20 Feel-Good Stories That Deserve More Attention From The World

Fred the golden Labrador is one canine who apparently has a very well-developed sense of parental responsibility. And it doesn’t just extend to youngsters of his own species: Fred specializes in adopting ducklings. The English dog got started back in 2018 when he was ten, taking on nine orphaned young ducks. But in the summer of 2022 he surpassed even his own previous good works with his adopted feathered friends.

In his second bout of fostering, Fred took on no fewer than 15 orphan ducklings. Fred lives at Mountfitchet Castle in Essex with his owner Jeremy Goldsmith. He told the website of British newspaper the Daily Mail, “Over the 15 years of owning him Fred has spent a lot of time at the castle with the animals and it has become second nature to him being amongst the various rescued animals.”

The Matterhorn, an almost 15,000-foot Alpine peak straddling the Swiss-Italian border, holds a special place in the world of mountaineering. It’s a summit any seasoned climber is keen to tackle. But for Briton Neil Heritage it presented unique difficulties. Back in 2004 Heritage was a corporal in the British Army serving in Iraq when an insurgent blew himself up. The soldier lost both legs above the knee in the explosion. 

Despite his injuries, Heritage dreamed of reaching the Matterhorn summit. But the first two times he made the attempt, he was foiled by severe weather conditions. Would it be third time lucky? Yes! In August 2020 the former soldier and his buddies reached the summit, a stupendous achievement. The icing on the cake was the $7,000 Heritage’s climb raised for his disabled veterans’ charity.

The gift that Las Vegas resident Kevin Ford got from Burger King for never missing a day in 27 years of employment was hardly generous. Reportedly it contained some pens, movie tickets and a bag of candy: not much for nearly three decades of faithful service. But Ford’s daughter Syrena decided that she really had to do something for her dad. 

So Syrena set up a GoFundMe page. She wrote, “In no way are we asking for money or is he expecting any money but if anyone feels like blessing him he would love to visit his grandchildren.” But cash from strangers poured in. The total at the time of writing stands in excess of a staggering $380,000. Now that’s what we call a handsome reward for years of hard work. 

Romanian Eugen Vaida talked to Reader’s Digest magazine about the project he runs. “There is an ambulance that comes on-site, assesses the damage, stabilizes the patient,” Vaida said. “And then the patient is ready for treatment.” But Vaida’s not a medic, he’s an architect. So his patients are not humans — they’re Romania’s historic monuments. His mission is to save everything from ancient windmills to castles and medieval churches from ruin. 

Vaida established his group, Ambulance for Monuments in 2016 with a single truck and a few tools. By 2022 his organization had seven vehicles and can call on 500 volunteers to help with the work of saving Romania’s built heritage. They’ve had plenty of success, rescuing 60 important buildings from oblivion over the last few years. But there’s a lot more to do — Vaida reckons that there are as many as 600 more buildings in Romania that need urgent care.

Most stories about kitten rescues involve firefighters plucking over-ambitious young cats from treetops, but this one’s different. This unfortunate junior moggie managed to get itself trapped inside a soda vending machine in a Walmart in Morristown, Tennessee. Luckily Lindsey Russell, a store staffer on lunch break, heard the poor kitty’s plaintive mews. The shop worker realized she’d have to do something, and fast.

But it was a far from easy task. Later, Russell told WVLT, “I tried all through my lunch and my last break to get her. I tried recruiting co-workers to help me get her, and none of us could do it.” What did she do next? Called the fire department of course! The firefighters managed to set the little gray furball free. Doubtless it will be giving vending machines a wide berth in future!

Amanda Pritchard, boss of Britain’s National Health Service, made a momentous announcement in July 2022. For the first time, chemotherapy drugs for the treatment of cancer are to be delivered by drone, she told the world. In a trial operation drone flights were to start taking the drugs from southern England to the Isle of Wight in the English Channel, the narrow sea that divides Britain from France. 

Chemotherapy medication is only effective for a limited time, so speed of delivery is crucial. Drones will take off from the south coast city of Portsmouth, speeding the drugs to the Isle of Wight’s St Mary’s Hospital. Delivery time by road and sea from the mainland to the island takes around four hours, but the drone will slash that to 30 minutes.

Jorge Alejo is a Spanish boy with cerebral palsy, a condition which severely limits his mobility. But engineers at Marsi Bionics had come up with an innovative new machine, a robotic exoskeleton. This is worn like a suit and supports Jorge, enabling him to walk and move freely. Those are things he’d never been able to do until he donned the suit for the first time in 2020. 

