Do cardboard crowns count as gold?

Lloyd and Sandy Howard live in Matawan, New Jersey. This year they celebrated their 50th anniversary with a romantic meal at Burger King. They married in 1968 and on their first anniversary they were running late for a movie so they grabbed a couple of Whoppers. When the same thing happened on their second anniversary, they decided to make it a tradition.

                                                                                                                            WPIX11
This was their 49th year in a row celebrating their anniversary at Burger King. The only difference was that all six of their grandkids were there, waiting to surprise them. The traditional 50th anniversary gift is gold, and they both wore gold Burger King crowns, so maybe that counts.

Hi Mom, I'm home.

Joanne Loewenstern is 79 years old. She was born in New York City and put up for adoption in 1938. She was always told her mother died at childbirth. I bet you know where this is going.

She never believed the story about her mom, and years ago she hired a detective to look into it. He found nothing, so she gave up until recently, when her daughter-in-law told her about Ancestry.com and got her to send a DNA sample, hoping to find any blood relative. Last May Joanne got an email from a guy named Sam. It turned out he was her biological brother. Then she found her her mom, Lillian Feinsilver, is 100 years old and living in Port St. Lucie, FL., only 70 miles from Joanne's home in Boca Raton. They finally got to meet each other, and Joanne has already returned for a second visit. They have a lot of catching up to do.

2,340 days of school, and counting!

Kevin Davis of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, recently earned a special honor at his high school. He is the first student ever to graduate with a single absence from Kindergarten through 12th grade. That's 2,340 school days in a row. He even dislocated his shoulder playing football last year and showed up for class the next morning.

He says he watched his parents get up and go to work his whole life, even when they didn't feel great, and that's where he got his work ethic. He plans to study at culinary school next year, and some of his teachers are so impressed by his attendance that they started a GoFundMe page to help pay his tuition. So far he's received $25,000, and promises the money will be spent wisely.

How far would you walk for a haircut?

In Fruitlands Park, Florida, the luxurious Mia Bella Salon and Spa now sends volunteer hair stylists once a month to the Beyond the Walls Food Pantry to provide poor men and women with free haircuts. Co-owner Danielle Daugherty said only five people signed up the first month, but now more than 40 people are on the list.

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According to Daugherty, "Everyone deserves a luxury haircut. The same people usually come every month. They really rely on this." Some clients walk all the way across town for the haircut, and some depend on the free service as they prepare for job interviews. "It's a godsend," says client Emily Addenbrooke. She says the friendly stylists always cheer her up. "It gives me a new look on life. If I feel depressed, I come here and feel like a new person."

Kids in jail?"

That's what Shannon Gaggero's six-year-old son asked when his mom told him about children being separated from their parents at the U.S. Mexico border. So with her help, he set up a lemonade stand to raise money to help the families -- not just a physical stand but also a virtual one. They hoped to raise $1,000 but ended up with $13,283.

                                                                                                                  Shannon Gaggero
Gaffero said her family will donate the proceeds to RAICES, a nonprofit in Texas that offers free and low-cost legal advice to immigrants and refugees. She said the experience was a great opportunity to teach children about the importance of keeping families together.  (Today's crumb came from an alert reader in Bloomington, Indiana.)

Hang up and enjoy life!

It's been four long years since La Gautrais Middle School in Ploasne, France banned the use of cell phones. Some expected a negative backlash, but the result has been positive.

The 290 teenage pupils have displayed "more social interaction, more empathy and a readiness to learn at the start of lessons." Students talk and play more at recess. They are active and engaged on field trips, rather than staring at screens. And they say they are closer to their friends as a result of conversing with each other. I wonder if they secretly pass tightly folded notes to each other during class?

"I'm a Toys R Us kid!"

"I don't want to grow up. I'm a Toys R Us kid," has been a popular jingle for decades, but from now on, there will be no more Toys R Us kids, except maybe in Raleigh, North Carolina.

 On the final day of business at a Toys R Us store in Raleigh's Triangle Town Center, an anonymous good Samaritan paid $1 million to purchase every store left in the store. So instead of spending their final day selling to last-minute customers, store personnel locked the door early and spent all day boxing up the inventory for charity. Shoppers who showed up hoping for bargains didn't seem put off when told the toys had all been sold to a donor, to be given to needed children. "Oh wow, that's nice" said one mom.