Katherine Johnson wanted to make her lonely 7 year old son Oliver Johnson’s birthday one to remember. Oliver is obsessed with trucks, he knows the name of every truck, every truck manufacturer, and every trucking company. Katherine offered $50 to anyone who would come give him a ride in their big rig for his 8th birthday. She never imagined the outcome of her Facebook post.
Katherine hoped one truck driver would take up the offer, but instead, Barry Hart, owner of Hart Haulage Trucking, saw her offer and decided to organize a whole convoy. Hart put a call out on social media and 34 drivers signed up for Ollie’s birthday convoy. So many signed up that Hart had to organize them like a parade and call authorities to help manage traffic. Hart said that almost twice as many showed up for the bid day.
Hart said all the drivers volunteered to be part of the convoy for young Oliver despite the what it would cost them to get there truck to the meeting point. “Every one of these truckies that are doing this, and there are probably 10 trucks at least that are coming from Auckland, those guys, it will cost them $500-600 to get that truck down there, do their thing, and go away, and not one of them is asking for anything” Hart said.
Even Hart was shocked by the turn out saying he expected 15 to 20 drivers but it just kept growing as word spread. “When it comes to kids, this community, these truckers will always come out. It’s a young fella and we wanted him to know there was a community around him” he said. Ollie’s dad Simon Johnson said they were “literally blown away” by the number of trucks that turned up.
Ollie had absolutely no idea that there would be a truck convoy coming to celebrate his birthday until the trucks turned up. Johnson said “His reaction all day will just be sunshine in everybody’s eyes, he’s still on cloud nine.” Johnson said they also received comments and birthday wishes from all over the world, and they will be forever grateful and humbled by what has taken place.
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Three time NBA Championship winner Rick Fox co-founded and is the CEO of Partanna, which manufactures concrete that absorbs more carbon from the air than it contributes during the manufacturing process. Fox believes tropical storms are becoming more intense due to carbon content in the atmosphere.
Fox got involved in 2019 when he got a call from his manager just after Hurricane Dorian smashed into Fox’s home in the Bahamas. His manager, who was also displaced by a natural disaster—the fires in California in 2018, said she had met an architect called Sam Marshall who was developing carbon-negative concrete.
Instead of using Portland cement, which is a major source of carbon emissions, they use a special mixture of natural and recycled ingredients that’s cured at ambient temperature rather than the high temps that make concrete and cement responsible for the largest share of the manufacturing emissions pie chart.
The binder components consume CO2 as they cure, which means they actually remove carbon from the atmosphere. They use a brine activator that’s found in natural pozzolans, which helps avoid using the energy-intensive clinkering process. Every part of the concrete process is designed to reduce its environmental impact.
Believing in the cause, Fox went all in and became the co-founder and CEO of Partanna “I’ve been a part of a lot of amazing journeys and industries, from entertainment to movies and TV. I’ve been on sets with Oscar-winning actors and directors, and I’ve been on championship NBA teams. There’s been nothing more rewarding for me in my life than to be a part of this team where we’re leaving something behind,” Fox said.
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Donna Herter, watched her 24 year old son, Christian Bowers, struggle with making friends. Christian has Down Syndrome, and making friends was never hard for him until he finished school and found, as many people do, it’s not as easy and straightforward to maintain a social life.
Bowers’ mother, Donna Herter, watched her son sink further and further into depression. He occasionally attends gatherings and groups of other special needs men and women his age, but longed for friendships. Eventually, Herter put up a post on Facebook asking if any local guys near Rochester, Minnesota, would be interested in coming to hang out with Christian for two hours, with a compensation of $80,00.
Herter put up the post at 4AM, the end of her night shift as a nurse. She headed home and went to sleep and woke up to over 5,000 comments on her post. Hundreds of commenters volunteered to help free of charge. She eventually found 7 fellows from Wentzville, Minnesota, who visit Christian once a week on a rotating schedule. Herter says her son goes to sleep with a smile on his face now, and is excited about life in general, and of the future as well.
One of the 7 friends, James Hasting, said he felt terrible seeing the post and that Herter had reached the point where she was trying to pay people to visit her son. Hasting, who volunteers with special needs folks, said hanging out just for a few hours to watch a movie or play video games with Christian has changed the way he looks at the world.
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In 1995, Lamar Johnson was wrongfully convicted of fatally shooting a man and received a life sentence. A couple of years later, a minister at Ginny Schrappen’s church handed her a letter. It was from Johnson and addressed to anyone who would write back. The two struck up a fast friendship and corresponded constantly for decades while Johnson was in prison, serving time for a murder he didn’t commit.
Johnson always claimed he did not commit the murder. After the Midwest Innocence Project got involved and the real killer confessed, Johnson was exonerated and released from prison at 49 years old. Twenty-eight years later his conviction was overturned. On February 14, 2023, Johnson was released from prison at 49 years old.
He spent the next few weeks doing all the things he couldn’t do in prison, including traveling to see one of his best friends for the very first time. Johnson went to Schrappen’s house for the first time, where she greeted him with a warm welcome. She gave him a tour, a box of his favorite cereal and one last letter.
