Good People Doing Good Things — Lots of ‘Em

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Good people doing good things, Social commentary

Some weeks good people just drop into my lap, other weeks I have to go in search of them, but either way, there are always plenty of ‘em out there if you know where to look.  This week, a few dropped neatly into my lap, so I’m delighted to share their stories with you!

Let’s begin with Isaac Winfield, an 11-year-old boy in Redditch, Worcester in the UK who has started his own foodbank!  During the first year or so of the pandemic, Isaac’s family would send food packages to school with him to be given to those in need.  Isaac’s family also donated to local foodbanks, but Isaac treasured the ability to take food packages to school to share and distribute.  Then, Isaac changed schools and his new school didn’t have a program in place for kids to donate food.  Isaac was bummed, but then he came up with an idea.  He told his mom in the car one day, “it’s alright, we’ll give them food at my house.”  Says Isaac’s mom, Claire …

“I was laughing, but he had just broken his arm, so I let him do it to cheer him up. I doubled what money we gave them normally for food parcels, and he went off to Aldi. With a little bit of help, he put all the food he bought in a little greenhouse with some lights and started offering it from there. Someone spotted it and put it on one of those Facebook community sites, and it went mad. People came and donated. The greenhouse lasted four weeks before I had to go and get a shed because we ran out of room.”

Now Isaac is planning to expand the service and has a local charity sponsoring him to open a foodbank in the town. He has attracted the help of big sponsors like Morrison’s and a local charity called Building Bridges to keep his foodbank operational.  In addition, YouTuber Mark McCann donated the aforementioned van, fully-taxed and insured, to help get the foodbank mobile.  Isaac wanted it decorated with a rainbow logo and on weekends his parents take him to various places to distribute the food to those in need.

His mom says …

“For his 11th birthday he just wanted foodbank donations and the shed was absolutely rammed. He just wanted to get as many donations in as possible to help as many people as he can.”

Isaac has now been nominated for a local business award and hopes to open his second foodbank in the town next month.  Wow, right?  Just wow … what a remarkable young man!!!

I’d like you to meet another good people, trucker Gary Wilburn from San Antonio, Texas.  Wilburn was in heavy traffic on October 4th, near Forrest City, Arkansas.  After about an hour in the heavy traffic, he came across a badly crashed State Trooper’s vehicle on the side of the road. Every other motorist was passing the vehicle without stopping to look inside.

“I was in traffic for an hour before I saw the trooper. Some of the stuff I noticed was insane—no one’s calling the police, cars are driving by, and no one stopped to help him.”

Wilburn, who drives for Anderson Trucking, called 911 and reported what he found.

“He was banged up really bad. Lower legs were broken, upper legs were broken and he was pinned in. His legs were crushed really bad.”

He then stayed with the trapped officer until emergency personnel arrived and he was airlifted to a local hospital.  I can find no word on the officer’s condition, but Wilburn was named a Highway Angel for what he did.  Since the program’s inception in August 1997, nearly 1,300 professional truck drivers have been recognized as Highway Angels for exemplary kindness, courtesy, and courage displayed while on the job.  Thumbs up to Mr. Wilburn and all the other Highway Angels out there looking out for us all!

Last month in Richmond, Indiana, a funeral was held for Police Officer Seara Burton, who had been shot and killed while responding to help other officers with a traffic stop. She was 28 years old and joined the Richmond police department four years ago.  Police Lieutenant Donnie Benedict said that on the day of the funeral, someone walked into the police station and handed over a white envelope. Inside it was eight one-dollar bills. The anonymous donation was from the homeless community in Richmond.

According to Officer Benedict …

“This gift was in a wrinkled dirty well-used envelope. They handed the envelope to the information officer and on the envelope was written these four words: people from the street. The person explained that several of the homeless people from the city of Richmond have taken up a donation from the people that live on our streets here in Richland and they wanted to donate this to Seara’s family. There have been many valuable gifts given in honor of Seara. However, none, and I mean none, are more valuable than the gift of 8 $1 bills in a dirty white envelope.”

