Thanksgiving Hero and World Cup of Garbage
Couple of good news stories for Tuesday: A very cool Thanksgiving Hero and World Cup of Garbage
1. Someone gave a food bank near Seattle $800,000 to help them expand and move into a bigger facility. The donor was described as a “generous businessman” who wants to remain anonymous.
2. A 15-year-old girl in California named Madison Atkinson was a HERO on Thanksgiving, after she helped a three-year-old relative, who was found floating face down in a pool. The little girl’s uncle pulled her out, but didn’t know CPR.
Madison stepped in and started performing CPR, which she’d learned in a sports medicine class. After a couple minutes, the little girl opened her eyes and started breathing again. She’s since made a full recovery.
3. Japan just hosted the first World Cup for picking up garbage. (???) It’s a real sport someone came up with in 2008 called SpoGomi. (spuh-GO-mee) It’s a mash-up of the Japanese words for “sport” and “trash-picking.”
Each team of three people has 45 minutes to clean up as much litter as they can, but you’re not allowed to run. You can only speed-walk.
21 countries, including the U.S., took part in the inaugural SpoGomi World Cup in Tokyo last Wednesday. A team from the U.K. took home the title this time. Across two 45-minute sessions, they collected more than 125 pounds of garbage.
4. A restaurant in Oakland, California called Horn Barbecue got destroyed by a fire last week. But the owners still held their annual giveaway and handed out 150 Thanksgiving turkeys. People online have donated over $100,000 to help rebuild. If you want to help, their GoFundMe is called “Horn Barbecue Fire Restoration.”
5. A cashier in Michigan accidentally sold a guy ten sets of lottery numbers instead of one. But the guy said no problem . . . paid for them anyway . . . and the ninth set of numbers won him $25,000 a year for life. He opted for the lump sum of $390,000.
6. A news station in Cincinnati did a big story on a girl named Raven Whitaker-Smith who got sent to the principal’s office in sixth grade, and it changed her life.
She threw a cup of yogurt at lunch. So her principal asked if that’s how she’d behave at a restaurant. Her answer was she didn’t know, because she’d never been to one.
Up to that point, she’d spent most of her childhood in foster care. But everything changed after that . . . because her principal decided to ADOPT her.
His name is Jason Smith. He and his wife tried fertility treatments but couldn’t have kids. So they took Raven in and turned her life around.
They adopted her in 2017. She’s now studying social work at the University of Kentucky.
Need more good news? Here ya go!
