Good news, Yes, there is such a thing.

reply to post by fictitious


"We should see more of these stories more often. Something in our brain just loves doom and gloom though. I wonder why."

but , but how will we instill fear in the people?


on another note , always good to see the haves give to the have nots.

Originally posted by jimmiec
reply to post by mountaingirl1111

 

That is a great story and you and your husband are great parents. I have no doubt your children will remember those times and be caring/giving adults. The fact that you took them into the trench's so to speak is the key i believe. Unless we see the needs of others face to face we largely ignore it. It does not make us bad people. It is just a defense mechanism that we are all saddled with. I know schools have fund raisers but i think they need to come face to face with those in need and see/feel the need somehow. Done as a group/class it somehow loses it's impact. You obviously have a good head on your shoulders. Maybe you could think about it and come up with a way that our schools could do more to make the impact that our children and society needs. You know the feeling i am talking about. It would probably have to be shocking to get that impact needed.

Thanks for the nice words, Jimmiec I wouldn't even know where to begin, truly. As you said, things done as a class or a group lose impact and I think that even the fundraising done in the school, whether for the school or others, doesn't mean as much simply because the children are given rewards/awards for "bringing in the most money". There are prize levels and children only have their eyes on the prize, not realizing anything else. In addition, most of the fundraisers are truly aimed at the parents signing checks over or for soliciting from relatives, since they aren't allowed to go door-to-door, so it really is more of a joke than anything, since the kids only want the prizes and the parents don't want their kids to be left out of getting a prize, etc., you get my point. It just increases the societal materialism that is already rampant in the US.

reply to post by ~widowmaker~


Yes, we should find at least one story of good people doing good things once a day. I bet it would make our day better for seeing it. I am guilty of checking out the days news and feeding off of all the bad news. No more for me. I am going to mix it up with some good news. It is just common sense that we need good news more than we need bad news. The media might give us a taste occasionally but we need to get more for our own sake.

reply to post by mountaingirl1111


Yea, i think it would need to be more of a personal experience nature to have real effect. When kids get together it is more about having fun with their friends. Maybe something more in line with the Boyscout badges. Those are individual achievements. Something that will not traumatize them for life but at least shock them into the reality of real people needing real help on a personal level.

There is enough good going on around the world on any given day to fill a telephone directory-sized newspaper every 24 hours, if enough effort was put into the endeavour. Alas, the masses seem far more interested in the glamorous world of celebrity, than they are in being inspired to do something more positive with their existence..

reply to post by IvanAstikov


Unfortunately it is human nature. The glamour/violence of Hollywood gets everyone's attention. It sells no doubt. The only way out of that is for Hollywood and the media to reel it back in a bit for society. We know that won't happen. Good news does not sell. The guy cleaning up a fallen tree in an elderly persons yard for free will not make the news. What most people don't know is that the great feeling you get from good deeds is worth it's weight in gold.

I did not work for several years. Well i spent several years working on a run down house i bought. I probably spent 20 hours a week helping elderly/disabled people. Things like their trash compactor not working/dishwasher/felled tree in the yard. One lady was in a wheelchair and simply needed her closet fixed up so she could reach her cloth's from her wheelchair.(sounds easy but it wasn't) Anyway, i felt better about myself in those years than i have ever felt in my entire life. I injured my back or i would still be doing it. If people knew the feeling you get from helping others their life would be much better. Maybe kids should have to spend 1 year in a program that helps people in need before they can go to college. I dunno, just a thought.

reply to post by jimmiec


You are correct it feels damn good when you actually help someone and make their life a little easier. I think the major problem people have at least in America with helping anyone is we all know there are people that will feed of the goodwill of others and take advantage of someone genuinely trying to help. And its not to say the majority of people don't help or are inclined to take advantage of one helping people. But when you know there are sharks in a pool of guppy's......... Don't swim lol

When I was younger I used to do food for hunger and drive to all the fast food /restaurants and pick up left over food and drive it to the food banks. Then after about a year or so we ended up late showing up to the back of the place I wont mention and come to find the guy we drop the stuff off to selling it to people for cheap price instead of giving it to the food bank. Sharks everywhere.