That act of kindness has sparked a movement in Richmond. The community is now rallying behind the homeless population.  The story touched resident Amber Conley, who made a call out on Facebook asking for donations.  They have since collected enough donations to fill an entire room in the Richmond Fire Station — everything from blankets, coats, water, tents and more.

The group will hand out donations next week and Officer Burton’s family will be there to help.  The eight one-dollar bills from the envelope have been framed to remind everyone of the big impact Officer Burton had on the community she served for four years.

See, folks … there really are a lot of good people out there!

29 thoughts on “Good People Doing Good Things — Lots of ‘Em”

  1. Great stories and thanks for the smile they gave me. Even though I have started to feel very conflicted about food banks in Britain and elsewhere. Why on Earth do we need councils and governments if they are not able to feed and house their population? Isn’t that what their job is? Social contract and all that? If it’s charities who fund the NHS, feed the poor and donations that help homeless people in your country that suggest to me we, the people, do the good work on our own anyway. And no, I am not a fan of revolutions or call for one but why fund politicians and their mates with our taxes when all they do is getting richer and we poorer? I hope citizens assemblies will kick off one day so we can get stuff done 🥰 sorry for the rant but as I wrote in the beginning: foodbanks in Britain make me feel very uncomfortable 😔

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    • I’m so happy to know this gave you a smile!!! Well, in a perfect world, we wouldn’t need food banks, but humanitarian aid seems to take a backseat to our governments and so … we the average people must step in and do what is needed, for in my book no person should have to put their child to bed hungry at night. The people that I am most angry with are the uber-wealthy who check their investment portfolios hourly to make sure they still have a billion plus dollars or pounds, but turn a blind eye to the homeless living in the streets, or to the single mother trying to feed her three children. If … IF wealth were evenly distributed in your country or mine, NOBODY would go to bed hungry, nobody would be evicted from their home, nobody would have to choose between paying the electric bill or taking their sick child to a doctor. But alas, the wealthy live in ivory towers and don’t even notice the rest of us, nor do they care. Sigh. And now, I shall gently step down off my soapbox 😊

      Hugs, Sweet Bee!!!

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      • Ah, I love you on that soap box. Keep going lady! That’s what I meant with “politicians and their mates”. But what really boggles my mind is how much people were/are brainwashed into thinking the problem is immigrants and not inequality. But let’s not go down that road. Lizz Truss and company might have shown such a beacon on it that people can’t ignore it anymore even though I am not sure any alternative from new tory pm to general elections might change anything fundamentally 😔
        Hugs back dear Jill 🤗

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  2. Pingback: Good People Doing Good Things — Lots Of ‘Em. |jilldennison.com | Ramblings of an Occupy Liberal

    • Thank you so much! Yes, there ARE many good people out there … in fact, I firmly believe that good people outnumber the other sort by a large margin, but you don’t hear about them because the media audience prefers stories of blood and gore, of fighting and controversy. I love doing these good people posts as much as you guys enjoy reading them, for they bring things back into perspective after days of studying and writing about the political scene! I’m so glad you enjoy them!

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  4. I look forward to these weekly posts, Jill. We need more news like this and how inspiring these individuals are. Isaac’s story particularly touched me cuz he’s so young and already so accomplished.

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    • I’m so glad, Ab! Yes, we definitely DO need to hear more about the good people in this world, and there are a LOT of them! But, the media will always focus on the controversial stories and people because that’s what sells. Sigh. Yes, I especially liked Isaac’s story … I love the stories about young people already having big hearts and doing something to make the world a better place!

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  5. Pingback: Good People Doing Good Things — Lots of ‘Em | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

    • Thanks, Mick! That’s exactly my intent — to give us some balance, to remind us all that there is good out there, that not everyone is in fight mode. The reason you don’t hear as much about these good people is two-fold: a) they aren’t tooting their own horns, but rather quietly going about the business of being good people, and b) good news doesn’t sell nearly as well, hence the media go with that old adage “if it bleeds, it leads”.

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