Inspirational Media ArticlesExcerpts of Key Inspirational Media Articles in Major Media
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A great deal of visual processing in the brain goes on well below our conscious awareness. Some studies have probed the unconscious depths of vision. One source of evidence comes from the neurological condition known as blindsight, which is caused by damage to areas of the brain involved in processing visual information. People with blindsight report that they are unable to see, either entirely or in a portion of their visual field. However, when asked to guess what is there, they can often do so with remarkable accuracy. The phenomenon of inattentional blindness seems to show you can see without the information crossing into your consciousness. Anyone can experience inattentional blindness. In this experiment, participants are shown a video of people playing basketball, and told to count the number of passes between the players wearing a white shirt. If you've never done this before, I urge to you stop reading now and watch the video. In many cases, people are so busy counting the passes that they completely miss a large gorilla walking across the middle of the scene and beating its chest, then walking off. The gorilla's right there, in the centre of your visual field. Light from the gorilla enters your eyes, and is processed in the visual system, but somehow you missed it, because you weren't paying attention to it. The question is: what makes some information conscious, rather than the information that stays unconscious?
Note: Meet the blind professional skateboarder who teaches blind people how to skateboard. Echolocation expert Daniel Kish is a blind man who has taught thousands of other blind people to "see" and navigate the world by interpreting echoes that activate the brain's visual centers. Explore more positive stories like this on the mysterious nature of reality.
Despair is nothing more than ... reducing the immense vista of reality to a particular interpretation of a particular moment. While orbiting a war-torn world aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Chris Hadfield took questions from earthlings in a Reddit AMA. Asked for his advice to anyone on the brink of giving up and his own approach to those moments of darkest despair, he offers: "I remind myself that each sunrise is a harbinger of another chance, and to take quiet, unrecognised pride in the accomplishments I get done each day. Each evening my intended list is unfinished, but I celebrate what I've done, and resolve to do better tomorrow. Also, nothing is ever as good or as bad as it first seems. Keep at it with optimism – it is your life to tinker with, learn from, live and love." This ongoingness of creation – the fact that this world is unfinished and our story unwritten – is nowhere more visible, life's ceaseless insistence on itself nowhere more palpable, than when seen on the scale of the entire planet. Hadfield captures this elemental calibration of perspective: "It's endlessly surprising how continually beautiful our changing, ancient, gorgeous Earth is. Every one of my 1,650 orbits, I saw something new. And I was up long enough to watch the seasons swap ends on the planet, like Mother Earth taking one breath out of 4.5 billion breaths." It is not unimportant that the word "holy" shares its Latin root with "whole" and has its Indo-European origins in the notion of the interleaving of all things.
Note: Former NASA astronaut Ron Garan watched Earth from space for 178 days and came to the realization that we humans are living a lie with our extractive economic systems and how we treat each other and the Earth. Explore more positive stories like this on the mysterious nature of reality.
In the Sicilian town of Giarre overlooking Mount Etna, Andrea Passanisi, a tropical and citrus fruits producer, uses an unusual fertiliser on his 100-hectare (247-acre) stretch of land: volcano ash. Like hundreds of farmers and citizens of rural towns perched on the slopes of Europe's highest and most active volcano, the 41-year-old's family has had to deal with the nuisance of falling volcanic ash for generations. But it is only in recent years that the quantity of ash has become so excessive that it required an alternative approach. With every eruption, towns such as Giarre experience an average of 12,000 tonnes of ashfall daily, which the wind can transport as far as 800km (497 miles). In July 2024, Catania – Sicily's second-largest city, located at the foot of Mount Etna – registered 17,000 tonnes of ash daily, which took nearly 10 weeks to collect. For years, farmers such as Passanisi were led to believe the phenomenon was a danger to crops, polluting irrigation waters and requiring special equipment and days off work to clean up. But a five-year project by the University of Catania raised awareness of the potential for ash to become a resource in the production cycle of many different sectors, including agriculture. "It allows us to use fewer chemicals, which makes fertilising cheaper and more sustainable, respecting the equilibrium of nature without abusing it," Passanisi says. "It's the future of agriculture."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth.
