Here are a few more good news stories making the rounds...
1. Two Ohio siblings have donated nearly 50,000 toys over the past six years to one of the largest pediatric hospitals in the country through their annual holiday toy drive. This holiday season, Tyler and Monica Slaven are hoping to bring another 11,500 toys for the children at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. It all started when the Slaven siblings teamed up in 2015 with one mission: to help children who are in the hospital on Christmas. In 2015, they were able to donate 800 toys to the hospital. One year later, that number more than doubled, amounting to 1,700 donations. In 2017, they donated 3,000 toys. However, in 2018 and 2019, the toy drive broke the hospital's record for the single largest donation with 9,200 and 20,300 toys, respectively.
2. A decades-old photo that was reported to belong to a family from Kentucky has been found over 150 miles away in Indiana after a swarm of tornados carved through the region. Katie Posten shared in a Facebook post that she found an old photograph stuck to the windshield of her car following the storms. The black and white photo showed a woman in a striped sundress and headscarf holding a little boy in her lap. On the back, written in cursive, were their names and the year; 1942. Cole Swatzell, the man who was later tagged in her post, commented that the photo belonged to family members in Dawson Springs, Kentucky, almost 130 miles away from New Albany, Indiana. Posten now plans to return the photo to the Swatzell family.
3. Every year, a little neighborhood nestled within Des Moines, Iowa, becomes engulfed in lights and decorations, turning into a Christmas wonderland. It draws in crowds from all over the state. It's been a tradition in the Beaverdale neighborhood for years. Julie Marks and husband Dale Marks have also used the event as a way to collect food and donations for the Food Bank of Iowa. Last year, they collected 1,500 pounds of food. When Dale Marks, who survived COVID-19, two strokes and a heart attack, was unable to decorate, a local contractor and his team rushed in to help. Bob Coffey, who owns the construction company Bob the Builder LLC, and four of his workers visited the Marks' home and spent three hours putting up lights and decorations throughout the yard. He estimated that there were at least 10,000 lights.
4. It’s never too late to return a lost library book. That’s what the Boise Public Library let its patrons know when a book returned to its facility more than a century later. The book in question – the "New Chronicles of Rebecca" by Kate Douglas Wiggin – is the sequel to Wiggin’s first fictional novel "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm." Both books were published in the early 20th century (1903 and 1907) and followed the life of Rebecca Rowena Randall, who grows up in rural Maine. According to the book’s internal library slip, the book had been borrowed a total of 15 times before it went missing from the Carnegie Public Library. The person who borrowed the book last appears to have checked it out in 1911, according to photos the library shared. At the time, overdue books were subject to a late fee of 2 cents per day, but the Boise Public Library eliminated late fees in 2019. The resident who found the coming of age novel initially returned it to the Garden City Public Library in Ada County and the book made its way to the Boise Public Library. The person who returned the book has yet to identify themselves, but the library's team is "so happy that others have found this to be as cool as we do."
