staffing issue doesn’t change, then we’ll do it again,” he said. The Morris was overly cautious during the start of the pandemic to keep everyone safe and healthy. Now, they are struggling to stay on top of everything. “Please be patient. Please bear with us all. All restaurants are in trouble right now,” said Einbund. Einbund hopes that the four day pause will give the employees the break they need to recharge in order to come back to work happier and healthier. He also says he is acting as a “community leader,” hoping others might follow his lead and take proper care of their employees during these challenging times. Image source: The Taste Edit

Two-time olympian Aly Raisman has been reunited with her rescue puppy Mylo who went missing on the Fourth of July. Raisman, 27, said Mylo was spooked by fireworks and ran off near Boston’s Seaport area. She begged her social media followers to be on the lookout. One week of searching later, two people spotted Mylo stuck behind a fence near UMass-Boston, about three miles from where he originally ran off. The duo freed Mylo and gave him water and treats as they waited for Raisman to arrive.  “HEROES. I HAVE HIM. MYLO IS SAFE,” Raisman shared on Instagram. “THANK YOU Carla, Gayle & her sweet dog. Will share more soon but for now going to snuggle with my everything.” Raisman had warned her followers not to shout his name or chase him. “He is terrified, and the folks at Missing Dogs Mass advised that we don’t have anyone yelling his name or running around looking for him. I was told that scared dogs will make bad decisions if they are pressured, and that is the last thing that we want to happen,” she wrote. Now, Raisman plans to meet up with Carla and Gayle for coffee and to compensate them for their good deed. She also intends to pay it forward by using her platform to help others find their lost pets. “I am so lucky to have the platform I have, and I know that it can make a big difference,” said Raisman. Image source: Boston Herald

On July 5, Heavenly Pizza owner Josh Elchert held his Employee Appreciation Day at the Findlay, Ohio-based business. Elchert showed his appreciation by giving all of the day’s sales to the employees who worked that day. Thanks to the Findlay community, the day of appreciation was a huge success, bringing in 220 orders that totaled approximately $6,300 in sales and $1,200 in tips. Split between the staff, each employee made $78 per hour. “Well, you guys are awesome!!!! Thanks to all of you, our employees had a huge day!!!” Elchert wrote in a Facebook post. “Better than I had hoped !!!!” Elchert was impressed with his employees’ work ethic throughout the pandemic which prompted him to plan the day of appreciation. He posted a video to Facebook to reveal his plans. “Our employees have been so great during COVID, during the pandemic, during this season of uncertainty, they’ve just been fantastic,” said Elchert. “They show up every day, they’re here in a good mood… we want to take a day and appreciate them.” The community was quick to jump on board, and Elchert pointed out that a man even came in with a $100 bill a few days before Employee Appreciation Day and asked to donate it to the staff because he would be out of town for the event. “I put it out to our customers to really kind of show the love to our employees and they did, a lot,” said Elchert, who has owned the pizzeria for 11 years. Timmy Lemire, who has worked at Heavenly Pizza for five years and is now the assistant manager, said he has never experienced anything like this. “It’s a big gift. That kind of giving nature is why this place runs so well, works so well,” said Lemire. Image source: Google Maps via People

In early 2020, Mark Scotch met Hugh Smith at a brewery in Louisiana. As they were talking, Smith mentioned he had to leave due to medical reasons. “He said he was on dialysis and in stage five kidney failure,” Scotch said. “I told him, ‘I can give you one of my kidneys.’” Smith was a professional jockey for 17 years and struggled with pain. He was unaware the pain medicine he was taking would eventually lead to kidney failure.  Although he was not a match for Smith, Scotch was able to provide his kidney through the “Voucher Donor” program in Sept. 2020. This put Smith at the top of the registry list, and he received his new kidney from another donor in Feb. 2021. Scotch decided to show the world that you can still live a fulfilling life without a kidney. On April 24, 2021, Scotch started “The Organ Trail” bike ride from Madison, Wisconsin to Natchitoches, Louisiana. His wife followed behind in their car. The ride ended at the same bar that Smith and Scotch met in 2020. “This is absolutely amazing what he did, and he saved my life,” Smith says.

