The LEGO Foundation has announced it is donating another 600 LEGO kits to hospitals worldwide for miniature MRI Scanners—to help children cope with the intimidating process of having a Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan. The 500-piece sets allow clinicians to help patients understand what the large and complex MRI machine is all about.
The 500-piece sets allow clinicians to help patients understand what the large and complex MRI machine is all about. The model facilitates both role-play and dialogue so that the child feels safe and can build confidence and resilience before the actual journey. By reducing stress and anxiety the LEGO kits also reduce the use of anesthesia.
The idea was started in 2015 as a passion project for LEGO employee Erik Ullerlund Staehr and a Denmark hospital but is now being scaled and piloted with new training material for hospital staff. “I’m extremely proud of this project and the positive impact it’s already had,” said Erik. “I’ve seen first-hand how children have responded to these models; feeling more relaxed and turning an often highly stressful experience into a positive, playful one.”
Close to 100 hospitals across the world have already benefited from the pilot program. Last month, in order to create an even bigger impact, the LEGO Foundation scaled the project by encouraging hospitals across the world to apply for one of 600 models they made available—to be shipped completely free of charge to the hospitals. They opened the application process and received 1500 applications in one day.
The radiology department team at Odense University Hospital has been using the LEGO MRI Scanners as part of their playful learning approach to help over 200 children aged 4-9 annually.
“MRI Scanners make a lot of noise which can be very daunting for children. Our team has found that using the LEGO model has led to more positive, calm experiences for many children. This also benefits the quality of the MRI scan, which relies on the person being very still for up to an hour to work” said Ulla Jensen from the Department of Radiology.
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When an Instacart shopper decided to go with her gut she may have saved a couple lives in the process. Jessica Higgs, a mom from Georgia, opened up about how she listened to her intuition during a recent food delivery. In a viral TikTok that has garnered over 16.5 million views since being posted on Feb. 1, Higgs talked about the incident.
It started as a normal delivery, ordered by a woman in Atlanta for her dad in Crandall, Georgia. The customer instructed Higgs to leave the bags on his porch. “I got there and something was telling me, ‘You’ve got to help this man out,’” she recalls in the video. “You’re not supposed to go inside someone’s house, but I used my judgment and I brought the groceries inside.”
That’s when Higgs noticed the man was not well. “I could not leave. He just was stumbling all over the place, and there was something different about that,” Higgs said. Higgs said there was a potent smell inside and she noticed a propane tank. She messaged the customer’s daughter to let her know that he “looked sick.” She also mentioned that there was a propane tank in the home and there might be a gas leak since she felt dizzy while inside.
The woman responded that she would have her son stop by to check it out. After the leak was confirmed, the customer credited Higgs with saving her dad’s life, left a five-star review and increased her tip from $14 to $100. In the video, Higgs breaks down while recounting what happened next. “I’m crying because of what she commented this morning,” she says. “‘Thank you so much. Once my son went to check on my dad it turned out it was definitely was leaking, you definitely saved my dad and my younger son’s life!!!”
In the video Higgs says through tears “I’m just an Instacart worker but if you see something, say something. I’m so happy I did.” Hundreds of thousands of people have commented on Higgs’ video praising her for her actions. Instacart also issued a statement praising Higgs’ actions.
“We are constantly inspired by the incredible people who choose to be Instacart shoppers and intentionally make a positive impact in the lives of others. This story touched our hearts and we are grateful for shoppers like Jessica.”
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A Colorado woman sprung into action after she looked out her window and saw three kids fall into an icy pond near her home. Dusti Talavera, 23, said she did not hesitate to put on her shoes and rush to the pond, which is 15 feet deep. “Before I realized it, I was on the pond pulling the two kids out, and that’s when I fell in the pond for the third kid,
The three children, who were 4, 6, and 11, were playing on the frozen pond at about 3:30 p.m. when the ice gave way. After pulling two of the children out of the water, Talavera fell through the ice while helping the last one, a 6-year-old girl named Zakiyah Williams. Luckily, the girl’s teenage cousin came out and threw Talavera a rope and helped pull them both to safety.
When deputies from the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office arrived, the 6-year-old was not breathing. They took off her wet coat and performed CPR until paramedics arrived. The girl was taken to the hospital for treatment and released home to her family two days later. South Metro Fire Engineer Corey Sutton said the incident was like a perfect storm. ‘I have four boys. What she did was amazing. I hope if something like that happened to one of my boys, someone like her would be close by,” Sutton said.
