Only Positive News

Shawn Seamons couldn’t live with the guilt.  In grade school, he and his friends would go in to the local Island Market and steal candy.  Lots of it.  Even though he never got caught and probably never would, he couldn’t live with the guilt any longer.  He gave the store’s owner a check for $200 and an apology for the candy he stole years ago.  The store owner doesn’t necessarily expect to get any more checks for candy stolen over the years, but she does appreciate the gesture Seamons made with his.

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She’s only 15 years old, but she has earned multiple scholarships for dancing and she now trains and performs with a senior company.  She performs hip-hop, ballet and tap.  Her audiences love her.  Her instructors are impressed with her talent.  But, that’s not all.  She wears a prosthetic on her right leg because she was born without a tibia in her right leg causing the amputation of her lower right leg.

Calderon was sad as a child because she wanted a leg so that she could be like the other kids her age.  One day she announced that she wanted to be a dancer like her cousin and she started dancing at the age of 13.  She didn’t even mention her prosthetic leg to her instructors.  Her most recent instructor didn’t know about her disability until eight months after he started working with her when she and her mother told him. 

She says it’s not all great – she experiences pain when her knee dislocates and when she gets blisters from her prosthetic, but she works through it to continue to reach her dream.

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Pat McCormick was a four-time gold medallist in diving.  In 1984, Peter Ubberoff began sending his Olympic organizing committee members, which Pat was a part of, to local schools and corporations to speak.  Pat’s first speech was at Windling Elementary in El Puente, CA.  Afterwards, one of the teachers came to her and asked if she could help out any of the children in the school.  Pat began volunteering two mornings per week at the elementary school and began refining her process.  Pat focuses on 3 key attributes in the students: You have to Work, You have to Learn and You have to Surround Yourself with Winners.  Soon after Pat began volunteering there was a dramatic increase in better grades and kids staying in school. 

Today, Pat volunteers at the Workman High School in East LA.  These students are “at-risk” students who are struggling to graduate from high school.  Pat has been able to encourage them to stop joining gangs and stop using drugs.  Pat says that her passion of excellence comes from hardships of her own.  “My father died on skid row, and that’s the motivation I have.  I want to let everyone know if you have a dream and you believe it, you will find a way.  You have to surround yourself with winners, you have to work,” says Pat.  Today, several students have followed Pat’s guidance and have gone for the gold of high school graduation.

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Some people crumble in the face of hardship, and others shine in spite of it.  T.J. Faeser of Biloxi is one of those people who shines.

He had been working as a mechanic and was in his first year of college when he lost his vision.  He’d had hopes to be nurse, but had to put that aside with his vision loss.  Instead, he clung dearly to his desire to help others and started classes to be a dispatcher with the Department of Marine Resources in Mississippi.

Would that the rest of us were so courageous to face whatever adversity came our way and find a new path for ourselves that allows us to help our fellow man.

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This is great news for people suffering from heart problems: Congenitive heart failure, which is caused by the loss of heart muscles, affects almost 5 million Americans.  Even with all of the treatments physicians currently have, the current prognosis for congentive heart failure isn’t good.

Researchers have conducted studies by injecting failing hearts with the patient’s stem cells.  The studies have shown that these hearts have begun to pump blood more efficiently.  While more studies are needed before this can become a routine procedure, this is a great step forward in from simply treating symptoms to actually working to repair the “problem”.

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Courage can sometimes be a nebulous concept to define, we know it when we see it, but to put to words what it is, sometimes eludes us.

But it hasn’t eluded Amy Fenzel-Mergott.  She’s 32, the mother of two, the coach of a high school’s girls soccer team, and she’s battling breast cancer.  But instead of wringing her hands, she’s taken a bring it on attitude.  She’s getting treatments and living life to the fullest, even through the pain.  She’s trained and competed in a triathlon, looking forward to one the following year.  She’s not letting it conquer her spirits or her resolve.

There are no pity parties, nor will there be.

While she’s not alone in the diagnosis, she stands out as an example to her team and her community of pressing on despite all odds, and reaching out to others in the process.  She’s special because she chooses to fight and not let the disease win.  We should all be so courageous in the face of hardships in our own lives, overcoming and not capitulating to the troubles.

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Mike McCoy is not just any sheriff.  He is a sheriff with a kind heart and a lot of endurance.  This Peoria, Illinois sheriff runs for the kids at the St. Jude Hospital in Memphis.  McCoy says that he runs for them because they can’t.  McCoy began staging runs in 1982.  Back then their goal was $25,000 and they were unable to meet it.  Today, their goal is $1 million and they should top it in pledges and donations. 

McCoy has always said that nothing would keep him from running for the kids.  However, this year McCoy’s pledge was tested when he was hit by a truck in January.  The truck hit both him and another runner shattering McCoy’s pelvis and almost killing him.  The doctors believed that he would never be able to run again but McCoy wasn’t going to let that happen.  He may be slower than he was in the past, but he is more motivated than ever.  He believes that he has been given a second chance for the children he dearly loves and cares for.

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Animals and animal lovers should be very happy today.  A piece of legislation called the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards (PETS) Act has been approved and finalized by both the house and senate.  It’s now just waiting for the President’s signature and approval.

The PETS Act will require local and state authorities to include evacuation of pets in their emergency preparedness plans to qualify for FEMA grants.  The act also outlines the need for FEMA to help agencies in making these plans and arrangements.  Finally, it will ear-mark funds to allow for pet-friendly emergency shelters.

Since two-thirds of American households have pets, this is great news.  During the Hurricane Katrina disaster, many families had to choose between their own safety and the safety of thier pets (who in many cases are considered a member of the family).  Once this bill is passed, they won’t need to make those heart-wrenching decisions during times of disaster anymore.

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Belle, a beagle, received a “Vita” award on Monday in Washington, D.C.  After her owner, Kevin Weaver, collapsed from a diabetic seizure Belle bit into his cell phone and called 911. 

Belle had been trained to summon help in case of these circumstances.  She had been taught to bite the number 9 on the phone to call 911.  “There is no doubt in my mind that I’d be dead if I didn’t have Belle,” says Kevin Weaver.

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After 65 years a pair of siblings, separated during the Holocaust, have found finally found each other.

Hilda Shlick, 81, thought she had lost her entire family during the atrocities of the Holocaust.  Her grandsons Benny and David launched an internet search upon learning her maiden name, using the database through Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.

The twenty year old grandsons found an entry, mistakenly listing their grandmother as dead.  They used that to trace the family, finding the fates of the rest of the family save one sister.  They also discovered that one of Hilda’s brothers, Simon Glasberg, was still living and in Canada.

They connected and met at the memorial in Israel, reunited at last, having not seen each other since they were separated in 1941.  They were overjoyed to find each other, finding still living family.  While the remainder of the family has passed on, they were hugging and crying and kissing each other, putting aside the sadness of others lost.

The database says the siblings are the second case of Holocaust survivors finding remaining family still living.  They are optimistic the success of Hilda and Simon will encourage others to seek out living family leading to more happy reunions.

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