Being hurt by others is common and can be deeply painful. Which raises the question of forgiveness. In the last few decades, researchers have helped us better understand how people experience forgiveness and how it influences our lives. The Global Flourishing Study seeks to enrich this knowledge from a more global perspective. Launched in 2021, the study follows people over time to understand what a good life looks like in different parts of the world – including health, happiness, meaning, relationships, character, and financial security. It's the first study to measure forgiveness in national samples from many different cultures and contexts. In the first wave of data from more than 200,000 participants across 22 countries, my colleagues and I found that about 75% of individuals reported they had "often" or "always" forgiven those who had hurt them. Percentages varied across countries, ranging from 41% in Turkey to 92% in Nigeria. We looked at whether people who reported being more forgiving tended to report better well-being about a year later. We found that forgiveness predicted somewhat higher well-being on many of the 56 outcomes, including mental health, purpose in life, relationship satisfaction and hope. Decades of research have pointed to similar links. The hopeful news is that forgiveness isn't a rare quality that some of us have and others lack. Studies have shown that forgiveness is like a muscle we can strengthen.
Note: For people who find forgiveness especially challenging, this project produced a forgiveness workbook that can be completed in about three hours. In the face of the brutal war machine, these powerful real-life stories show that we can heal, reimagine better alternatives, and plant the seeds of a global shift in consciousness to transform our world. Explore more powerful stories like this on healing social division.
Set up in 2019, the Transfarmation Project works with farms across the US that want to ditch industrial animal agriculture, which is typically done as contract work on behalf of big meat companies, and move toward a sustainable, fully independent business model. They provide guidance on how to repurpose existing infrastructure for different crops, but also business advice on how to find the market, set up a website, establish a brand and sell directly to consumers. They also provide research and innovation grants that can help with the finances. The idea is to move beyond a form of intensive farming that has a hugely detrimental impact on the environment, but also to protect the farmers themselves, many of whom find that the concentrated animal-feeding operation (Cafo) model takes a toll on their mental health. "We used to have all these independent farms," [Iowa farmer Tanner] Faaborg says. "Our family used to have this homesteading lifestyle with some chickens and a big orchard." That changed for the Faaborgs about 30 years ago when someone from one of the big meat companies knocked on their door. "It became more: we have ... to collect this check, to pay the bills and pay back the loan." The Transfarmation Project [shows] that a different model is possible, closer to the autonomy of old. For the Faaborgs, the switch has made them feel excited about their work and its connection to nature. They want others to know that a different future is possible.
Note: After meeting an animal rights activist he once viewed as an enemy, a factory farmer took the extraordinary step of exposing the realities of industrial poultry production on his own farm in the New York Times–and now harvests mushrooms and herbs in the very buildings where hundreds of thousands of chickens once lived. Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth and reimagining the economy.
"Agrihoods" [are] communities designed around a central farm. Like a garden in a big city, agrihoods promise to boost food security, reduce temperatures, capture rainwater and increase biodiversity. As climate change intensifies heat, flooding and pressure on food systems, agrihoods could be a way to make urban living more resilient – not just more picturesque. "Developers have a hard time offering open space, because they would like to build more housing," said Vincent Mudd, a partner at the architectural firm Steinberg Hart, which designs agrihoods. "One of the few ways to kind of bridge that gap is to be able to use active open space that actually generates commerce." On paper, an agrihood is a simple concept: A working farm surrounded by single- or multifamily housing. Steinberg Hart recently finished two of them in California – one in Santa Clara and another, called Fox Point Farms, in Encinitas. Scale that food production up across a city, and the impact could be huge: One study found that Los Angeles could meet a third of its need for vegetables by converting vacant lots into gardens. These green spaces help cool the neighborhood because their plants release water vapor, making summer more comfortable for the surrounding community. An agrihood can also support local biodiversity. Planting native flowering species, for instance, simultaneously beautifies the landscape and attracts pollinating insects, hummingbirds and bats.
Note: The rise of urban food forests across the US are ensuring that communities belong to affordable, equitable and resilient local food systems. Communities from Los Angeles, Florida, Illinois, to suburbs in the Netherlands are growing organic vegetables and food in their own yards, sharing their resources, and transforming neighborhoods. "I can't think of a more generous gift to give to the community than to grow delicious, naturally organic food for the direct community," [says Crop Swap LA subscriber] Katherine Wong. "This is one of the noblest things anyone is doing today." Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and healing the Earth.