Dusti and Zakiyah reunited after her recovery so her parents could thank the bystander that saved their little girl. Zakiyah’s parents, Tashaira and Walter Williams, expressed their gratitude toward Talavera. “They saved my baby and I just really want to thank them for saving her,” Tashaira Williams said. “It was like a puzzle,” Walter Williams added. “Every piece had to go together for it to work and the puzzle got put together so fast it saved my daughter’s life.”
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A former college roommate is donating liver to his friend he hadn’t seen in 21 years. Steven Robinson, 57, was on a family road trip to Detroit when he realized his old friend, Richard Koonce, lived in Ohio. Robinson called Koonce as they were passing through. Koonce, 62, invited Robinson and his family over for an unplanned visit. When the family arrived, Robinson was taken back by Koonce’s considerable weight loss.
Koonce has been battling a rare liver disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis, or PSC, since 2019. PSC is a potentially life-threatening, incurable, and rare, yet chronic liver disease that the American Liver Foundation says causes scarring in a person’s bile ducts, leading to infections, tumors, and severe liver failure.
Koonce had tried various treatment options with little success, and was seeking a living donor for a liver transplant. Since the liver is the only organ in the human body that can grow cells and regenerate itself, donors can give part of their liver to people who need them and regrow their own. Robinson did not hesitate, offering to donate a piece of his liver to save his friend. Robinson was a match with the same blood type.
The chance encounter between the pair of former HBCU college roommates last summer set the stage for the life-saving operation that was performed on Valentine’s Day at a Cleveland hospital. Robinson will be in recovery for six to eight weeks and Koonce’s recovery will take about six months. Robinson said “I think it was a spiritual thing, I always had love for the brother and I could see something was wrong. I could see it in his eyes.”
The unlikely story highlights the dire need for more Black organ donors in the United States, where Black people make up the largest share of minorities in need of organ transplants, according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health report. Nearly 84% of organs received from Black people in 2020 were from donors who had died, according to study, but only about 16% of Black organ donations that year came from living donors.
Prior to his college roommate’s decision, Koonce had only shared news of his condition with a small group of friends. “I couldn’t ask any of them to do this,” he said. “But if it’s something you want to do, I can give you the information. That was my position. “I am so truly grateful for the gift of life that God has offered through my friend, Steve Robinson, who decided almost within the very minute that he learned of my disease to step up and do whatever he could to help me,” Koonce said.
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An 80-year-old Canadian man’s good deed is getting praise after he rescued three cars of people trapped in a blizzard. Shannon St. Onge said she thought she could get home from work before the storm hit Pense, a town in Saskatchewan, Canada. She took a dirt road because she thought it would be better for the winter driving conditions but found herself driving with her head out the driver’s window as visibility worsened quickly.
She pulled over and called 911. The operator suggested she wait the storm out but the blizzard that was not projected to let up until dawn. The operators were inundated with calls that night and St.Onge said she started to panic when she called back and the call would not go through. A friend suggested she drop a pin on Google Maps, which she shared to a Pense community page on Facebook.
A stranger saw the post and recognized a farm near where Shannon was stuck. “He private messaged me and said, ‘I know that family. Send me your phone number and I’ll contact their son.” That’s when Andre Bouvier Sr., a farmer who lived about half a mile away from where she pulled over, got a call about St. Onge’s plea for help. He didn’t hesitate before throwing on his bright yellow jacket and snow boots.
His tractor would not start so he decided to head out on foot with a flashlight and walked through a blizzard. To his surprise, he found two other vehicles with people who also needed help stranded alongside St. Onge. He led all seven stranded people back to his home where his 70 year old wife greeted the strangers with a hot pot of coffee, homemade applesauce and a warm place to sleep for the evening.
St.Onge said “This family took seven of us stranded passengers off the road, fed us, laughed with us, bonded with us, gave us blankets, pillows and a warm place to rest our eyes for a few hours. When we all woke up at 5am, he had already plowed the driveway for us and at around 5:30, we made a little convoy and headed to town. Visibility was better, but still very, very poor. In the end, we all made it home safely and I have never hugged my kids tighter.”
Bouvier said the storm was the worst he’d ever seen; he could barely see in front of him, even with a flashlight but graciously said he didn’t want much credit for his efforts “Everybody would have done the same thing. You don’t think about it, you just do it” he said.
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Dollywood, the theme park owned by Dolly Parton, announced it will pay for tuition, fees and books for all its employees who choose to pursue further education. The program, with funding provided by Dollywood’s parent company Herschend Enterprises, will launch on February 24. Herschend Enterprises’ said the pilot program, GROW U, will be implemented for its 11,000 employees — seasonal, part-time or full-time — across its 25 parks, including Dollywood.