Originally posted by jimmiec
reply to post by ~widowmaker~

 

Yes, we should find at least one story of good people doing good things once a day. I bet it would make our day better for seeing it. I am guilty of checking out the days news and feeding off of all the bad news. No more for me. I am going to mix it up with some good news. It is just common sense that we need good news more than we need bad news. The media might give us a taste occasionally but we need to get more for our own sake.

Funny you mention this,

I once had an idea to start a newspaper or for now a internet broadcast news that focuses on the positive of the world.

Have people send in stories of happiness such as births of children, miracles that individuals experience and so forth.

Do it as a weekly or monthly to start of with until more wish to be involved and watch it grow, look how well CNN, FOX etc do by flooding the public mind with all what we are meant to believe is wrong and amplifying it to make us fear the world we live in.

Let media do the opposite which cant happen as fear is the best tool to steer a persons opinion, those with power and influence due to wealth or position loose all their power/influence and wealth by allowing love to overcome fear or at least have healthy balance, but fear is all that is known to those that are given position as power over another historically has shown to corrupt, a vicious cycle that only those that are given can stop.

Education wise as you earlier asked, I think we should allow a more free environment for learning, not sure what I mean with that right now without further explaining how its tied up with a massive system of control covering media, government, education, religion the whole shebang practically. To explain logically is a timely process which I hope one day to be able to put together in a readable fashion.

Originally posted by jimmiec
reply to post by InhaleExhale

 

Awsome! I have been wondering if it would be a good idea to teach our children at a young age what that feeling of helping others is. Once they feel it they might crave it. There are certainly worse addictions. How do you think we could go about doing that in our public schools without them feeling forced into helping others? If they feel forced into it i doubt it would take hold. Ideas?

My hubby is the Government teacher at our local High School. He asked the students in his classes if they wanted to do an act of charity for Christmas and they all were very excited about it. They decided to buy a goat and 2 chickens for a family in Uganda. Each student brought a dollar on their own free will and gladly gave to help out others. The company even sent a little stuffed lamb to them as a thank you. It sits on my hubby's desk right now and at the end of the school year he plans to have a drawing to give it to the winning student.

World Vision

That being said, there are plenty of needy families around our parts.

I know a lot of people on here don't particularly like Christianity, some are even completely hostile towards it, but most people still turn to the local church when they are in need, at least that's the way it is around here. If anyone is at a loss of where to start if they are wanting to help those in need, I can tell you first hand that your local church will always welcome help. It may be through serving meals, helping with housing the homeless, looking after children, checking on the sick and elderly, giving someone a ride, or even providing monetarily if one is so inclined. There is always work to be done. This is my 6th year of being a ministry wife and I can tell you that the workers are few and the need is great. It can be exhausting if you are trying to go it alone so it helps to be a part of a team.

Food pantries are always in need of help and donations as well. My family helps run, and sits on the board of, a food pantry that serves those suffering from AIDS as well as their immediate families. The holidays are particularly hard to find supply for the increasing demand. Volunteers are always needed to help sort, bag, and deliver food. Non-perishable donations are always welcome too.

Personally, my heart lies with the kiddos. Mine are still very small, but when they are bigger my husband and I are very interested in fostering. We took classes this year, but decided to wait until we get back closer to our families so we could have the support that we would need. I am also very interested in being a CASA - Court Appointed Special Advocate. Again, for me it would mean waiting until I have more support nearby, or until my children are a little older, but it may interest someone on here.

CASA volunteers are appointed by judges to advocate for the best interests of abused and neglected children in court and other settings

CASA Volunteer


Going back to the subject of a classroom helping others, Make a Wish has a program called Kids for Wish Kids where students come together and organize fundraisers in order to grant a dying child's wish.

Kids For Wish Kids

This program is designed specifically for students to get involved! There are also many volunteer positions open for adults wanting to help.

The Ronald McDonald House lists 30 ways that volunteers can help them out, many of them students could get involved with.

There are so many folks in need all around us and so many ways to get involved. These are just a few that I have looked into before and/or taken part in, I hope they give someone direction or inspiration into what ever they might want to do get involved.

~OkieDokie

reply to post by OkieDokie


It sounds like you and your husband do great works. Thank you! In a time when so many are in need it is sad that church's that do so much for the communities they live in and even third world countries are being vilified. All the talk of helping those in need and no mention of the great works community church's all over America do everyday. The media should highlight these good deeds and the church's that perform those much needed services instead of allowing them to be vilified. It is so hypocritical of them to play down the good works you and your husband do through your church.

