Young people who are down on their luck in Los Angeles gave thanks yesterday for My Friend's Place, a privately funded center that has become a haven where homeless youth can nurture fragile dreams. It also gives them what food it can afford, and clothes, toiletries and hot showers.
A group of prisoners at New York City's Rikers Island jail were let out for a day so they could deliver 700 Thanksgiving meals to the needy. The men cooked up the hundreds of turkey dinners in a jail kitchen for delivery to two churches, according to an AP report. That's not the only example this month of Riker's prison helping New Yorkers in need. A New York Times story today tells how, after Hurricane Sandy tore through nearby neighborhoods, the island inmates did 6,600 pounds of laundry for people in emergency shelters.
Someone called The Turkey Fairy has been leaving blankets, hats and gloves at a Cleveland bus stop in the middle of the night. On Monday morning, the items were discovered with a note that read, "Happy Thanksgiving. Take gloves, hats, blankets, & stay warm. Love, The Turkey Fairy."
Customers in Central Oregon turned out in droves to support a local business down on its luck. Always serving the community through donations to high school raffles and day care centers, it was time for the locals to show support for the Black Rock Coffee Bar on Pacific Highway in Tigard, which had been robbed twice in two weeks.
Since November 1, a group called Mercy Chefs, using a retrofitted RV mobile kitchen, has been supplying hot meals to New Yorkers who lost power after Hurricane Sandy. Now, at the request of the Freeport mayor, the unit has just relocated to Long Island to feed 1,000 people still housed in Nassau County's emergency shelters -- just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.Read More
Portlanders are remembering a man who for five years played music, did magic tricks and smiled at cars from a sidewalk corner bordering the city's Hawthorne Bridge. Rain or shine, and always dressed in a white tuxedo and Mickey Mouse ears, Kirk Reeves could be seen entertaining passers by. The city came together for a memorial under the bridge Sunday and fans are raising money to place a marker on the spot where he performed daily.
The Occupy Wall Street movement, forever angry about government bail-outs for big banks, finally figured out a way to issue their own bail-outs -- this time, for the little guy. A group called Strike Debt launched a campaign last night, called Rolling Jubilee, that has already raised more than a quarter million dollars to buy up the debt owed by faceless Americans and cancel it, while just paying pennies on the dollar for the privilege. They call it, a bailout by the people, for the people.
This year, front row seats to see the marching bands and massive balloons of the iconic Macy's Day Thanksgiving Day parade will be occupied not by diplomats or corporate titans and their families, but by thousands of New Yorkers hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy.
Occupy Wall Street has become a lauded and effective relief organization for victims of Sandy. The social media savvy that helped Occupy protesters create a grass-roots global movement last year is proving a strength as members fan out across New York to deliver aid including hot meals, medicine and blankets.
On October 24th, Michael Cali Moore, a National Guardsman, sent Dan, the anonymous founder of the Facebook page Awesome Sh*t My Drill Sergeant Said a message concerning another Guardsman who was planning on killing himself that night.
Ben Overstreet badly wanted to play football, but when he started his senior year at Gulf High School in 1949, he stood 5-feet-5 and weighed 105 pounds. He became the equipment manager and water boy. His heroic journey came later, after joining the Air Force and flying missions over Vietnam.
For 30 years, Gerard Thomas was among the 70,000 American veterans sleeping on the streets every night. As a paranoid schizophrenic he was in and out of prison and mental institutions for decades. These days, the 62-year-old devotes his life to helping homeless veterans.
Sometimes dead men really do get to vote. An elderly Michigan couple was filling out their absentee ballots in Michigan, when the man suddenly died. Luckily, a nearby nurse resuscitated the man, who, upon regaining consciousness, only cared about one thing -- voting.
This photo taken by a tourist in Times Square, shows a 25 year-old police officer stooping on his knee against the cold sidewalk to talk to a homeless man with bare feet. He asked his shoe size, went into the Skechers store and bought all-weather boots. Here are 6 photos posted in November on social media that serve to inspire and will restore your faith in humanity.
While running the last mile of a youth triathlon Sunday, Ben Baltz's prosthetic leg broke and the 11-year-old went down. That's when a group of Marines stepped in and carried him the rest of the way. More than a few people crying as they crossed the finish line.
It's an unusual man who can forgive his wartime torturer - or whose quest to do so can touch so many people around the world. Eric Lomax, a former British prisoner of war whose moving tale of wartime torture and forgiveness is being turned into a film, died Monday in England at 93.
17 years ago, a retired couple in Utah started making handmade wooden toys for poor and sick children. The little cars and trucks were received so enthusiastically in the local hospital, a workshop was set up which has since delivered more than 1.1 million toys to kids around the world. News spread around Cedar City telling of a Happy Factory where retired couples could come to laugh and give their time in a collective effort to make kids happy around the globe.
Friends answered the call on a sister's Facebook page to re-fill the heart of a woman with severe Multiple Sclerosis. They supplied things that most people would take for granted. What started as a dismal situation turned into a heart-warming campaign that spread across the social network like a friendly virus.
Businesses might want to allow employees a five-minute tour of kitten videos on YouTube now that a new study released by Japanese scientists has reported added benefits of looking at cute images. Beyond just feeling warm and fuzzy, the mere sight of adorable puppies and kittens can improve our concentration, according to the research from Hiroshima University.
Tim Farber was handed a sandwich at a drive-through window and told that lunch was free because the motorist who arrived before him paid his bill. Tim Farber was handed a sandwich at a drive-through window and told that lunch was free because the motorist who arrived before him paid his bill. It was part of an infectious trend that's been bringing smiles to Winnipeg coffee store patrons. Farber, in turn, offered to pay for the order of a total stranger in the car behind him.
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