In a tremendous win for Chinese conservation efforts, giant pandas are no longer an endangered species. The number of giant pandas living in the wild has reached more than 1,800, which means the species has been reclassified as “vulnerable.” The new classification comes after Beijing “carried out some major activities and measures to protect biodiversity and achieved remarkable results,” according to Cui Shuhong, head of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. Shuhong also cited tightened law enforcement and a major crackdown on illegal activities on nature reserves as other reasons for the rising panda population.  Becky Shu Chen, technical advisor at the Zoological Society of London, said in a phone interview that most of the nature reserves are so big that there are still many populated villages in them. The Chinese government taught villagers agricultural activities that did not destroy the panda’s natural habitat. Experts agree that teaching pandas and humans to coexist is a crucial way to preserve the animals. As a result of the conservation efforts, many other species have flourished: Siberian tigers, Asian elephants, and crested ibises have all seen gradual increases in population numbers. “China’s successful conservation of giant pandas shows what can be achieved when political will and science join forces,” said Colby Loucks, World Wildlife Fund’s Vice President for Wildlife Conservation. “Continuing these conversations is critical, but we need to stay vigilant on the current and future impacts climate change may have on giant pandas and their mountainous forest habitat.” For China, the giant panda has been considered a national treasure for decades, and has been a protected species since the enactment of the wildlife conservation law in 1958. Beijing also engages in “panda diplomacy,” lending the furry friends to zoos around the world as a gesture of friendship.

The Brooklyn Emerging Leaders Academy (BELA) Charter School, an all-girls high school in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, is celebrating its first graduating class in the school’s history. Every single graduate has been accepted into college. The school was launched in 2017 aimed at helping overcome educational inequalities for Black and Brown students by empowering “each woman to be the best version of herself.”  BELA’s class of 2021 consists of 90% Black and more than 75% first-generation college students. The students applied to over 150 different colleges and received approximately $1 million in merit-based scholarships. For one senior, higher education means re-imagining public transportation and housing infrastructure in her mother’s home country of Nigeria. She also plans to address similar issues in New York City. “I would just go straight back to Nigeria and work at a non-profit and then like basically work on their transportation systems and making sure it was good. I want to make an infrastructure to help those who are in need like the disabled,” said graduating senior Mariam Sikiru to The Patch. The school recently held a “college shower” to honor the graduates and prepare them for the next step in their education journey. All 50 students were “showered” with college gear, duffle bags, dorm supplies and a pair of wireless headphones.  “Today, you are rewriting history and contributing to the legacy of District 16 and Bedford-Stuyvesant,” said BELA co-founder and head of school Nicia Fullwood to The Patch. “We’ve always said that you all were destined for greatness, that you’d change the world in ways we could never imagine. Despite your non-traditional senior year, today, we celebrate all of you.” Image source: BELA

The 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion, 14-year-old Zaila Avant-garde, was born in Harvey, Louisiana. Her father gave her the last name Avant-garde after his favorite album by musician John Coltrane. She is homeschooled by her parents, along with her three brothers.  Avant-garde out-spelled 11 finalists on July 8, 2021 to clinch the prestigious title. Spelling is not her only talent, though. Avant-garde is also a talented basketball player, and holds three Guinness World Records for “Most Bounces in one minute with three basketballs,” “Most Bounce Juggles in one minute with four basketballs,” and the third record is for the “Most Basketballs dribbled by one person simultaneously.” Avant-garde can also ride a unicycle among her many talents.  Avant-garde has had quite the whirlwind since winning the Spelling Bee. She attended the ESPYs in New York City on July 10, and she is planning to visit the White House. Perhaps the most exciting thing to happen since her historic win is the several full-ride college scholarships she has been offered. Louisiana State University and Southern University and A&M College are among the universities to reach out to Avant-garde. “I’m hoping that in a few years I’ll see a whole lot more African American females, and males too, are doing well in the Scripps Spelling Bee,” she said in a statement. “It’s a really good thing. It’s a good gate opener to being interested in education.” Image source: National Review