Take a Look: Hugs from Holly

From the AP, via Yahoo! News: “Former NFL tight end Todd Heap and his family are encouraging people to ‘share hugs and spread love and joy through random acts of heartfelt kindness’ on Wednesday in honor of their late daughter’s birthday. … The family created the site hugsfromholly.com, a campaign in memory of Holly, who would have turned 4 on Wednesday. ‘Holly was known to give the best hugs, and her love for everyone and everything in life was contagious,’ a statement on the site’s home page reads. ‘Let’s spread this joy as we scatter sunshine in Holly’s honor on her birthday.'”

Read the full story on the Yahoo! News website.

Take a Look: 7.6 Seconds

From the NBC Sports website: “Jorge Alves usually sharpens the Carolina Hurricanes’ skates. Lately, the team’s equipment manager has been lacing up his own. It’s been a wild past few days for Alves. The 37-year-old former Marine, ex-minor leaguer and veteran of the team’s equipment staff suddenly found himself in uniform for an NHL game — and even, for 7.6 unforgettable seconds, on the ice — as the Hurricanes’ emergency goalie while regular backup Eddie Lack was too sick to play.”

Read the full story at the NBC Sports website.

Take a Look: Looking Back

From Yahoo! News: “For many people, 2016 was a year to forget. From the continued war in Syria to terror attacks and mass shootings to celebrity deaths to a bitterly divisive presidential election, there seemed to be an endless news cycle filled with stories that ranged from terrible to heartbreaking. But amid all that darkness, there were still some moments that inspired and made us smile — spurred by a few notable names but, mostly, unknown heroes.”

(A few of these ten recaps revisit stories I’ve already shared here on the blog, but even those are worth another look.)

Read more at the Yahoo! News website.

Take a Look: “Returning a ‘Portrait of a Lady'”

-Photo by Craig Gilmore-

From the Los Angeles Times website: “Two agents from U.S. Homeland Security’s ICE unit arrived at my door in September looking for a Polish lady — not a person, but a painting: Melchior Geldorp’s “Portrait of a Lady.” She had, they informed me, been looted by the Nazis from the National Museum in Warsaw. … Upon their leaving, I stood dumbfounded, holding a packet of information about the alleged provenance of our painting. After calling David at work to drop this bombshell, I began a Googling frenzy, eventually bringing me to Poland’s Division for Looted Art website. Seconds later I was gawking at an old black-and-white photo of our beloved lady, a beautiful portrait painted on oak panel in 1628. Tears welled in my eyes with the realization that, without question, if this were true we needed to do our duty and get her safely home.”

Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times website.

Take a Look: A White Rainbow

-Photo by Melvin Nicholson-

From the BBC website: “A stunning shot of a white ‘fog bow’ has been captured by a photographer over Rannoch Moor in the west of Scotland. Melvin Nicholson was out on the moor, south of Glen Coe, on Sunday when the ‘unbelievably beautiful’ white rainbow appeared. Mr Nicholson said: ‘It is a colourless rainbow that is made up of tiny water droplets that cause fog.'”

Read more about the photo at the BBC website and find out more about Melvin Nicholson’s photography at his official website.

Take a Look: Reaching Out (Christian Bucks and Natalie Hampton)

Photo by Alyson Bucks

From The Washington Post website: “It’s been three years now since 10-year-old Christian Bucks thought his family was moving to Germany for his dad’s job and his mom showed him brochures about his potential new schools. He would be the new kid there. … He was just in first grade then, but he knew what loneliness on the playground looked like. He’d seen it at his own elementary school in York, Pa. But one German school he and his mom looked at had a solution for this. It was called the buddy bench, and if a child was sitting on it alone, it was a signal to the other kids to ask him or her to play. … Christian’s family never did move to Germany, but the little boy is credited with introducing buddy benches to America.”

Read more at The Washington Post website.

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Photo by Carolyn Hampton

From The Washington Post website: “Natalie Hampton spent most of her 7th and 8th grade school years eating lunch alone. … Natalie switched schools for high school. She chose a school that, when she toured it, seemed to prioritize community. Now a 16-year-old junior, she’s happy there, with a group of close friends and extracurricular activities. But she’s never forgotten those two dark years when she was bullied and isolated by her peers. And she hates the idea of other kids going through what she did. So Natalie came up with an idea that would allow students a judgment-free way to find lunch mates without the fear of being rejected.”

Read more at The Washington Post website.

Take a Look: Travis & Bo

From the CNN website: “Travis Rudolph is a wide receiver at Florida State University. … During a recent visit to Montford Middle School in Tallahassee, Florida, Rudolph decided to sit with Bo Paske. The boy has autism and often eats lunch alone…”

Read more at the CNN website or in Leah Paske’s touching Facebook post.

Take a Look: Love > Hate

From the ABC News website: “A community in Washington state came together to scrub messages of hate from a black neighbor’s property after vandals spray-painted racial slurs on his home and vehicle while he and his family were on vacation.”

Read more at the ABC News website.

Take a Look: The Kindness of Strangers

Photo by Marquis Funeral Home

From the The Journal News (White Plains, NY) website: “About 30 people attended Francine Stein’s funeral Wednesday, none of whom she had ever met. Her pallbearers were strangers — men and women who carried her simple casket and lowered it down, shoveling warm earth into the grave. If those strangers had not attended Stein’s funeral, nobody would have. ‘For the people who attended, it was an assertion of human dignity,’ Rabbi Elchanan Weinbach said.”

Read more at the The Journal News website.

Take a Look: #IllWalkWithYou

From the Time magazine website: “Following the shooting of a New York City mosque leader and as associate, people are offering to accompany Muslims to and from the mosque so they can pray in safety. … Online, many non-Muslims across the country used the hashtag #IllWalkWithYou to indicate they would walk with Muslims to and from the mosque to protect them while they pray.”

Read more about the movement at the Time magazine and Mashable websites.