Nov. 26, 2016 "Pay- it- forward programs gain traction around the holidays": Today I found this article by Melissa Kosller Dutton in the Edmonton Journal. This is a very positive and happy article about charity and doing good deeds for strangers:
Lisa Ludwinski expects to sell more pie at her Detroit bakery during the holiday season, and not just to people enjoying it themselves. She anticipates that customers will buy pieces of pie for strangers through the shop's "Pie-it-Forward" program.
Ludwinski, owner of Sister Pie, launched the program last fall. Shoppers buy a coupon for a free slice of a pie, and the coupons get hung on a wall. Anyone who visits can take one down to get some pie.
"It's a way to provide pie for a variety of people — people who are hungry or people who have never been to our pie shop before," said Ludwinski, whose specialties include Salted Maple and Cranberry Crumble.
Although the program runs year-round, Ludwinski has found that customers are more enthusiastic about it during the holidays.
Pay-it-forward programs seem to gain momentum around Christmas. Customers at Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts around the country have made headlines in recent Decembers by buying coffee for the person behind them in line — leading to chains of hundreds of free drinks in streaks that can last for hours.
Most people — even those who don't donate to charity — value generosity, and paying for someone's coffee is an easy way to express that, said Patricia Snell Herzog, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville who co-authored "American Generosity: Who Gives and Why" (Oxford University Press, 2016).
"It just makes you feel good," she said. "It's like smiling at someone. You're passing on visible goodness."
Also, nobody wants to be the person who breaks the chain, she said.
"It's put right in front of you. This person in line is being really generous. It makes you feel called to respond," she says.
MaryJo Dunn was amazed when an anonymous gift that she made in honor of her late son became a pay-it-forward phenomenon at the First and Last Tavern in Glastonbury,
Connecticut.
On Feb. 20, what would have been Luke's second birthday, Dunn bought a gift card and asked the manager to give it, along with a note explaining the date's significance, to a family having lunch at the restaurant.
The family that was chosen was celebrating their son's birthday; they insisted on reloading the card and giving it to another family, said Molly Shanahan, creative director for the restaurant. Diners continued to load the card through the next day.
"It took off," said Shanahan. "It created this energy. It inspired people. It was a flame that ignited the whole place."
For Dunn, whose son died of cancer in 2015, the outpouring made a bad day more bearable. She and her husband, Shane, routinely buy coffee and doughnuts for others and give the recipients printed cards asking them to "pay it forward in memory of Luke."
They find that these small gifts not only keep Luke's memory alive but inspire others to perform "random acts of kindness," she said. "We are so happy that people continue to do this. It definitely lightens our hearts."
Mason Wartman also has seen how powerful pay-it-forward opportunities can be. He has given away more than 70,000 slices of pizza paid for by the customers of his Philadelphia restaurant, Rosa's Fresh Pizza.
The effort started a couple of years ago when a customer learned that homeless people occasionally visited the eatery, which sells pizza for $1 a slice. The customer offered to pay in advance for a slice to be given to someone in need.
He also told Wartman about an Italian custom called "caffe sospeso," or suspended coffee: Someone who has had good fortune pays for an extra cup of coffee to be given later to someone down on his luck.
Wartman decided to keep track of the prepaid slices with sticky notes, which soon covered the walls of his restaurant. After the pay-it-forward program was featured on local and national media, the sticky notes became unwieldy and Wartman created a button on the cash register to record the free slices.
Customers like the program because they can see it helping others, he said.
"It's very transparent," he said. "My employees never ask, would you like to donate today? It's just out there. Everyone knows what we do."
Dec. 28, 2016 "In Spain, new restaurants nourish the needy- and the soul": Today I found this article by Raphael Minder in the Globe and Mail. This is a positive article about Rev. Ángel García Rodríguez and his team helping poor people:
MADRID — Ángel Castillo once worked as a restaurant cook. But after losing his job and struggling with alcoholism, he has been sleeping on the streets for most of the last 16 years. It has been a while since he has worked in a restaurant, let alone eaten at one.
Yet there he was one recent evening, among the diners who crowded into a new restaurant in Madrid. It was a simple space, with red-tiled walls and paper napkins, but there were tablecloths, chandeliers and water glasses, and even someone to serve you.
