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 February 12, 2022

What an exciting weekend! The Super Bowl is Sunday, the Winter Olympics are delivering chilly thrills, Black History Month celebrations are in full swing, and everything's decked out in pretty pinks and reds for Valentine's Day. Listen, you'll never hear me complaining about too much positive news. Plus, all the great goings-on make for a jam-packed Good Stuff! Consider it our Valentine to you. ❤️

If there's something you'd like to see here, drop us a line. Know someone who could use a little Good Stuff? Send them a copy! We hope you love it as much as we do.

Our favorites this week

Get going with some of our most popular good news stories of the week

Photo credit: Ruth Ann Crystal

107 and thriving

Happy Birthday, Mama Elise! At 107, Elise Jones Martin has led quite a life. The South Carolina native survived the 1918 flu pandemic, owned several beauty shops and was the first African American to own a business on downtown Columbia's Main Street when she opened a boutique there in 1969. A strong proponent of voting rights, Martin spent decades as a poll worker during a time when segregation and Jim Crow made the work especially dangerous -- and especially necessary. She was also a longtime member of several civic groups and charities. Martin is now a beloved member of her Palo Alto, California neighborhood, and to mark her recent birthday, people lined up to drive by in a celebratory parade.

Photo credit: Ruth Ann Crystal

Martin looked on from her front yard as the cars passed; a queen in a rocking chair with her little dog, Vanity Fair, on her lap. When asked the secret to a long, successful life, Martin replied: "Just trust in God. Be good to people. And love the best you can." 

Thank you to Ruth Ann C. for recommending this story! 

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A trio of football highlights

In 2017, Meir Kalmanson held a Super Bowl party like no other. He invited a group of men he had met on the sidewalks of New York to join him to watch the big game in the comfort of a private viewing area of a Manhattan penthouse bar. Kalmanson is a Youtube personality known to his followers as Meir Kay, and video from that first "Super Soul Party" helped turn the event into a nationwide chain of more than 35 annual celebrations for people in homeless shelters. Sure, there's great food, a warm place to rest and lively company for the game, but in recent years, Kay and the countless nationwide volunteers who help bring "Super Soul" parties alive have also branched out to include things like haircuts, free clothing and hygiene kits, and even mental health and financial resources for the guests. "We use the Super Bowl as a way to get people's attention," Kay told CNN. "But really what happens is the magic, when people are able to reconnect with themselves and with the community so that they're able to rebuild their lives."

Pictured here in 2019, from left: Tom Henschel, Gregory Eaton and Don Crisman.

Next up, these three men hold one of the only Super Bowl-related achievements to rival actually playing in the game. They've been to EVERY. SINGLE. ONE! Tom Henschel, 80, Gregory Eaton, 82, and Don Crisman, 85 were all at the first Super Bowl (called the First World Championship Game) in 1967, and met by chance through the years. The "Never Miss a Super Bowl" club was formed, and while the members have waxed and waned, the trio is all that officially remains. They've been to five Super Bowls together, and have earned recognition from all kinds of football icons, including NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell himself, who honored the "Never Miss a Super Bowl Club" with commemorative coins for Super Bowl 50. 

Photo credit: @HollySoape

Finally, one that will DEFINITELY make you cry. Eleven-year-old Audrey Soape usually looked forward to her Texas church's annual father-daughter dance, but after her father and grandfather passed away last spring, just a few weeks apart, she was at a loss. After all she had been through, her mother Holly knew she deserved to have a nice time, and so the two threw a Hail Mary pass: They reached out to their favorite football player, Anthony Harris. To their surprise, the Philadelphia Eagles star pledged to be there if his football schedule allowed. Sure enough, he flew across the country to accompany Audrey, and they had the night of a lifetime. Both Harris and Soape said the special evening was the result of people connecting with each other on a human level. Holly Soape had corresponded with Harris on social media before, occasionally wishing him well and letting him know her family was rooting for him. Harris, who was raised by a single mother, told The Washington Post he was moved by the Soape's situation and by how kindly the family regarded him over the years, "not only who I was as a player, but also what I was doing as a person.”

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Step by step 

Last weekend I had the privilege of meeting the incredible Scalise family at their annual Strides for Survivors walk in Atlanta. Sisters Samantha, Lauren and Emilie Scalise first organized the 2.7-mile walk in 2017, about a year after their mother, Stephanie, was diagnosed with breast cancer. With the help of the Atlanta-based nonprofit TurningPoint Breast Cancer Rehabilitation, Stephanie Scalise made a full recovery, and her daughters organized the walk both as a tribute to their brave mother and as a way to help other families gain access to TurningPoint's life-changing resources. You know how we're always saying it only takes one person (or in this case, three) to make real change? Since that first walk, these young women have raised more than $60,000 to benefit TurningPoint programs, and hundreds of walkers participate every year. "We're reaching people we've never met," Stephanie Scalise told me. "Walkers in different states, in different countries, people who have turned it into a tradition -- it's amazing." 