When Sean Tevlin discovered The Group School (TGS) in the 1970s, he found "a much needed safe space." A struggling teen who had dropped out of public school and battled math anxiety, he arrived at the converted industrial garage on Franklin Street in Cambridge, MA with little self-confidence after a learning disability diagnosis. But at TGS, teachers engaged with him, patiently tutored him and rekindled his love of reading. "It opened me up mentally and emotionally," Tevlin reflects decades later. TGS, known simply as "The Group" to its students, was unlike any public or private school. Between 1971 and 1982, more than 600 students like Tevlin graduated from this freewheeling schooling experiment, which combined radical democracy, intensive arts programming and a philosophy that embraced students' working-class background. The students embraced it: A school free of tuition, grading systems and hierarchy, driven instead by community meetings and collective governance. The Math Survival Skills pamphlet, designed for students who believed they "couldn't do math," ... lays out the central principle that embodies the school spirit: "The essential thrust of The Group School approach is the empowerment of the learners. We attempt to begin with and build on the strengths and skills of the students, to help them learn new skills and develop competency in areas in which they feel inadequate or insecure, to counteract the traditional ideology that leads them to turn their anger and despair inward and to blame themselves." Special ed teacher Rosalie Fay Barnes recently showed the website and parts of the 1971 documentary to her students at Berkeley High in Berkeley, California. She was surprised at the enthusiastic reactions. "Numerous students said, 'Let's do this!' i.e., let's start our own school." When she asked what students needed, she was startled to hear their responses. "Some students wanted more work, more writing, more reading. Many of my students asked me for more." Since showing the video, "the main thing that shifted is our relationship. I no longer feel like the enforcer of the rules, but the facilitator of a learning journey."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining education.
At a bustling money changer in northwestern Syria, a 46-year-old farmer gripped a plastic card like a lifeline. She had never heard of cryptocurrency, but the card held $500 of it to help restart her farm after nearly 14 years of civil war. Where had such technology come from, she asked. The answer surprised her: Afghanistan. Blockchain-based cash transfers are not the kind of innovation that many people would expect from a country better known for its repressive Taliban leadership, which views the internet with suspicion. But in a nation that has largely turned its back on the world, an Afghan start-up is building tools that it hopes will transform how humanitarian aid is delivered in countries shattered by conflict. "We've lived through these challenges ourselves, so we know how to develop an approach that works," said Zakia Hussaini, 26, a programmer at the start-up, HesabPay, which designed the technology driving Ms. Almahmoud's card. An early proponent of the platform was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The agency uses it to support more than 86,000 families in Afghanistan in one of the biggest public blockchain aid initiatives in the world. Mercy Corps, which donated the funds to Ms. Almahmoud, worked with HesabPay to expand its reach to include Syria, and programs for Sudan and Haiti are in development. Today, the platform has more than 650,000 wallets in Afghanistan, of which about 50,000 are in regular use.
Note: Watch our 13 minute video on the promise of blockchain technology. Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining the economy and technology for good.
Wooden boats set out from houseboats and island homes carrying children dressed in school uniforms, their backpacks tucked between oars and lunch pails. Their destination: Kashmir's floating schools – classrooms anchored on the lake in this Himalayan region of the Indian subcontinent that has been claimed by both India and Pakistan, and scarred by decades of conflict. For the children of these watery hamlets, reaching school has never been simple. There are no roads connecting their homes to the nearest city, Srinagar, just narrow canals, shifting water levels and the long paddle to land. In the early light, children like 11-year-old Mahira begin their school day with a boat ride that lasts nearly 40 minutes. At one of the floating schools currently in operation, plans are underway to add a computer corner, powered by solar panels, so children here can learn digital skills too. For the students, these schools are not just classrooms but spaces of belonging. And despite minimal funds, teachers on the lake say these schools have improved attendance and engagement – especially for girls. Mahira says her favorite subject is English because "it feels like opening another world." Her younger brother prefers science, especially when it helps him understand the fish and plants of the lake. The first floating school appeared in 2020, when the pandemic closed classrooms across the valley and families on Dal Lake decided to act. They cleared space on floating land, set up benches and a blackboard, and began teaching.
Note: Don't miss pictures of this incredible community at the link above. Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining education.