“It’s special to get your food in a restaurant,” Mr. Castillo said, satisfied.
The restaurant is one of four named Robin Hood that opened in the last month in Spain to serve those who cannot afford to dine out.
The minichain’s novel business model is not to steal from the rich, but rather to use revenues made by serving breakfast and lunch to paying customers to cover the costs of preparing free evening dinners for homeless people.
It is the brainchild of the Rev. Ángel García Rodríguez, 79, one part clergyman, one part innovator and nonprofit entrepreneur, who has spent a lifetime working with the needy.
Unconventional down to his attire, Father Ángel, as he is universally called, prefers a suit and loose tie to a collar, unless he is saying Mass, and is just as likely to hand out his business card as communion. “The priest habit is like my gala outfit,” he said with a chuckle.
Father Ángel has had long experience finding new ways that sometimes push the boundaries of how to serve the poor.
He is president of Messengers of Peace, a nongovernment organization that employs 3,900 people and 5,000 volunteers. It runs homes for older people, orphanages, centers for drug addicts and other social services.
But what all of his projects have in common is that they have helped sustain the most vulnerable Spaniards at a time of near-record unemployment and deep public spending cuts amid the lingering economic crisis. His organization also runs projects in about 50 developing countries.
These days, it is his budding string of Robin Hood restaurants that animates Father Ángel. On top of receiving basic help, he said, poor people need to regain a sense of dignity and purpose that is hard to achieve when eating in a soup kitchen.
“To get served by a waiter wearing a nice uniform and to eat with proper cutlery, rather than a plastic fork, is what gives you back some dignity,” he said.
Father Ángel is already preparing to expand his model. He said he was in talks with a restaurant owner to open a Robin Hood in Miami in January. He is even hoping to lure celebrity chefs to volunteer occasionally to cook at his restaurants.
His restaurant idea is not the first time he has broken new ground. Last year, Father Ángel took over an abandoned church, San Antón, in Madrid and reshaped it into something akin to a community center.
Today, it welcomes about a thousand people a day. Most of them are destitute. Some even sleep there. Father Ángel says it is the only church open 24 hours a day in the Western world.
On some evenings, the church shows soccer games on the television screens that are normally used to broadcast Mass.
Food is served in the back pews, while visitors can consult with medical volunteers, get free access to Wi-Fi or just use the church’s restrooms.
Of course, Mass is also said, either by Father Ángel or another priest. Confession can also be conducted via an iPad, for those too hard of hearing to catch the words of a whispering priest.
Alfonso Santamaría, 43, serves as one of Father Ángel’s altar boys. He said he spent most of his day in the church, but then traveled to sleep in one of the terminals of Madrid’s airport.
Mr. Santamaría has been homeless for more than a year, after losing his job at a street stall selling churros, a traditional Spanish pastry. He previously served in the Spanish Legion in Northern Africa and continues to wear a jacket with its logo.
Before accepting Father Ángel’s offer to become one of his altar boys, Mr. Santamaría said, he had not stepped into a church for over two decades.
“Father Ángel changes people a lot, and he has kept me away from doing some bad things,” he said. “I feel we are now doing each other a favor: He keeps me busy while I help with Mass.”
Last Christmas Eve, Father Ángel organized a gala dinner at Madrid’s city hall for hundreds of poor people.
The son of a coal factory worker, he trained to be a priest and then started working with an orphanage outside Oviedo, in northern Spain.
The walls of his Robin Hood restaurant in Madrid are decorated with photos of orphans whom the priest helped five decades ago.
Father Ángel acknowledged his methods and approach were sometimes bolder than the Catholic Church’s rules allowed, notably toward gay couples.
He said his actions had received some criticism, but were broadly in line with the message of Pope Francis. Under Benedict, the previous pope, “it was certainly harder to carry out my kind of work,” he said.
Emma García, a 28-year-old unemployed mother, said she had turned to Father Ángel to have her 3-year-old daughter baptized, after a priest in her own city, Burgos, said he could baptize the child only if Ms. García took her to church.