Then in 2022 on the occasion of his 12th birthday, Jorge was allowed to use the suit for the first time outside of the confines of the testing laboratory, something he’d dreamt of doing. He used his exoskeleton to give a demonstration to his school pals of his new-found mobility. Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez put in an appearance and reportedly even his security guard appeared to be welling up at the emotional occasion. 

It was in May 2021 that a fire broke out at the Philippine General Hospital in the city of Manila. A blaze in a hospital is bad enough, but in this case it was even more terrifying. There were 35 helpless new-born babes tucked up in the building’s fourth-floor neonatal ward. Quick thinking and prompt action were essential if an unthinkable tragedy was to be averted. 

Into the breach stepped two brave nurses, Kathrina Macababbad and Jomar Mallari. With the fire burning on the floor below them, they immediately started ferrying the tiny infants to safety. Some of the babies were in ventilators and had to be manually ventilated as they were moved. Even so these two heroines rescued every single one of the 35 babies from the ward.

It was more than 30 years ago that Ferruccio Pilenga founded his extraordinary institution: the Italian School of Water Rescue Dogs. Since then some 400 dogs have graduated from the school. They’re mostly Newfoundlands but there are some Labradors and German shepherds in the mix as well. The dogs work with a human partner when they go out in the water to help a swimmer in distress.

It seems to be a winning formula, since these rescue dogs and their humans successfully rescue around 30 people every year. The dogs are highly skilled by the time they’ve finished their training, which even involves teaching them to leap into the water from a helicopter. As Pilenga told Reader’s Digest, “If I intervene alone,” he says of lifesaving, “I am alone. If I intervene with a dog, I’m a rescue team.”

When Susan Murabana was growing up in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, the stars in the night sky hardly played a central part in her young life. But an experience in her 20s gave her a totally new perspective on the skies high above her. For the first time in her life, she got the chance to gaze at the heavens through a telescope. The sight of Saturn and its rings opened her eyes to the delights of astronomy.

That glimpse of the heavens inspired Murabana to find a way of giving children a chance to view the majesty of the night sky. So in 2014 she and her husband founded a project called the Traveling Telescope — the name reveals the outfit’s operation. The couple have traveled around Kenya with their telescope and some 300,000 children have been gifted the chance to peer in wonder at the heavens.

There’s an innovative company called Anthill Creations working away in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru, formerly known as Bangalore. They’ve found a way to take old tires and give them an excellent second life by using them to construct colorful children’s playground items such as elephants and caterpillars. It’s a great way to reuse some of the world’s unwanted tires.

Using the tires and other waste items, entire children’s adventure parks can be put together for as little as $2,500 in a mere five days. Anthill’s boss Pooja Rai told Reader’s Digest, “Children come up with hundreds of different games exploring their creativity, and there is something new every time they play.” And now Indian kids in poorer areas have fantastic playgrounds where they can let their imaginations run free.

It had been a fair few years since Mrs Hamilton had retired from her job as a kindergarten teacher. But her daughter decided it was time to arrange a surprise that she felt sure her Mom would enjoy. So she got in touch with some kids who’d been in the last kindergarten class Mrs Hamilton had taught before her retirement. By now these young folk were actually graduating from high school.

Kim’s plan worked brilliantly. One day while she and her Mom were sitting on the porch, a graduate student in gown and cap arrived. Then a whole bevy of new graduates appeared. Kim had the presence of mind to record her surprise and post it to TikTok. In the clip, Mrs Hamilton can be heard saying, “Oh my gosh, I love you all. Oh my gosh, you’re all just gorgeous.” The heartwarming video has racked up more than 3 million views.

Lena Larmon, aged six, and her family had endured a grueling journey home after a vacation in Norway — a journey that included a 36-hour unplanned layover in New York. When the Larmons finally got to their destination — Greer, South Carolina — Lena realized that one of her baby teeth had dropped out. Much worse, she’d lost it, so there was nothing to leave for the tooth fairy. It was too late to get back on the plane to hunt for the tooth.

Lena was distraught. But the family bumped into some of the crew from their flight and explained their calamity. Quick-thinking flight captain Josh Duchow had an idea. Using his full authority as a senior pilot, he wrote a note for the tooth fairy explaining the situation. Lena put the note under her pillow that night and sure enough the tooth fairy left a reply, “Lena, it's okay. I'll find your tooth. Keep brushing.”

Back in 2017 something made British plumber James Anderson very angry. He stumbled across a cowboy firm that was trying to charge someone who was both elderly and disabled way over the odds for some construction work. Anderson decided he wanted to do something practical about scam artists in his industry. And that’s what led him to establish Depher Plumbing Services.

