Two things.
Last night: As part of NC's statewide science festival, I helped out at a county park's 'Star Party.' My role was assisting in a Solar System Walk which was a scaled tour of the 8 planets and honorable mentioned Pluto. The goal is to give some perspective on how far the planets are really spread out, considering most people have just seen pictures like this in a text book
https://www.scienceabc.com/wp-conten..._Monthly_M.jpg It was actually a pretty fucking cool thing. The Sun was a 14" ball, 1" on the ground represented 62,000 miles. Earth was 125ft away and Saturn was like 400 yards away. I'd walk groups to each planet and give facts and answer questions. I was impressed with some of the kids knowledge of the solar system and the adults were super interested which was also fun.
Anyway, one of the little girls was like 6 or 7 years old and when we left Venus, she was like "I know the next one! Its Earth!" Yeah, cool. I went through the Earth facts and answered questions and then as we were about to leave to walk to Mars, this little girl said "I love Earth, it is my favorite planet! But we've only got one so we all need to recycle and protect it and love it too! Did you know that Earth Day is tomorrow?" Holy fuck. I'm so glad it was dark. Damn near choked up and my eyes got watery. This little girl gets it and is gonna be so awesome. Really impressed and I hope she spreads that environmental ethic with her school pals
Today: Last fall I learned about a program that the county I live in does to help feed hungry children. The program is called "Backpack Buddies." Basically, on Fridays, teachers send food home with children that are food insecure and otherwise wouldn't have anything to eat. They pack their backpacks so that none of the other kids know who is getting food or whatever so there is no shame or embarrassment. I remember thinking it was a great idea but had forgotten about the program until I just went to the grocery store to buy a 12 pack
Outside of the door was a teacher with a table asking for donations(cash or food) to the program. This was at a low tier grocery store right in the middle of college student apartments. Probably 90% of this Food Lion's customers are students. I could sense that she wasn't getting much action when she handed me a piece of paper with items that they would like. I walked in and store had made a section with all the items they were asking for and had put them on sale! Boom! I got my 12 pack, jalapeno poppers, and a bunch of shit from that list. I got them and when I gave the bag of stuff to the teacher her eyes lit up and she said "Dude, you're awesome!" and thanked me
+1 to Backpack Buddies +1 to Food Lion for devoting staff to make that display and putting the items on sale +1 to that teacher for taking time out of her Saturday to help her students