However, Ms. García’s daughter, Nora, has been spending most of her time in a hospital because she has congenital nephrotic syndrome, a rare kidney disorder. Nora will eventually need a kidney transplant.
“I heard about this great person who puts no limitation on who can be helped, whether it is somebody without a home, or a mother like me who can’t have a normal christening for her child,” Ms. García said. “I discovered a priest who did not just preach love and help but put his words into action.”
At Madrid’s first Robin Hood restaurant, which has 50 seats and two evening sittings, many diners said they had come after receiving other forms of help from Father Ángel.
While Mr. Castillo, the former restaurant cook, sat alone, many of the diners were eating among friends, having booked seats together through the church.
Giani Parlafes, a 41-year-old Romanian who has been living in Spain for a decade, said he was sitting in a restaurant for the first time since losing his job four years ago.
“It’s just hard to believe I get to sit and eat here without paying any money whatsoever,” he said. “You reach a point when something like this just makes you feel incredible.”
This week's theme is about charity.
You can donate time, effort, or money. If you don't have any of that, you can donate old clothes or items to Goodwill or the Youth Empowerment Services:
"India’s Sheroes Hangout Café Is Run by Acid Attack Survivors"/ "Makeup Tutorial By Acid Attack Survivor Teaches More Than Lipstick Tips"
"Edmonton man in wheelchair earns his keep shovelling snow" (Dwayne's Home)/ "Life saving 'Get Swabbed' campaign hits campuses this week"
My week:
Oct. 30, 2022 Holiday season: I'm posting this now because this is before the holiday season. This is to prevent you from shopping.
Don't buy Christmas gifts.
You will save a lot of money.
You will also save the environment.
You should be spending quality time and experiences together with your friends and family.
"99 Clutter- Free Gift Ideas": This is from Joshua Becker. They are mainly:
Experiences: tickets to a concert, play, movies.
Consumables: any food like chips, cookies,
99 Clutter-Free Gift Ideas (becomingminimalist.com)
Nov. 8, 2022: I found this on Kijiji:
Nov. 10, 2022: I found this on my friend Heather's Facebook page:
Nov. 10, 2022: I found this on my friend Heather's Facebook page:
Nov. 5, 2022 "Aaron Carter dead at 34": This was on TMZ:
4:53 PM PT -- Aaron's fiancé, Melanie Martin, tells TMZ ... "My fiancé Aaron Carter has passed away. I love Aaron with all my heart and it’s going to be a journey to raise a son without a father. Please respect the privacy of my family as we come to terms with the loss of someone we love greatly. We are still in the process of accepting this unfortunate reality. Your thoughts and prayers are greatly appreciated."
4:03 PM PT -- The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department tells TMZ ... Aaron's house sitter found his body in the bath tub and called authorities.
Aaron shot to fame back in the late 1990s as a pop singer, releasing four studio albums, starting with his self-titled debut album in 1997 when he was only 9 years old.
After his first album sold a million copies, Aaron's second album, "Aaron's Party," tripled that number ... and from there he became a regular on Nickelodeon.
Aaron also used to tour with the Backstreet Boys during their heyday ... his older brother Nick was part of the hugely popular boy band.
AC is survived by his son, Prince.
Aaron Carter Dead at 34 (tmz.com)
My opinion: I hate his music ever since he came out. He was 9 yrs old and he was way too young because his voice didn't sound good.
As a person, he seems average. I saw a The Hit List interview he did with the host Exan, and a 20/20 interview, and a few episodes House of Carters (a reality show with all 5 Carter kids living together.)
I didn't know anything about his personal life like being engaged and having a kid.
Nov. 8, 2022 "Lauren Conrad apologizes to Kristin Cavallari, says calling her a 'slut' on 'Laguna Beach' is 'biggest regret'": Today I found this article by Taryn Ryder on Yahoo. This is a good article. Even if you don't like or care about these people, this is a good article to not be so mean to each other:
Nov. 9, 2022 Does anyone want some firewood?: I asked my Personality Meetup friends if they wanted it. We can roast marshmallows. No one had an indoor fireplace.
Nov. 8, 2022: I also found this on the same Kijiji ad. I will write more about this later.
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