At Boyle County High School, locally-raised beef marinated in cumin is heaped onto corn tortillas with queso, guacamole, sharp red tomatoes, and vibrant lettuce. It's just one of many meals the teens at Boyle get to enjoy, and a far cry from the days of fruit cups, pan pizza, and skim milk, days which everyone involved are happy to see gone. According to Lex 18 News, some 150 Kentucky farms sell their produce to around 90 state school districts thanks to a pandemic-era grant that supplied the state with $3.2 million for the purpose. It's clear from the attitude of Boyle County School District Food Service Director Cheyenne Barsotti that the move-to-local has affected far more than just the hungry teens' excitement for lunch hour: it's changed the whole way the school approaches food. Barsotti's cafeteria staff may just cook from scratch at times depending on what produce is available. The cooks feel safe trying out new recipes. Several students told the NBC-affiliate that the fajitas were a 9.5 out of 10. Under the new direction of American health policy, the USDA Dietary Guidelines have featured, for the first time in their history, a focus on protein over carbs–and real food, that is to say, food which spoils and doesn't come out of a box, over all others. Even though [the initial] grant money has been halted, the program has enlivened so many that school districts are trying to maintain the new direction, the new attitudes, and the new menus.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing our bodies and reimagining education.
The "Nairobi Birdman" is filling gaps in Kenyan bird conservation on the streets of the country's biggest city. Seen around town with an injured kite perched on his head, it's just one of dozens that Rodgers Oloo Magutha has nursed back to health. These have included pigeons, storks, owls, and other wild birds that fall a-fowl of Nairobi's powerlines, cars, windows, or other hazards that industrialized areas pose to winged wildlife. Magutha himself is not from Nairobi, but grew up in poverty next to Kenya's Lake Nakuru National Park. A haven for bird life, Magutha used to sneak into the park to watch birds, birthing a love of nature and wildlife in the young man that lasts to this day. These quiet moments were rare in his difficult, homeless existence. He grew up without a family home, but as often as it was possible, he'd take care of birds he found that were hurt, hungry, or diseased. Today, Magutha has reliable lodgings, and he's used them to house birds which have in turn made him a local social media figure. His Instagram account has a distinctly African flavor ... but he also drops educational bombs for young fans, such as how flamingos get their pink coloration. His dream is to eventually open a proper avian rescue center; one that's legal, safe, and equipped with the facilities needed to care for them. Until then, he carries on with the help of donations, feeding the birds he saves as much as he is able to, and releasing them when or if they're able to return to the wild.
Note: Don't miss the pictures and video of the Nairobi Birdman in action at the link above. Explore more positive stories like this on human interest and animal wonders.
What if a ticket to the opera could also be a prescription against loneliness? In Hamburg, the nonprofit KulturistenHochZwei – a play on the words culture (kultur) and tourists (touristen) – is turning concert and museum visits into powerful social medicine. Founded in 2015 by Christine Worch ... the initiative pairs teenagers with older adults to attend cultural events – everything from symphony performances to plays and art exhibitions. For the seniors, many of whom live on limited incomes and might otherwise stay home alone, these shared outings are a way back into public life. "With the young people, I feel young again," one 85-year-old from Bramfeld in the northeastern part of the city said after a concert at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie. "They're so kind and respectful. Everyone talks badly about youth these days, but these students are wonderful. We even exchanged phone numbers. I hope we can go again soon." The idea is as elegant as it is effective. Seniors who fall below the income threshold – â‚Ź1,350 ($1,575) per month for individuals or â‚Ź1,750 ($2,040) for couples – receive free tickets to cultural events. But instead of attending alone, they're matched with a "culture buddy" aged 16 or older, recruited through partnerships with local schools. For the young volunteers, the outings are a crash course in empathy and human connection. The teenagers commit to at least three cultural outings per school year and receive a certificate for their volunteer service.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and amazing seniors.
For the past decade, every year, Parisians like [Anne-ValĂ©rie] Desprez have been able to see their proposals come to life on the streets of the French capital. Under the city's Participatory Budget, any resident above the age of seven, regardless of their nationality, can propose a project to be paid for by municipal funds. The model, increasingly popular across the globe, is helping authorities spend resources efficiently and boost democratic participation. In Paris, more than 21,000 ideas have been submitted by citizens since the scheme launched in 2014, resulting in 1,345 funded projects and an expenditure of â‚Ź768 million (almost $900 million), including â‚Ź263 million set aside for low-income districts. Each proposal must pass a feasibility study by city hall before being voted on by residents. "It is a very good device and it's important," says Yves Sintomer, a French researcher and co-author of the book Participatory Budgeting in Europe. It's led to the creation of rooftop farms, children's play areas, community art murals, shade structures and baggage storage for the homeless, as well as a number of projects at the [Cherry Sociocultural Center], which was founded in 1999. In 2017, following the center's first successful budget proposal, benches were installed in the street out front, providing a place for people to congregate for free. Further funding from the participatory budget enabled the center to buy a cargo bike – shared with other local businesses – for short-distance deliveries in 2019.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and reimagining the economy.
