Week 52: Altruistic Stories from the BSU Peace Center

May 31, 2021

For the 52nd consecutive weeks, the Center for Peace & Conflict Studies has compiled a list of acts of kindness and peace. The initiative began as a response to COVID-19 and the racism pandemic but has broadened to include any act of compassion or service to others. Please share these stories. If you have stories of positive acts people/organizations are taking and you would like to share them, please email them to Brandon Miller at peacecenter@bsu.edu. All the stories starting from week 1 are available online. Additionally, you can follow the Peace Center on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) at bsu4peace.

Teacher Visits a Student with Cancer to Provide Individual Tutoring

Everyday after dismissing her first-grade class, Barbara Heim visits the home of one of her students, Harrison Conner. Harrison is battling cancer, so Heim visits him for a one-on-one lesson to help him catch up with the material he missed after he was first diagnosed and spend time. Not only has Heim gone above and beyond to help Harrison learn, she was one of the first people to recognize that he was experiencing health problems. She noticed that he tired easily during recess, so she notified the school nurse and principal who talked to Harrison’s parents. Shortly thereafter, Harrison was diagnosed with leukemia, the same disease that Heim’s mother had passed away from in 2015. “I believe that I was meant to be his teacher, especially considering what I experienced with my mother,” Heim said. While Harrison was out of school, she rallied her other students to send notes, treats, and check in with Harrison via Zoom. Because Heim will be retiring at the end of the year, she recruited Debbie Piper, Harrison’s second-grade teacher, to continue the lessons. Harrison’s mother is deeply grateful for Heim: “Through this entire journey, she’s been so much more than a teacher,” she said. “The support she has given our family far exceeds anything I ever expected.” And as for Harrison, his cancer is now in remission.

Source: The Washington Post

As Breastfeeding Moms are Getting Sick, Other Moms are Stepping Up

Praghati Badrinath, a 32-year old mother living in Bengaluru, India, started developing a cough last month; but she was nursing her 8-month old, Siddhant, and feared that going to a hospital would mean being separated him. That would also mean being unable to feed him. So she decided to ride out her illness at home. Over the next few days her oxygen levels plummeted and her other symptoms continued to worsen. After putting her son down for a nap, she went to see a doctor. He promptly hospitalized her, but that decision mean she was unable to provide milk for her son. When her husband tried to feed Siddhant with formula, he rejected it. Badrinath was distraught, imagining the trauma her son was experiencing. She reached out to a local social media support group for mothers to vent about her struggles before drifting off into a medication-induced slumber. When she woke, she saw a video of her son playfully drinking milk that other moms in her support group provided. Prachi Pendurkar, lactation consultant and founder of the support group, had organized the drop off, and it wasn’t her first. She is one of many who is coordinating groups of lactating mothers across India. “We [label] every packet with the name of the donor; time when milk was pumped; temperature it was kept at; and the date of pumping,” Pendurkar said. Social media is replete with similar initiatives to provide breast milk to others in need.

Source: The Lily

Store Owners Return a Discarded $1 Million Lottery Ticket to the Customer who Purchased It

Winning $1 million dollars is but a dream for most of us, as are the things we might imagine doing if that much money were dropped into our laps. For Abhi Shah and his family, owners of a convenience store in Massachusetts, these fantasies could have been real. While taking out the trash at their store, the family found a $1 million dollar scratch-off ticket that had been thrown away. It had not been scratched off entirely and the customer, who had mistaken it for a loser, returned it to the Shah’s. That customer, Lea Rose Fiega, also happened to be a long time patron of the store. She had a habit of returning the losing tickets to the storeowners, so the Shahs immediately knew who the ticket belonged to. The family debated what to do, consulted relatives, and, although they dreamed about what they might do with the winnings, they came to the consensus to return the ticket. Shah said “we didn’t sleep for two nights… My inner soul told me, ‘That’s not right… You know who that person is. You should give that ticket back to them.” So that’s what they did. Shah visited Fiega at her office down the street and asked her to come back to the store for a surprise. At first, Fiega was concerned. She asked if she had forgotten to pay for something, but Shah reassured her that she was in no trouble. “It’s something that’s going to change your life,” he said. When the pair arrived at the store, the Shah’s presented Fiega with the ticket. She began to weep with joy at the news. “It was a really great moment,” Shah said. “Seeing her happy, I got so happy. I knew I did the right thing.” Fiega said she plans to save the funds for her retirement, but she was so grateful that she gave a portion of the winnings to the Shah family.

Source: The Washington Post

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