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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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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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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NFL player K.J. Osborn of the Minnesota Vikings found himself in the right place at the right time recently. Osborn was riding in an Uber in Austin, TX when he and his driver saw the car had crashed under a bridge and had flames coming out from under the hood. His Uber driver hopped out of the car and said they should call 911.
Osbornknew they had to see if the driver was ok. The two of them went to the burning car and realized the driver was still alive but unable to move. “I don’t have experience in this. So in my head, I’m thinking, ‘Oh, this car can blow up at any second. It’ll all be over. But my, you know, my Uber driver, he went right up to the car, he opened the door.” The two of them, along with two other people, pulled the driver away from the burning car before it was fully engulfed in flames.
Osborn tweeted about the incident on March 6 with pictures from the scene of the accident. “Last night myself and these 3 absolute heroes helped save a man’s life by rescuing him from a vehicle up in flames after a bad crash. A situation I’d never imagine being a part of in a million years.” Both Austin Fire and Police Departments confirmed there was a one car crash incident at 2:35 a.m. A spokesperson for the Austin Fire Department said the driver had driven off the road into a grassy area and then hit a concrete overpass pillar at a high rate of speed.
An Austin Police Department statement said when EMS arrived on the scene, the driver had already been rescued by Good Samaritans from the Audi A4 and the car was by then “fully involved” in fire. The driver was treated on scene and transported with serious but non-life threatening injuries. Osborn said that though the saying goes “wrong place at the wrong time,” he was glad to be there in that driver’s time of need. “I was at the exact place, the right place at the right time. So I was happy we were able to do that” he said.
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Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl spent over 24 hours volunteering at an LA shelter preparing barbecue for hundreds of homeless people. Grace Ancheta, director of development at Hope the Mission said brisket, pork butt, ribs and more were delivered to Hope the Mission’s Trebek Center in Northridge, California on Feb. 22.
Grohl arrived around 3pm and worked away cutting up and preparing the meat for the smoker to be served for dinner at 6pm on Feb 23. Once the meat was ready to be put in the smoker at midnight, Grohl and his fellow barbecuers took turns smoking the meat overnight — even as a major winter storm moved through Southern California, dumping hail and rain on the shelter that night.
Once the meat was ready at 3pm, Grohl helped prepare and served hundreds. Ancheta said Grohl was very gracious, taking pictures with people who recognized him. “He wanted no glory for it, he was like, ‘I just want to do this for you guys and give back in that way” Ancheta said. Grohl told staffers at Hope the Mission he finds getting into the barbecue pit therapeutic after he comes offstage.
“Whenever he comes off of work or anything else, that’s what he wants to do,” Ancheta says. “He wants to cook for people. And by the way — it was amazing. It’s the best barbecue we’ve had.” Grohl’s visit came as Hope the Mission’s CEO Ken Craft and president and CFO Rowan Vansleve are running 350 miles across the desert from the Las Vegas Strip back to Los Angeles to raise money for the mission’s latest campaign. Vansleve posted a video Grohl sent to support the “All in for Housing” campaign. “Keep it up, we’ve been out here all night cooking, you got to get back here soon, because we’re all in” Grohl said in the video.
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Teens from the Boys and Girls Club of Boston (BGCB) Ready to Work program were given free laptops as part of a collaboration between AT&T and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston. The 250 laptop giveaway was part of BGCB’s Ready-to-Work program, which helps high school club members focus on employment opportunities through personal mentoring, resume design workshops, job fairs, interview training and other opportunities to prepare for employment opportunities.
AT&T has given each member a free laptop Courtesy of Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston. The 10-year-old program consists of nine clubs spanning 22 of Boston’s 23 boroughs. As students received laptops from the school for online classes, Ready to Work began to take shape to provide club members with a way to virtually prepare for employment opportunities.
As students returned to full-time classroom instruction, schools began reclaiming laptops, making it difficult for many high school students to access the Internet and participate in Ready to Work. As in person classes resumed, many teens lost access to many online resources and AT&T wanted to fix that lack in access to technology. The surprise took place at Berkshire Partners Blue Hill Boys & Girls Club, where 140 club members attended a teenage careers fair before receiving their laptops. The remaining 110 members who could not attend also received their laptops after the event.
AT&T Atlantic Region President John Emra said in a statement “Our AT&T employees are committed to giving back to the Boston communities where they live, work and play. These great kids are the future of our city, our economy and our company. We are grateful for the opportunity to spend time with them and for the life changing work of Robert Lewis and everyone else at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston.”