Obviously the students giving to those in third world countries is a great thing. Do you think it sinks in though? I mean is it personal enough to instill in them the great need of so many in the world? Those are all great programs and do great works. The fact that they seldom make it to the TV screen in any form other than a commercial is disheartening. Do you see a way to shock them into the brutal reality of the worlds situation? I can see no other way than for their parents to get involved along with them. Unfortunately that will not happen on as grand a scale as is needed. Anyway, I enjoyed your post and thank you and your husband for being extraordinary people.

reply to post by jimmiec


Thanks so much for your kind words. I would be lying if I said I could take any credit for all the good things I see on a daily basis. When we moved to this area and were sent to pastor the church we are currently at, we were so humbled by the amazing people who make up this church. Long before we got there, they have been loving and serving this community. Our church really only has about 20 core members that do all the work. They bus in an amazing amount of children(around 2 for every adult), bus in residents of a program for the developmentally disabled, and visit the homes of the sick etc. I have never seen a group of more loving people and I am learning so much from them everyday.

Sadly, it seems that even the big conventions have turned a blind eye to the poor churches in their local chapters. The current trend is to plant new churches, and let the old established churches fall to the wayside because it is much cheaper to do a church plant than to help a struggling church. Our church building is over a hundred years old and the walls are literally separating from the floor. You can see the ground through the 1-2 inch cracks. In the summertime, we get flooded with wasps entering in through holes in the walls. But the congregation keeps marching on with everything they have. It is the members that feed the kids who come in hungry and dirty, it is them that give clothing and coats to those that don't have them. We live in a very poor rural area where most are on government assistance. One family was even living in a storage shed last winter because their mobile home had been repossessed. I am sorry I am getting a bit off topic here, but this is the true reality of the workers that we have and the reason I say that help is always welcome. Right now, I see about 20 amazing people supporting around 40 others, as well as their families and any other person who comes to us needing a meal, a bus ride, an electric payment, medicine, the list goes on and on.

When you ask if giving to a family in Uganda is personal enough, I have had the same thoughts and even asked my hubby about this. On the other side of the coin, I know the hardships of the kids who were giving, and that dollar was literally a few packs of ramen noodles to them. This isn't like where I grew up and a dollar was chump change, it was these kids skipping a few meals to give to others. I would like to see students get more active in their communities though. As you can tell, there is so much around that if you tried to take it all in at once, it is immediately overwhelming.

There is a lot of suffering that I see, but in return, there are a lot of awesome things happening everyday. Hardship can breed despair, or it can breed hope. It depends on what you choose to do when you see someone in need. You can only get someone half way there though, it is up to them what they will do with that help and hopefully they will make the right choices.

~OkieDokie

A good deed for the day.


Carson Jones didn't think he was doing anything special last August when he asked his buddies on the Queen Creek High School football team in Queen Creek, Ariz., to help watch over a special-needs sophomore who was getting picked on by other students.

"I just thought if the other kids saw us treating her nicely, then maybe they'd do the same thing," recalls Jones.

The 18-year-old quarterback with a 4.3 GPA had no idea how his good deed would end up changing the life of Chy Johnson, whose neurological disorder limits her cognitive abilities to that of a third-grader. But over the past three months, Johnson, 16, has gone from being a bullied outcast to becoming one of the most celebrated kids at Queen Creek

Something as simple as this helps.

"To combat bullying and boost positivity at his school, one student is going online and posting compliments on Twitter about many of his classmates. His account, @westhighbros, has tweeted over 3,000 nice messages since it launched in October 2011."
"We just send compliments to people who we think are feeling bad a certain day or who have done something really good, like winning a state title," he explained. "I believe that showing the goodness in people is very integral to our account, because so many people on Twitter and Facebook get cyberbullied because they're less than perfect

I was going to post more good deeds here. I am however having trouble finding any that have not been posted. This in itself is alarming. I can find plenty of good deeds about wealthy Hollywood actors doing good deeds, the trouble with that is the fact that it can be agenda based and they can't really give til it hurts. I know there are tons of good deeds happening every hour. The media is mostly silent about them. This is sad. Anybody know a website that does not just report on superstar good deeds? I am looking for people/deeds that give til it hurts type of thing.

Here:

www.huffingtonpost.com...

Plenty of good stuff still happening.