The Tennessee theme park will cover 100% of employees’ tuition, fees, and books. Workers may enroll with one of 30 partnering colleges starting from their first day. The company is offering more than 100 fully-funded diploma, degree and certificate programs. It will also provide partial funding of up to $5,250 per year for 150 additional programs in fields such as hospitality, engineering, human resources and art design.
Dollywood company president Eugene Naughton said in a statement that he wants Dollywood Parks and Resorts to be the “best possible experience for both our guests and our hosts. “One of The Dollywood Foundation’s key tenets is to learn more. This program is created with that very tenet in mind. We want our hosts to develop themselves through advanced learning to fulfill the foundation’s other tenets: care more, dream more, and be more,” Naughton said.
Located in the Great Smoky Mountains, Dollywood advertises itself as “the friendliest theme park in the world.” The theme park has roller coasters, water attractions, an eagle sanctuary, a classic Southern-styled resort, cabins, and an extravagant dinner show, “Stampede,” which pairs a four-course meal with horse-riding stunts and musical entertainment.
The 2022 operating season runs March through December and Dollywood is hiring part- and full-time employees as well as peak-season workers. There are job openings on culinary, retail, and park operations teams. The park also employs entertainers — urging “talented singers and expressive actors” to apply. Hiring events for the upcoming season are taking place at high schools and churches in the Pigeon Forge, Tennessee area. Applicants must be 14 years of age or older.
Herschend CEO Andrew Wexler said in a statement “Our team members’ success is our success. Whether it’s to pursue a new dream or advance their career with us, we care about our employees’ personal and professional growth, because we believe that their futures should be grown with love, not loans.”
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Audrey Soape, 11, lost her father and grandfather last year and was feeling sad about the upcoming daddy-daughter dance at her church in Round Rock, Texas. Audrey’s mom, Holly, wanted to do something special for her daughter, so she reached out to their favorite NFL player, Anthony Harris, to ask if he would take Audrey to the dance and Harris said yes.
Holly said she knew it was a far-fetched idea to ask “I just asked if he would come—if he’d be willing to come. And he said, ‘not only will I come, I want to make sure she feels like a princess.”
Harris of the Philadelphia Eagles covered the cost of Audrey’s dress, shoes, hair, and makeup and traveled to Texas to escort his young fan to her daddy-daughter dance.
The Philadelphia Eagles safety and Audrey’s mother aren’t exactly strangers. Harris said Holly often reached out to him on social media through The Anthony Harris Foundation to ask how her family could pray for him. “Asking if I need any prayers through transitions,” he said. “It was really just them opening their arms.”
Holly, a mom of two, said in an interview that she was so anxious and excited for her daughter because she just had the most terrible year. “For someone to show up and to teach her that people do show up for you, it’s just been beyond a blessing. Just the power of God and how he makes these situations happen has just been unbelievable and remarkable.”
Holly wrote an Instagram post about the evening. “Through the grace of God, and amazing generosity of the Anthony Harris Foundation, my girl got escorted by her favorite Philadelphia Eagles player Anthony Harris. From start to finish, this evening was made magical, starting with him getting her the dress and shoes of her dreams.”
Holly wrote that Harris was so kind and so sweet, making the entire evening a fairy tale, the smile never left her daughter’s face. Harris said “You’ve got to cherish these moments. You never know how long we have here on this earth. The people that you care about and the people you love, show support for them.”
Harris started the nonprofit, The Anthony Harris Foundation with the mission to empower youth through sports, education, and mentorship. Harris said his goal is to give kids the same opportunities he had growing up. The foundation has provided meal distributions holiday gift drives in the Philadelphia community. Through several partnerships he has blessed foster families with Holiday meals and Christmas presents.
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Thirty years after his final season as a running back for the University of Notre Dame, Pro Football Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis is back at his alma mater to finish his college degree. Bettis “The Bus”, 49, made a promise to his mother to get his college degree 18 years after retiring from a legendary career with the Los Angeles Rams and Pittsburgh Steelers. Now he months away from getting his Business degree and fulfilling that promise.
Bettis left early for the NFL draft after his junior season with Notre Dame and was selected 10th overall in the first round by the Rams in 1993. The NFL’s eighth all-time leading rusher once plowed right through the heart of defenses and is now about to be part of the graduating class of 2022. He already has a Super Bowl ring and will soon add a diploma to his list of accomplishments.