In Montana, a focus on restorative justice is reducing juvenile recidivism through a nonprofit program that engages them, rather than punishes them. The nonprofit believes that it's actually far more challenging for juvenile offenders to look their victims in the eye and explain why they behaved antisocially than it is to simply serve a suspension from school, where they're distanced from friends and mentors, and often fall behind in their education. The Center for Restorative Youth Justice (CRYJ), is not a new organization, but their influence in Montana is growing. CRYJ receives referrals from Youth Court probation officers, school administrators, or school resource officers made on behalf of a juvenile offender who's broken the law. CRYJ then has a conference with the youth and their parent or guardian, and creates a tailormade program of restorative justice. This can involve peer group discussion, victim-offender meetings, and other situations where the youth is given the forum to reestablish a relationship with the community, rather than something like a school suspension. CRYJ believes that by limiting the overuse of exclusionary discipline and emphasizing a community-driven approach, it can help at-risk youth avoid falling behind in school. We spend a lot of time separating people after there's been harm, but often the deepest healing and learning and moving forward can happen ... when we can actually come together and talk about what happened and how to make things right.
Note: Read more about the powerful work of restorative justice. Explore more positive stories like this on repairing criminal justice.
John Seigel-Boettner ... has been coordinating the local chapter of Cycling Without Age (CWA) since 2019. Effortlessly charming and still ferociously fit at 70-years-old, he gives rides at least twice a week. Though the people who ride upfront don't pedal, he doesn't call them "passengers" but "riding partners" to emphasize the program's spirit of companionship. "Cycling Without Age is about connection," Seigel-Boettner says. "It's about the conversations between pilot and partner, and the connection with everyone we meet along the way." While anybody can ride for free, CWA prioritizes riders with limited mobility. Seigel-Boettner's youngest rider was a five-year-old boy on a feeding tube who wanted to ride to school with his friends. "We provided that," he says, "and it made him very happy." Sometimes, his riders have lost their ability to speak at all. When Seigel-Boettner rides with someone experiencing memory loss, the words might fade away, but not the emotional resonance. The vibrations, the breeze, watching the passing world together become their shared language. "They see a flower, or the ocean, or a bird, and suddenly a memory surfaces," Seigel-Boettner says. CWA is much more than a lovely idea. A 2020 study found that participants experienced measurable improvements in mood and well-being after rides. The trishaw excursion is a chance to be seen again, not as a diagnosis but a person, not a burden but a being alive in the world.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on amazing seniors and inspiring disabled persons.
A French ban on the production and sale of cosmetics and most clothing containing polluting and health-threatening "forever chemicals" goes into force on Thursday. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are human-made chemicals used since the late 1940s to mass produce the non-stick, waterproof and stain-resistant treatments that coat everything from frying pans to umbrellas, carpets and dental floss. Because PFAS take an extremely long time to break down – earning them their "forever" nickname – they have seeped into the soil and groundwater, and from there into the food chain and drinking water. The French law, approved by lawmakers in February, bans the production, import or sale from January 2026 of any product for which an alternative to PFAS already exists. These include cosmetics and ski wax, as well as clothing containing the chemicals, except certain "essential" industrial textiles. It will also make French authorities regularly test drinking water for all kinds of PFAS. A handful of US states, including California, implemented a ban on the intentional use of PFAS in cosmetics beginning in 2025, and several other states are slated to follow in 2026. Denmark has banned the use of PFAS in food packaging since 2020. The European Union has been studying a possible ban on the use of PFAS in consumer products, but has not yet presented or implemented such a regulation.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing our bodies and healing the Earth.