Depher stands for Disabled and Elderly Plumbing and Heating Emergency Repairs and that neatly describes what Anderson’s organization does. Although it goes further than that, helping people struggling with limited finances in all kinds of ways. After an appearance on TV’s Good Morning Britain people flocked to social media to sing his praises. One Twitter poster wrote, “James Anderson is a shining beacon of humanity.”

In August 2022 Judge Norman K. Moon issued a closure order on a dog-breeding facility in Cumberland, Virginia. Envigo, the company which ran it, bred dogs for medical tests but was found to be in breach of federal laws. An inspection, NPR reported, found “horrendous condition[s].” Judge Moon’s ruling meant that some 4,000 beagles were now freed from misery. That’s a lot of canines needing new homes. 

But animal charities have swung into action to rescue the hounds. The director of the Kindness Ranch Animal Sanctuary in Wyoming John Ramer told NPR, “It's one of the most daunting rescues that I've ever heard of or have had the privilege of being involved in.” Sue Bell, director of Homeward Trails Animal Rescue in Virginia said, “It's taking a lot of phone calls right now. And a lot of emails. I went to bed last night with 100 emails and woke up to 800.”

One night in July 2022 16-year-old Corion Evans was on the banks of the Pascagoula River in the Tennessean city Moss Point when he spotted something horrifying. Right before his eyes he saw a car drive off a pier into the river. Did he panic? Did he heck! Instead the quick-witted teenager sprang into action. There wasn’t a moment to lose.

Evans dived right into the river as the car drifted downstream — and began to sink. Luckily the three teenage girls in the car managed to clamber on the roof of their stricken vehicle. Evans was right there to offer what help he could when officer Garry Mercer of the Moss Point Police arrived. Between them, the two managed to get the girls to the safety of the river bank.

Here’s one of those great ideas that makes people say “Why didn’t I think of that?” We’re talking about edible packaging. Even better, the material in question is made entirely from waste products that would otherwise be discarded, so it’s about as green as you can get. The company behind this excellent idea is called Traceless and was set up in Germany in 2020. 

Talking about the Traceless philosophy, company co-founder Anne Lamp told the BBC, “We believe waste equals resources.” Dr. Lamp, who has an engineering doctorate, went on to explain that processes such as brewing leave waste residues which can be refined to produce “films, coatings and rigid bioplastics." Those can be used as packaging — and they’re edible. For those who don’t fancy eating their candy wrapping, the material is also compostable. 

Obviously pigs can’t fly, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a part to play in the world of aviation. Authorities at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport have recruited 19 pigs for some very special duties, work to keep the runways safe. Safe from what? Goose hits. When geese accidentally crash into an aircraft at landing or take off that can pose a real threat. Unfortunately, it does happen — Schiphol saw 565 strikes in 2018-19. 

So how do the pigs help? They were settled into a five-acre beet field located between two runaways. The idea was that the pigs, renowned for their hearty appetites, would strip the ground of vegetation. That would mean there was nothing for the geese to eat so there would be no point in their hanging around the runway. And the beauty of the scheme is that as long as they’re kept well-fed, the porcine employees are happy to work without pay.

You could be forgiven for thinking that the Tasmanian devil was a fictional beast only to be found in the cartoon world. But they are of course real animals, native to Australia. They’re marsupials like kangaroos and koalas, although superficially they don’t really resemble either of those animals. The sad truth is that despite their name, these critters are an endangered species on the Australian island of Tasmania.  

In fact up until 3,000 years ago Tasmanian devils were widespread on the Australian mainland. But they became extinct there, only surviving on Tasmania. In 2011 conservation outfit Aussie Ark launched a reintroduction program on the mainland. Come 2020 that paid off when 43 devils were released into a 1,000-acre reserve in the south-eastern state of New South Wales. New young, known as joeys, have already appeared, so hopefully the mainland will soon once again boast a sustainable population. 

Dutch company RanMarine Technology has come up with a four-foot long gizmo that will be an important weapon in the fight against the plastic waste that pollutes our waterways and oceans. And it’s quite the battle: the World Wildlife fund reports that nearly 9 million tons of plastic debris finds its way into the oceans every year, and some 90 percent of seabirds have plastic lodged in their guts. 

RanMarine Technology’s clever machine is an aquadrone dubbed the WasteShark. It can chomp its way through about a half-ton of discarded plastic trash before it needs to take a break for an unload. Once it’s full of waste the drone heads off to the bank or shore to a SharkPod and dumps its cargo. The garbage can then be sorted and sent for recycling.