Tell Me Something Good 4/5/20

Tell Me Something Good logo. Image by Lenny Ghoul and Word Clouds.

The news these days is often depressing at worst and frustrating at best. It’s easy to get caught up in the spin cycle and let it get us down. Never fear… The News Blender has you covered. Once a week we feature Something Good and, in return, all you have to do is tell us something good that has happened to you this week, something you are thankful for, a joke, a cute animal story, an inspiring tale of heroics, a Random Act of Kindness… SOMETHING good.

No matter how difficult things are, there are always stories of kindness, encouragement, and hope in this time of social distancing and isolation.

First, if you haven’t seen John Krasinski (Jim from The Office) and his latest venture, you should check it out. He is gathering good news stories and making a little show he calls Some Good News from home. With any luck, this will be a regular feature because people are hungry for good news right now. While he is working on the second SGN episode, here is last week’s to tide you over.

(By the way, for once in Twitter’s history, the comments are absolutely worth checking out because his SGN tweets are full of positive stories.)

Then there are the stories of the previously underappreciated workers who have been revealed to be absolutely essential and put themselves in harms way every single day, like the custodial staff in Williston, Vermont. After a staff member had cold symptoms after staying in a hotel which had confirmed cases of Covid19, the town’s schools were closed for a deep clean.

Parents, having discussed the situation in Facebook groups, decided to recognize the custodial staff who were responsible for the deep clean. Brooke Thomas, a parent in the district, started a Facebook fundraiser hoping to be able to raise a little money to show the parents’ appreciation. They hoped to raise $200 and maybe be able to buy lunch for the custodians. Overnight, donations passed $2,000 and by the time the fundraiser ended, $7,450 were donated.

Brooke told CNN, “I said that we need to recognize that these staff members who are going into potential contamination and a disaster zone, really, and putting themselves at risk.” She continued,”It’s already an under-appreciated job as it is and not one that gets a lot of respect. It was feel-good way to get people to recognize that and promote kindness when this mass hysteria is happening.”

Inspired by Brooke’s efforts, the nearby town of Shelburn, Vermont raised more than $4,000 for their school’s janitorial crew through Shawna Lidsky’s GoFundMe campaign.

Finally, a sweet video that is near to my heart as the mom of a first responder. Tayla Porter, a 22 year old paramedic in England, was overwhelmed as her whole street came out to applaud as she left for her shift. When Tayla’s mom, Ali, mentioned to neighbors on an online forum that her daughter would miss the nationwide applause for the NHS that evening because her shift started at 4:00, the neighbors took it from there.

Tayla was in tears as her neighbors cheered her as she climbed into her car.

Ali said, “I had no idea the whole street would come out. I just thought it might be our next door neighbours and the house opposite. What I didn’t realise was that every single house had at least one person come out to clap her. It carried on all the way up our street and you could hear them clapping all the way up the next street too. It must have been people texting people or word of mouth, because not everyone is on there. It was so emotional, I could barely speak. It was just overwhelming pride.”

We may be isolated right now but never have we been so connected to each other. The ways we can show each other kindness and encouragement are bound only by our imagination and we each can do our part to help one another during these difficult times. Now it’s your turn… Tell me something good that happened this week!

About the opinions in this article…

Any opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this website or of the other authors/contributors who write for it.

About Beth 2699 Articles
*Principle above party * Politically Homeless * Ex GOP * Tribalism is stupid* NeverTrump ≠ Pro Hillary. Anti-GOP ≠ Pro Dem. Disagreeing with you ≠ Liberal. https://universeodon.com/@NoMorePlatosCave https://post.news/nomoreplatoscav Counter Social: @NoMorePlatosCave