Detroit Holiday Hope
Need to find the good this holiday season here in Detroit? Check out what Colin McConnell did for his neighbor (and if you know Colin…it’s what he does for SO MANY people in #Detroit).
He noticed his neighbor seemed tired and beaten down this fall.
The two both live in a Detroit duplex. McConnell asked him, “How’s it going?”
“He told me that the kids are going to be around a lot more because their mother had passed,” McConnell said. “And the kids were walking up the stairs at the time, I just saw their little legs and my heart just broke instantly. I wanted to do something more for them. And he said, ‘We don’t really have winter coats.’ I thought he had three daughters because the son was wearing his sister’s clothes — it was because he didn’t even have clothes.”
@colin313 Replying to @user9557239853157 commUNITY ! Spreading Christmas year for all to hear. It took a village and you guys help make this possible. We can’t thank you enough #BeTheGood #GoodVibes SpreadKindness.
♬ original sound - Colin313
@colin313 Replying to @Kat hopefully, this puts a smile on your face today. We were interviewed by the local news, and hopefully can inspire more people to do the same in their community. #SpreadKindness #BeThegood
♬ original sound - Colin313
I’ll admit it – I was one of these people with a need to find the good this holiday season here in Detroit. And this hit the spot…amazing work Colin!
More good news? I got you:
1. A judge in California got tired of sending young people to prison, because there, they just learn to become harder criminals. So he created an alternative . . . transforming an old juvenile detention center into a vocational training facility, culinary academy, and school . . . only for adolescent offenders.
Critics have questioned the sustainability, but the judge says it costs just $25,000 to put a kid through his program, compared to the $110,000 it costs to house them in prison. This isn’t brand new, it’s been a work in progress for 20 years.
2. A recent contestant on “Deal or No Deal“ in the U.K. talked about having a terminal illness on the show . . . but he only won about $5. So a viewer started a GoFundMe for the guy, and it’s raised over $125,000.
3. A carpet cleaner was at a client’s house, and noticed that there was a baby OWL inside their Christmas tree. The homeowner was shocked, since they’ve had the tree for days . . . and they even have dogs. The cleaner carefully removed the owl, and released it outside.
4. A 17-year-old in Stockton, California named Elle Gianelli is doing her Socks4Seniors campaign again for the holidays. She sends “silly socks” and kind notes to nursing homes around the country just to make people smile.
She started doing it in 7th grade. In the past four years, she’s sent nearly 5,000 pairs of socks to 92 nursing homes across 48 states. She raises money for it on GoFundMe if you want to help her out.
5. A woman in Texas spent a full month trying to catch a stray dog with a plastic jug stuck on his head. She finally did . . . and of course named him Jughead. He’ll be going up for adoption soon.
6. A former Army tank gunner named Jay Tenison got a terminal cancer diagnosis last year, and was given as little as 12 months to live. That was over 18 months ago, and he’s still with us. And he just got to cross off the biggest thing on his bucket list this week.
Over a year ago, he got on Reddit and said he wanted to ride in a tank and feel the sheer POWER of it again. He got to do it yesterday at Fort Moore in Georgia.
The 194th Armored Brigade took him out in an M1 Abrams tank and let him FIRE it. He said it was “every bit” of what he remembered. (Here are the photos.)
After Jay finished in the simulator, he went over to 1-81 Armor (194th Armored Bde) to speak with 19K trainees about his journey from tanker to engineer… and why he’s back at Moore now. pic.twitter.com/dKBw17FGCM
— Mike Lavigne (@broadcastmike) December 5, 2023
