In Salisbury, people enjoy getting vaccinated

The 800-year-old cathedral in Salisbury, England, has become a mass vaccination center. David Halls is the cathedral's music director, so he did what he does best. He sat down on the bench and began to play the historic organ.

 He offers a bit of Bach, Handel, and even some Rogers & Hammerstein, to the public as they shuffle through the nave to get their shots. "At times of crisis, people come together and want to listen to music," he says. "So I don't think it's any surprise the effect soothing music has on people who probably are feeling quite stressed for various reasons."  (As reported in The Christian Science Monitor)

A new use for potato chip bags

 Environmental activist Eradajere Oleita of Detroit, Michigan, is creating much-needed warmth for the homeless using potato chip bags. It's brilliantly simple. By cutting, attaching and ironing used chip bags, and then lining them with plastic, she creates sleeping bags that are durable, waterproof, and EXTREMELY lightweight.

It takes about 150 used snack bags to make a single sleeping bag, and Oleita says she's trying to make 60 complete bags by early February.

Champ gives back to community

 When Dustin Poirier the 32-year-old former Interim UFC Lightweight Champion, wanted to give back to his hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana, he and his wife Jolie looked into their closet for inspiration. They began auctioning off the shorts, jackets and wraps that Poirier used in dozens of storied fights, selling they through a new nonprofit called "The Good Fight," which is dedicated to helping underserved communities in their local Acadiana region. The first auctioned kit was from the Poirier vs Eddy Alvarez fight, and proceeds provided 3,000 meals for their local Second Harvest Food Bank.

In August, 2019, auction proceeds paid for a playground for children, but especially for kids with special needs, fulfilling the dying wish of a young boy in a wheelchair after Jolie heard his story. Poirier says it makes him feel "really proud" and happy --especially since he's the father of a 4-year-old daughter. "I can be a tough guy, travel all around the world and get into bloody fights," he says, "but I can come home and I'm still dad. I can play Barbies. It really balances me out."

It's Girl Scout cookie time again

 Girl Scout Troop 6000 may look like most other troops, but it's not. All 22 young members of the troop live at the Sleep Inn, a 10-story homeless shelter in Queens, New York City. Troop 6000 is the first troop designed specifically for girls living in the New York City Shelter System.

The troop has become an invaluable part of raising the shelter girls. Since it began, it has served girls from kindergarten to high school. "Every girl in the five boroughs of New York City deserves a chance to reach her full potential; to have her eyes opened to the possibilities for college and careers, to make loving and supportive friends and learn from caring female mentors, and chart her own course and achieve her goals," say a Girl Scout representative. "That's what Troop 6000 is all about."

A book club with a mission

The Fabulous Ladies Book Club liked to meet at a restaurant in Ruidoso, New Mexico, but all that changed when the pandemic hit. Like most book clubs, the Fabulous Ladies now meet online. But in recent weeks, they found a good reason to actually see each other in person. They are helping to vaccinate their town. It all started December 28, when book club member Keri Rath, one of the few OB/GYNs in this mountain town of about 8,000, heard that the state had free vaccine doses but needed help putting them into people's arms. 

The club started on January 3, and by January 23 they had administered more than 2,400 vaccine doses, about 30% of their town. One registrations began rolling in, the club members got themselves vaccinated and trained and then got busy running their pop-up clinic. The Fabulous Ladies volunteered as many as 50 hours a week. They are exhausted but exhilarated.

Boutique owner thinks outside the box

When COVID-19 hit, Virginia Sharp knew she had to keep paying her bills as the owner of a small boutique, so she decided to think outside the box. Given mandated shelter-in-place orders, she transformed her sales efforts from the brick-and-mortar location in Macon, Georgia, to social media which reaches the masses.

Every Friday night she started streaming live fashion shows with  different theme each week, and it transformed her business. Sharp has found an online niche, and it has percolated sales coming from new customers as far away as Alaska. A large part of her business today is packing up boxes to ship all over the country.

 

If birds could talk