Physics students learn about the basic stuff of reality–space and time, energy and matter–and are told that all other scientific disciplines must reduce back down to the fundamental particles and laws that physics has generated. This philosophy, called "reductionism," worked pretty well from Newton's laws through much of the 20th century as physicists discovered electrons, quarks, the theory of relativity, and so on. But over the past few decades, progress in the most reductionist branches of physics has slowed. Physicists largely ignored living systems. But today, many of my colleagues ... have come to believe that a mystery is unfolding in every microbe, animal, and human–one that challenges basic assumptions physicists have held for centuries, and could answer essential questions about AI. It may even help redefine the field for the next generation. Beginning in the 1980s, physicists ... began developing new mathematical tools to study what's called "complexity"–systems in which the whole is far more than the sum of its parts. Throughout the current AI boom, researchers and philosophers have debated whether and when large language models might achieve general intelligence or even become conscious. As the 21st century continues to unfold, my fellow physicists will undoubtedly continue to advance the study of black holes, quantum mechanics, and other traditional domains. The study of life, however, will take us to places we've never imagined, opening a path for the future of our field that, for once, unfolds on a level playing field with biologists, ecologists, neuroscientists, and sociologists. At its best, the pursuit of fundamental answers about the nature of living things might lead physicists not only to new scientific marvels, but also to an entirely new way of doing science.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on the mysterious nature of reality.
"These plants are the winners, the ones that get to pass their genes on [to future generations]," says Lee DeHaan of the Land Institute, an agricultural non-profit based in Salina, Kansas. If DeHaan's breeding programme maintains its current progress, the descendant of these young perennial crop plants could one day usher in a wholesale revolution in agriculture. The plants are intermediate wheatgrass. Since 2010, DeHaan has been transforming this small-seeded, wild species into a high-yielding, domesticated grain crop called Kernza. He believes it will eventually be a viable – and far more sustainable – alternative to annual wheat, the world's most widely grown crop and the source of one in five of all calories consumed by humanity. Remarkably, DeHaan does not paint the current agricultural-industrial complex as the enemy. "Every disruptive technology is always opposed by those being disrupted," he says. "But if the companies [that make up] the current system can adjust to the disruption, they can play in that new world just the same." The Land Institute's strategy is redirection rather than replacement. "Our trajectory is to eventually get the resources that are currently dedicated to annual grain crops directed to developing varieties of perennials," says DeHaan. "That's our [route to] success." There are signs that this is already working, with the food firm General Mills now incorporating Kernza into its breakfast cereals.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in on healing the Earth and technology for good.
Young people have become powerless against the multibillion-dollar tech companies whose apps exploit adolescents' need for social acceptance. This is the backdrop against which my book, "The Anxious Generation," was published in 2024. The book helped fuel the movement to reclaim childhood from tech companies – a movement that has since spread, driven in part by the protective passions of parents. Already, a majority of states have enacted laws to limit phone use in school. Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., have gone all the way and enacted "bell-to-bell" phone restriction policies, which liberate students from the distraction of their phones for the entire school day. Outside of the United States, Brazil has made every school phone-free, and new school phone policies have passed in the Netherlands, Finland and South Korea, among other countries. We are just beginning to see some of the impacts: Children are more attentive in class and are reading more books; teachers have told me they hear more laughter in the halls and at lunch. Heavy social media use doubles the risk of depression for adolescents. Just as we have age limits in the real world for porn, gambling, alcohol, tobacco and many other products, countries have begun enacting policies to add age restrictions to social media. These things may seem small, but in terms of children's development ... they're enormous.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on reimagining education.
Wade Milyard heard the voice from "out of nowhere" and knew he needed to listen–he thought it was God, or some other higher power. The former canine officer for the Frederick Police Department in Maryland was responding to a domestic dispute at a homeless camp. Soon after he investigated the disturbance, the voice rang out. "Ask them about their laundry." Milyard heeded the voice, asked the question, and unknowingly set the course for a prayer-fulfilling future. The homeless couple he interviewed told him they typically washed their laundry in a nearby creek. The cop never forgot that response, nor his call to service. He pooled multiple donations with some of his own money and went to work creating a full service laundromat on wheels. Fresh Step Laundry was born–with a mission "to help restore dignity to the unhoused community by providing free, accessible, and hygienic laundry." Since retiring from the police force in January, the 45-year-old has been traveling around his Maryland city, which is near D.C., making a difference–one load of wash at a time. He's set a schedule so people can meet him to take advantage of his laundry service, and his email is at the bottom of the web page. In the last several weeks alone, Fresh Step has washed more than 2,000 pounds of laundry and his next goal is to add a second vehicle so he can double the number of people he can serve.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in on human interest stories and healing social division.
Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.