Johnson said that the greatest gift, though, is the confidence his friend instilled in him and it’s inspired him to serve a life of friendship. Johnson said that Schrappen’s belief is what helped him get through nearly 30 years of injustice. “Especially when somebody is innocent, you want someone to believe in you. Because when you have people who believe in you and they won’t give up on you, then it makes it harder for you to give up on yourself” he said.
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Isaiah Márquez-Greene, a survivor of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, got the surprise of a lifetime when he went to a New York Rangers game and met one of his favorite players. Márquez-Greene knew he was going to receive a jersey from Rangers captain, Jacob Trouba, at the game. But what he didn’t expect was for Trouba to present him with a scholarship for law school.
Márquez-Greene, lost his sister Ana, who died in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting at age 6. Now 18, he is getting ready to attend the University of Connecticut and had already been accepted into the school’s special law program. In a video from the game, Márquez-Greene met Trouba on the ice and shared that he’s been a fan of the hockey star since he played for the Winnipeg Jets.
After signing his jersey, Trouba invited him to sit on the Rangers bench. Calling him an “amazing human,” Trouba shared that he knows Márquez-Greene’s story and asked the incoming freshman what he wants to do in the future. After Márquez-Greene responded that he wants to be a lawyer, Trouba handed him a certificate.
“This is for you,” he said. “It’s from the Garden of Dreams. It’s a scholarship for law school.” “No way,” Márquez-Greene responded. Trouba continued, “You’re going to graduate from college, you’re going to go to law school and you’re going to have no debt coming out of school. You deserve it, man” he said. After the pair took a picture together, Trouba gave Márquez-Greene his number and told him he wanted to check in with him when he goes to college next year.
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In 2018, a homeless man found a check for $10k and his only thoughts were returning it to its rightful owner. Because of his good deed, he was rewarded with a chance at a whole new life. Elmer Alvarez had been living on the streets of New Haven, CT for several years battling addiction. The unexpected death of his brother from a heart attack spurred him into a dark spiral of addiction and crime.
Having finally kicked his addiction, he never considered keeping the check despite still living on the streets. Alvarez said “It never crossed my mind because I made a decision to turn my life over. I’d been clean for three years. I was just thinking about how that person was feeling by losing an amount of a check like that, an amount of money like that. I’d be feeling kind of desperate.” It turns out that the check belonged to real-estate broker Roberta Hoskie.
Luckily for Elmer, Roberta was full of compassion for his situation due to her own experience with homelessness as a teenage mother. “He didn’t know whose name was on the check, he didn’t know that at one point I was a single mother, I was at one point on welfare, and at one point found myself homeless” Hoskie said.
She offered him a reward for returning the check, which brought tears to Elmer’s eyes. Roberta also offered Elmer a place to live, paying his rent for seven months, and had him attend her real estate school for free. Hoskie said she was in awe of his actions. “There needs to be more people like Elmer Alvarez, he’s a golden heart guy, he’s a phenomenal guy.”
Years later, Alvarez is able to support himself as a realtor and is on the board of directors of Outreach Foundation, a non-profit Hoskie started to help with housing and resources for homeless teens and young adults. Hoskie also wrote a book- “Poverty Curse Broken: The Roberta Hoskie Story” with the hopes of inspiring others to break the poverty cycle.
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Students at Glen Lake Elementary School in Minnesota raised $300,000 for a new disability-friendly playground. Some students in Betsy Julien’s fifth-grade class took note of the complete lack of playground equipment, such as a wheelchair merry-go-round or swings that kept students with disabilities from joining in on the fun of recess.
Students Wyatt Feucht and Rhys Riley believed that every student deserved the chance to have fun during recess, so they asked their teacher why the school couldn’t buy the equipment themselves. Ms Julien explained that it was expensive, with an estimated cost of $300,000. The pair made a mission to raise money for a disability-inclusive playground.
They began collecting spare change, held a bake sale, printed flyers, and went door-to-door to raise money. They even reached out to local businesses and restaurants, asking them to donate a portion of their profits. The students’ hard work continued for several months, with support from the Glen Lake Parent Teacher Organization, until they finally reached their goal- raising the $300,000 needed.
Hall of Famer John Randle and current special teams ace Josh Metellus were on hand at Glen Lake Elementary School on Wednesday as part of a rally for students that are raising money for playground equipment to allow some of their classmates to better participate in some of the outdoor activities. The fundraiser originally had a goal of $300,000, but is now over $700,000 with the goal having moved all the way to $1,000,000.
Their teacher Betsy Julien said “My future as an adult is bright knowing that this generation of students, of changemakers, sees something that needs fixing, and they go for it headfirst.” Now the class has set a new goal: to buy adaptive playground equipment for other schools in the district. Their fundraising efforts can be found at: https://www.glenlakepto.org/glen-lake-accessibility-project
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A Kenyan high school teacher is using old laptop batteries to turn petrol-powered bikes into electric ones. Paul Waweru, a Physics teacher based in Nairobi, is turning second-hand electronics destined to become waste products into something useful. Waweru said he had to import an electric bike but the bike didn’t last long which prompted him to get innovative.
