HOLIDAY FEEL GOOD STORIES

As we start the holidays, sometimes we're reminded of just how nice humans can be to one another and that the world is totally rotten.  three quick stories that happened this thanksgiving season.  enjoy.
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Lady in iowa is outside the local walmart on a frigid day holding a sign that says "will work 4 food 4 my kids." local farmer stops and finds out the lady has five children and her husband is hospitalized after being hit by a drunk driver and suffering from numerous broken bones. farmer gets her name & address plus the names of the kids who age from 3-14 and promises to be in touch. two days before thanksgiving, farmer arrives in a pick-up truck with the back full of frozen beef & pork plus assorted food including turkey & all the trimmings for the holiday. oh yeah...and a freezer to hold the meat.

farmer then invites the entire family to his house for saturday night dinner followed by xmas decorating and lighting of his family tree.  family arrives at 5 p.m. and leaves at 10.  upon arrival back at their house, it appears that santa has delivered & decorated an eight foot tree and left SIXTY wrapped presents under the tree, all with 'do not open til christmas' stickers on them. when the woman called the farmer and asked what work she could do for him, he responded, "you'll have to ask santa. as far as i'm concerned, just keep smiling and enjoy the holiday."

finally, when she went to visit her husband on sunday at the hospital, HIS ROOM had been totally decorated along with a half dozen presents, also with "do not open" stickers that looked mysteriously familiar. her husband told his wife "i went down for my one hour rehab session and when i got back to the room an hour later, all this was here."  the farmer denies any involvement.  happy holidays.
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A dog shelter in oklahoma sat on three donated acres but the 50 cage building was seriously overcrowded and more than 40 dogs were facing euthanasia  on the monday following thanksgiving weekend. a hand painted sign outside the shelter read "don't let our puppies die...please help" drew the attention of two high schoolers who had both previously adopted dogs and they entered the shelter to find out what was happening and ended up volunteering. the boys were told the sad story. "we've run on donations for a long time and one guy even poured a concrete slab so we could expand but the economy dried up the donations and we couldn't build the new building so these 40 dogs will pay the ultimate price on that monday."

the three full time volunteers were all from the same family but one always had to stay for the holidays and they could never get together at one time to celebrate with their elderly mother who lived eighty miles away. after two weeks of excellent volunteer work, the two guys let the owners know that they had no school that week and offered to handle the entire thanksgiving week so the regulars could all have time with their mother. the family members jumped at the chance and all left sunday night for mom's house. both boys immediately put their plan in motion, one they had been concocting since they volunteered.


When the staff returned a week later, they were handed the keys to a brand new heated pole barn with a hundred new cages and $19,000.00 in cash donations to help feed the canines and a stack of OVER ONE HUNDRED APPLICATIONS FOR ADOPTION!!   (the shelter wanted everyone to know that all applicants are given a thorough background check before being allowed to adopt)


HOW DID IT HAPPEN?

on monday morning, 14 seniors from the football team who had been recruited by the two boys showed up to construct a new pole barn on the previously poured concrete slab under the direction of the man who donated the materials for the barn. most of the boys lived on ranches or farms and had all done this type of work before so the project moved along rapidly. once the pole barn was in place, adult volunteers then installed electricity, running water and heat and it was all done by saturday.

turns out one of the boys had a father who worked at the local newspaper in tulsa which agreed to give them one full page to advertise the plight of the shelter. a full page color ad with photos of every dog appeared in the 'black friday' edition of the paper (which came out wednesday) which explained the pending doom and readers were asked to either consider adoption or make a cash donation to the local bank. happy thanksgiving to the puppies!

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finally, an elderly woman was the caretaker of the local church in a small town outside of detroit. she lived frugally in an eight hundred square foot ranch and her house needed major repairs but she wouldn't 'take charity' because others needed it more. each thanksgiving morning, annie would leave her house at 6 a.m. and spend the day at morning church services and then serving food to the homeless before returning home exhausted later that night and this thanksgiving was no different.

the next morning, she was taking the garbage out when her neighbor commented on how nice her new roof & siding looked and the woman didn't know what she was talking about until she turned around and saw that her house had been transformed overnight into a thing of beauty. she was speechless and couldn't figure out what had happened.

turns out the local men's club all knew annie from various functions and decided to surprise her when they knew she'd be gone so 45 volunteers arrived at daybreak on thanksgiving and nine hours later, annie had a nice warm house that looked brand new. the volunteers had given up their holiday to help one person. anytime annie asks about the rehab, '"obody knows nuttin."  the true spirit of the holidays.