A round of applause to

This group of very brave neighbors on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi who removed a tire that had been stuck around an area crocodile's neck for six years! People in the city of Palau were moved to sympathy whenever the croc came around, but unsurprisingly, it didn't exactly want to be caught. The province even offered a reward in 2020 for anyone who could help the wily animal. Finally, after weeks of tracking and several trapping attempts, a resident named Tili was able to ensnare the reptile in a homemade trap. He and others sawed off the tire and set the animal free. Well, sometimes being an animal person is an extreme sport! 

A bright idea

Image credit: The Netherlands Pavilion, Expo 2020 Dubai

The World Expo in Dubai is still going on, and in the Netherlands pavilion, water is being made out of thin air. Well, basically. A chimney at the top of the specially designed pavilion sucks in air via a solar-powered process to capture moisture in the form of condensation. The technique can provide up to 1,200 liters of water a day for drinking or for feeding the some 9,300 mint, basil and tomato plants housed within the pavilion. The condensation process also leaves high levels of CO2, which makes a perfect environment for growing lots of delicious, life-giving things. On a bigger scale, processes like this could help create more sustainable farming operations and new ways to grow food in the desert heat. 

You gotta see this

Photo credit: Ashleigh McCord/Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The results of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards are in, and it's hard to choose a favorite. The People's Choice Award went to an enchanting, Elsa-approved scene of a frozen lake in northern Italy. However, I was really captivated by this shot of two lions taking shelter from the rain in Maasai Mara, Kenya. It's so tender, so ... human. This and the other three "highly commended" finalists -- as well as the aforementioned overall winner -- will be displayed in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition currently running in London at the Natural History Museum.

Hear, hear!

Love rests on no foundation.
It is an endless ocean,
with no beginning or end.

- Rumi, the legendary 13th-century Persian poet, as translated by by Shahram Shiva in "Hush, Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi."

Heroes among us

From left: Arthur Williams, Ed Jackson, Ade Adepitan, Lauren Steadman, Ellie Robinson, Billy Monger, Sean Rose.

A team consisting entirely of anchors and pundits with disabilities will represent the UK's Channel 4 at the Paralympics next month, marking a global first and a fantastic step in centering disabled expertise and experience. (Can we hear a little commotion for the press pic? Ice cold.) A daily highlights show will be helmed by Ade Adepitan, an award-winning host and wheelchair basketball player. Paralympic champion triathlete Lauren Steadman will host the breakfast show alongside quadriplegic former professional rugby player Ed Jackson. Arthur Williams, Ellie Robinson, Billy Monger and Sean Rose will round out the team. Ian Katz, Channel 4's director of programs, said in a statement the move is "testament to the brilliant disabled presenting talent we have in the UK."

Wanna get away?

Image credit: Studio Ghibli

A new theme park dedicated to the works of director Hayao Miyazaki of the legendary Studio Ghibli is scheduled to open this November in Japan. Good Stuff family field trip anyone?! If you haven't heard of Studio Ghibli, perhaps you'll recognize some of the brand's most iconic films, like "My Neighbor Totoro" and "Spirited Away." These gorgeous films share themes of magical realism, nature, animals and friendship that will be reflected in the park's attractions. The park will reportedly contain set recreations from several Ghibli films, as well as the artifacts that inspired them. Rumor also has it the park, which will be built on an existing part of the Aichi Earth Expo Memorial Park, will retain many of the natural trees that already exist in the area -- a very Ghibli idea. (And if you haven't seen a Ghibli film, add "My Neighbor Totoro" to your watch list. You'll love it!)

Who knew?

Chimpanzees may apply "medicine" to each other's wounds in a never-before-seen show of empathy. For the first time, the primates were spotted capturing insects and applying them to their own wounds and the wounds of others, possibly as a type of medication. This kind of behavior has never been observed in a non-human animal before, and may be a sign of helpful tendencies among chimpanzees that look a lot like empathy in humans. The observations were made by researchers involved in the Ozouga Chimpanzee Project, which aims to study the relationships and interactions between the chimps, as well as how they hunt, use tools, communicate and flex their cognitive skills.

Rec of the week

Brought to you by CNN Underscored

Shameless animal video

There's always time for cute animal videos. That time is now.

Don't be too jealous, but Neron and Keira, a jaguar couple at the Big Cat Sanctuary in Ashford, UK, have the perfect romance. (It probably helps that neither of them talk too much.) Happy Valentine's Day! (Click here to view) 

Made with love by CNN's 5 Things team. 

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