He buys old batteries that can cost as little as 0.50 Kenyan shillings, which he then cannibalizes for the cells that still can hold a decent charge. Once he has enough battery cells, he configures them into battery packs to replace the internal combustion engines of existing scooters and bikes.
A full charge on the laptop battery pack is around 60 miles and it can fully charge in 45 minutes for less than half the cost of a full tank of fuel. He founded a company called Ecomobilus which sells Ecomobilus bikes. They require zero maintenance because there are no mechanical parts that need to be repaired.
Many African cities are choked with air pollution, especially during the dry seasons, and some are seeing electric bikes as the perfect solution to quickly and effectively improve on this vital issue. Ecomobilus Bikes are now being used by many couriers and delivery drivers as a cost effective solution to the air pollution problems.
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An 8 year-old Arkansas boy started a GoFundMe for his favorite Waffle House waiter after finding out he was living in a motel. Kayzen Hunter’s mom Vittoria Hunter said they started going to breakfast at their local Waffle House in Little Rock just about every other weekend and her son would always talk about how much he liked the waiter, Devonte Gardner.
For Gardner, the feeling is mutual. He would greet Kayzen with a high five and always remembered his usual order -scrambled eggs with cheese, no toast, hash browns covered with cheese and an Arnold Palmer. Gardner says “He’s a wonderful kid. He tells me jokes every time he comes in, like, ‘Hey, Devonte, I got a joke for you,’ and the next thing you know, we’re laughing,” he adds.
Vittoria said “As we started to go more and more and we met Devonte, we realized he’s just really a light in the world. It got to the point where we always would sit in his section, he’s so smiley, he’s always like, ‘Hey, Kayzen, how are you?’” One day, Kayzen learned that Gardner had moved into a motel 8 months earlier because his daughters were getting sick from black mold in their apartment and the heat stopped working. The move meant he had to hold off on buying a car.
Vittoria said “He came home and said ‘Hey, Mom, Devonte walks or gets a ride to work and I’m gonna start a GoFundMe,’” Hunter said he begged her for a while to do the GoFundMe before she agreed to take the plunge. The initial idea was to raise enough money to help Gardner buy a car so the original goal was to raise a modest amount of $500 for Gardner. They posted the GoFundMe titled “Help Devonte get a family car” on Feb. 18. Though the Hunters say the GoFundMe started out slow, after passing the initial goal they decided to raise it to $5,000.
As the GoFundMe gained more attention, the amount raised skyrocketed to over $100,000. Gardner just signed a lease on a two-bedroom apartment and plans to get a minivan but will save the rest of the money for his kids. Gardner said Kayzen is a positive kid with a huge heart and he’s thankful he came into his life. Vittoria said “I think so many people spend a lot of energy complaining about what they don’t like but if you just be positive, then you know eventually love and positivity is gonna prevail. It always does.” Kayzen’s father Korey Hunter said “‘Be the change you wish to see in the world,’ right? We know who we are as people and we know the potential of what our children can be.”
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A Louisiana man says an encounter while grocery shopping changed his outlook on the world. Jason Boudreaux was chatting with another shopper, Kevin Jones, while waiting in the checkout line. When he went to pay for his $30 worth of groceries, his card was declined. Jones immediately stepped up to help.
Boudreaux shared the story in a now-viral post on Facebook with the story of the kind act he experienced while out grabbing groceries. “Much respect for this young gentleman,” Boudreaux wrote in the post with a photo of him and Jones. Boudreaux explained that he had deposited his payroll check an hour prior to the photo thinking his check would have cleared and the money would appear in his account.
“This lil gentleman said I got you,” wrote Boudreaux. “I said no you don’t you probably didn’t hear the price. He responded yes Sir I did, and I got you. I scrambled to my car to give him my business card, so I can repay him. He said no problem, but it is a problem to me owing money to anyone. But the point of this is the dude just stepped up for a complete stranger, he should be recognized” Boudreaux wrote.
Boudreaux also said he intended to pay Jones back but in the ensuing excitement over the act of kindness, didn’t even get Jones’ name. Thankfully, a mutual friend saw his Facebook post and connected them. After getting in touch with him, Boudreaux invited Jones and his wife over for “Family Day,” a weekly event held by Boudreaux’s parents. While over at the house, word got out that it was Jones’ 28th birthday, so Boudreaux and the other attendees improvised a “cake” of sorts to commemorate the day.
Jones, a truck driver, said “Coming from where I come from in Louisiana, it’s not a very wealthy town. I know that feeling so not having the right amount of funds to pay for groceries, I know that feeling. I see a lot of people going through that, and not a lot of people are willing to make a sacrifice and step up and help the next person.”
Jones says, after he paid Boudreaux’s bill, he went on with his day, not expecting anything in return, not even telling his wife Marissa about the exchange until he received several calls and messages about the man wanting to return the favor made its way to him. Boudreaux and Jones keep in touch via text and have future plans for Family Days and weekend outings. Boudreaux says he describes their friendship more like brothers and that Jones is one of the most sincere souls he’s ever met.
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