Most of his entire college and NFL career came before most of the current students were born but his classmates all know who he is. Bettis said he is a dinosaur in the sense of school and struggles with the technology but said he’s a much better student because he wants to learn. He said “I promised my mother that I would get my degree. In my immediate family, I’ll be the first person to graduate from college. But most importantly, I have two children. For them to see dad finish a commitment that he set out some 27 years ago, for me to complete that, I think it says a lot to them.”
His mother, Gladys, is a breast cancer survivor who famously starred alongside her son in Campbell’s Chunky Soup commercials in the early 2000s. His father, Johnnie Bettis, died at 61 from a heart attack in 2006. Bettis is the only one of the 21 players from his original football class at Notre Dame who has not gotten his degree and he is looking forward to seeing his mother beaming with pride as he gets his diploma.
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The heroic actions of a six-year-old boy are also being hailed by his community, including local firefighters. Kayden Reid saved his sister, Kaycee, from being hit by a car recently — but he himself, as a result, was hit by that same car and had to be briefly hospitalized., received a hero’s welcome when he returned from the hospital after rescuing his sister.
Kayden saved his 2 year old sister, Kaycee, from being hit by a car when she ran out into the road but he himself was hit by the car. The boy luckily only suffered a few scratches and needed a few stitches before he was released from an area hospital. His mother Kayla Giles said “By the time everybody else saw Kaycee in the street, Kayden was right there … He ran right into the street to save her. But in the process of getting her out of the way, he got hit by the car. We’re just thankful that we have both kids home and safe today. “
The children’s aunt, Kendra Nettles said the driver of the vehicle stopped to make sure the children were all right. “It wasn’t her fault,” Nettles said, “We’re just thankful that she stopped when she did to make sure that everything is OK with him and us.” Mobile Fire-Rescue Public Information Officer Steven Millhouse said “He’s definitely a hero, he’s got the heart of a hero. As a six-year-old young man, for Kayden to be able to recognize what was happening and to react the way he did … he’s definitely a beacon for our future.”
When Kayden returned from the hospital, Mobile Fire/Rescue came by to congratulate the elementary schooler on his good deed and give him some insight into the work that career heroes like firefighters do. The firefighters gave him a tour of the fire truck and allowed him to sit in the driver’s seat.
Little Kaycee celebrated her second birthday just a few days after the near tragic event. Kayla said it was an extra special celebration given how differently things could have turned out if it weren’t for Kayden. “We are so proud of Kayden’s heroic actions that he did for his baby sister,” she said. “You know, these days it’s really hard for a six-year-old to stop what they’re doing and save their sibling. That lets us know that we are doing right by our kids. We are so thankful to have both of them here. It brought our family a lot closer … so we’re just thankful both kids are still here safe and sound. God is good.”
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A Vietnam war combat veteran in San Antonio received a new home thanks to the non-profit Operation Triage. The home belonged to Jesse Herrera’s late mother and was Herrera’s childhood home. It had fallen into disrepair when Herrer’s daughter reached out for help. The original structure was demolished and Herrera’s new home is now tailor made to his needs and now up to state standards.
President and founder of Operation Triage, Daniel Vargas said “We found out about Jesse about a year ago, he said his home was in disarray and needed some repairs. We came in and looked and basically the home needed to be condemned. It was his childhood home and his kids have been raised here.”
Herrera, 76, served in Vietnam from February 1965 – February 1969 and was wounded twice in action. Like many veterans returning home from Vietnam, Jesse faced a constant daily struggle trying to return to civilian life and it took many years of treatment and therapy to find his new normal. In 2007 Jesse moved back to his childhood home to care for his ailing mother who then passed away in 2015.
Operation TRIAGE got involved with Jesse at that time and through a lot of legal work was finally able to get the property in Jesse’s name. They teamed up with Jon Wayne Service Company, contributors, and other donors to provide Vietnam Veteran Jesse Herrera and his daughter a new home where his childhood home once stood.
Operation Triage was founded in 2016 and is based in New Braunfels, TX. Their mission is to provide emergency financial relief, mortgage free homes, or home remodeling to disabled veterans, first responders and active duty service members. They believe by removing any emergency financial and other burdens from these heroes we may help turn the tide of suicide and promote Family balance. They partner with corporate sponsors, builder associations, builders, developers, individual contributors, and volunteers to help heroes and their families succeed in their challenging new world so they may ultimately enjoy a productive and rewarding life. They work with other Veteran Service Organizations (VSO’s) to help identify and expedite assistance for shelter needs and mobility.
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