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A Massachusetts man jumped into action when another driver lost consciousness behind the wheel while on interstate 93. A nearby driver recorded the rescue attempt and put it up on TikTok where the surreal rescue went viral. The video shows a blue suv brushing along the guardrail as it drives down the snowy highway and other vehicles slowing down. The camera pans to the right where a black suv is stopped and suddenly a man is seen sprinting across several lanes and dodging cars to reach the runaway vehicle with little regard to his own safety.
The man, Adolfo Molina, runs alongside the suv grabbing at the door handles. At one point another person came to give Molina a hand, and together they tried to use sticks to stop the still-moving car which was beginning to move back towards the highway. They tried to push it into the guardrails to at least slow it down and prevent it from colliding with another car. The video doesn’t include the eventual end of the pursuit when her car hit a divider and stopped.
Adolfo Molina, 25, makes a living as an Uber driver. He said he saw a driver in trouble and felt the call to help and got out of the vehicle, doing everything in his power to stop the runaway car. Molina’s wife, Maytee Pena, said “I was surprised at first but at the end of the day I wasn’t, because he’s a helpful person. Something in his mind just said ‘go help’ so he got out of the car and did what he needed to do, it was like a sign of God. God sent him to do that mission.”
State police later revealed the driver was a 57-year-old woman from New Hampshire who had indeed lost consciousness for unknown reasons. She was transferred to a nearby hospital, and Molina, who was honored for his heroism at the Dominican consulate in Boston, hopes to be able to meet her someday. Molina will also be honored by the mayor of Lawrence for his heroic deed.
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An Indiana man ordered at a local McDonald’s drive thru got much more than he expected.
On Jan. 16, TikTok user Josiah Vargas, shared a video detailing his trip to a McDonald’s drive-thru in Elkhart, Indiana that resulted in him receiving much more than he ordered. In the now-viral clip, Vargas ordered a Sausage McMuffin and was shocked to find thousands in cash in a second bag handed to him when he was given his order.
Vargas explains that he ordered his food and was handed two bags, one with his order and the other contained their deposit. After showing some of the contents of the bag, which contained stacks of bills and change assorted in individual Ziploc bags, a shellshocked Vargas examines what was erroneously handed to him instead of his breakfast sandwich.
“Why? There’s a couple thousand dollars here,” Vargas says, holding up a baggie full of $20 bills. “Like, why would they do this? Why would they give this to me? What the f—? Now I have to return it because I’m a good person, I guess,” Vargas says, putting the money back in the bag. “How interesting.” Pulling back up to the McDonald’s, Vargas unbuckles his seatbelt and before he heads in, he asks the universe, presumably, “Why would you guys do this to me? You know how bad I want this money? Why put me in this situation?”
He walked into the store with his phone’s camera still recording but pointed toward the ground and approached the counter with a joke. “You guys laundering money around here?” Vargas says to a worker at the register who realizes he’s returning the cash they had been looking for. Amid all the relieved reactions from staff that can be heard from McDonald’s staff, one employee asks if they could give him a hug — which he accepts.
Back in the car, Vargas reflects on his good deed. “I cut that short, but they were just all hugging me and thanking me, some were crying. Free McDonald’s for a month, I guess. When I was driving away. They called me back in. They gave me $200,” he says, smiling. The TikTok ends with Vargas sharing what he believes to be the moral of the story. “Do good, people. Return $5000, got $200 and free McDonald’s for a month,good trade value and maybe a viral TikTok” he says.
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An Anthony van Dyck piece found in a shed in upstate New York — where it was originally purchased for a paltry $600 — has sold for a staggering $3.1 million at auction. The long lost painting dates back to between 1615 and 1618, was reportedly a live model study for the Flemish master’s opus “Saint Jerome With an Angel,” which is currently on display in Amsterdam.
The hefty price tag may seem outrageous for most but the nearly 3-foot-tall work is reportedly one of two such live studies of that scale to survive. Christopher Apostle, the head of the Old Master Paintings department at Sotheby’s in New York, said “They weren’t really meant to be exhibited, the artist would often keep them in the studio to refer back to later.”
Art collector Albert B. Roberts had originally discovered the ritzy rough draft, entitled “A Study for Saint Jerome,” in a shed in Kinderhook, New York during an estate sale in 2002. The back of the canvas was riddled with bird droppings but the art aficionado identified it as a Dutch Golden Age painting and scooped it up for just $600.
Roberts had his find authenticated in 2019 by art historian Susan Barnes, who recognized the template as a “surprisingly well-preserved” work by van Dyck. Roberts died in August 2021 at the age of 89 and his estate offered the painting to Sotheby’s for auction. Part of the proceeds will go towards Albert B. Roberts Foundation Inc., which provides financial support to artists and various charities.
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