It’s been a downright depressing week. To help us all remember that positive things are still happening in the world, we have once again rounded up our favorite feel-good (and do-gooder) stories of the last seven days.
Bulletin Board Full of Money Encourages People to Take What They Need
A new video is showcasing a display that went up at Union Station in Los Angeles last month: The board, which read “Give What You Can, Take What You Need,” started out with a few handfuls of dollar bills attached to it, but those passing by quickly began to take notice.
As shown in the video, many people took dollars from the board—but many more began pinning their own fives, tens, and even twenties to it as well.
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The creator, Tyler Bridges, says the concept was an effort to showcase compassion and to encourage similar projects in other cities.
“Some days you need a helping hand and some days you can be the one giving the helping hand,” he told The Huffington Post. “So we just wanted to encourage the people and remind them to ‘share the love.'”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSj9maQ1lPo
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Toddler Gets Touching Response After Writing to His Beagle in “Doggie Heaven”
Following the death of his beagle, Moe, in April, 3-year-old Luke West and his mother, Mary Architzel Westbrook, began occasionally writing letters to their lost pet.
When finished, the pair would address the letters to “Moe Westbrook, Doggie Heaven, Cloud 1” and place them in the mailbox. Typically Westbrook would retrieve the letters from the mailbox when Luke was asleep, but one day she forgot.
“I assumed the post office would throw it away—or that someone might even laugh at it, or us,” she said in an essay for Distinction magazine.
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Instead, she found a note her in mailbox with the return address listed as “From Moe.” Inside was a hand-written note that read: “I’m in doggie heaven. I play all day, I am happy. Thank you 4 being my friend. I wuv you Luke.”
Westbrook said she was “gutted” by the kindness of a stranger and planned to share the note with Luke that night.
Waitress’s Act of Kindness to Grieving Parents Goes Viral
A 21-year-old waitress at the West Side Café in Fort Worth, Texas is getting recognized on social media after paying the check of two of her customers.
Kayla Lane has been paying select customers’ bills for years as a way of showing gratitude to the community. When she found out a couple who came to dine at the restaurant had lost their 9-week-old daughter, she decided to pick up theirs.
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The couple, Debra Riddle and her husband Shaun, had previously taken their infant daughter Glory into the West Side Café, where she met Lane. When the couple returned, Riddle told Today that Lane came over to say hello and was shocked to hear that Glory had passed away.
After offering her condolences to the couple, she surprised them with a note at the end of their meal. It read: “Your ticket has been paid for. We are terribly sorry for your loss. God Bless. – The West Side.”
The couple said they later learned it was Lane who had paid for the meal.
“I felt it was my duty to help them simply through one day and the help I chose to give them was picking up their ticket,” she told Today. “It wasn’t because they necessarily needed it, it wasn’t because I felt bad, it was simply to show them that there are strangers out there willing to help them through this difficult time.”
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