Good News Only | A Feel-Good Break from the Chaos

In a world that often feels heavy, we're hitting pause on the chaos and hitting play on some seriously good news. In this heartwarming episode of Generational Tea, we're sharing real stories that prove hope, kindness, and resilience are alive and well. From feel-good moments to small triumphs with big impact, we're reminding you that there's still so much good happening — even if it doesn’t make the headlines. If you're in need of a mindset reset, a little inspiration, or just a reason to smile, this episode was made for you. Come sip on some joy with us and get your faith in humanity fully restored. 

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• Microphone flags by Impact PBS
• Intro music by Cymatix
• Logo by @makariann 
• Business email: generationalteapod@gmail.com

Transcript

0:11

You can never get a drink to yourself. You know, it's always got a, a kitty paw or a piece of dog hair or whatever in your drink, and I'm thinking that is the best way to prepare for being a mother, because guess what? You never get another drink by yourself. Ever, and you will have to label your own food. What are the pros? Again, this all seems like a bad idea. I know. It does, doesn't it? Well, the pros are that maybe when you're old, they'll take care of you. You don't have to live in a nursing home. Yes, yes. Or either they'll pay for that nursing home placement. I would kill that. That nursing home would be my little. Mm. Yeah. So, yeah. Anyways, I'll tell you, it, it, it's worth it. It's worth it. I mean, I remember like having dinner or we would be leaving like the restaurant and I would look and I'd have eaten like half of my plate for the main reason I want the leftovers the next day. I don't like sandwiches. And my daughter and son-in-law both have told me. That they're not quite happy with the fact that I didn't make my kids eat sandwiches. I mean, Weston, he eats'em now. He does now, thank God, because I trained him to shut up and eat that sandwich. That's right. You're like, you're eating this peanut butter, honey. Oh my God. It's all you getting. But yeah, we'd be going out and I would be saying, yeah, I'd like the a to go box or whatever, and I would look at Weston and Carrot it, I'd say. This is my leftovers for tomorrow. Do not eat my leftovers when I go to bed tonight, because I'm telling you if there is a carryout box in that refrigerator after you hit the sack. That Weston Gillespie is gonna make that his woman that night.'cause he is going to tear it up. So I, I had to like label things. Moms only do not, do not touch. Yeah. That was the problem in our house as well. Was it? Oh God, I bet so. I think that's a problem with every family.'cause you're hungry at like 2:00 AM and you're like, if I eat this, they might be mad, but at the end of the day they'll still love me. They have to. Exactly. They have to. It's true. It's true. Yeah. okay, so in your family, who was the biggest thief? Of the leftovers. You're looking at her, but my question is, did your mother want to fight you over the leftovers? Honestly, no, because my mom eats like spinach for breakfast, so yes, she does. I don't, I didn't want anything she was eating, and also we didn't like. My parents, well, we were pretty broke for a lot of the time, but I mean even like later when we became more financially comfortable, like we never went out to eat, so we didn't really have leftovers, but like dinner leftovers, if there was like a little bit left. I on that. That was you. You would stay. Love that. I bet you would purposefully stay up late until everybody went to bed, so you can tear up that leftovers. Oh, I, everyone's in bed. I'm going down and rifling through the pantry in peace. Yes, yes, yes. Go. Go to bed the next morning. I'm like, oh my word. There has been a bulimic on a bench in this house. There's like 15. Cracker packets. if we had like anything sweet, like a little Debbie cake, little packets everywhere. Yeah. But I fought for my leftovers. I fought my children. I bet you did. Yeah, a hundred percent. Those were my leftovers. He's awake again. He is. The baby's awake. The baby's awake. The psycho dog that I have. Don't you wish you could like strap him into one of those little baby bouncers? Yeah. You know where you see the moms that are like. they're maybe working at their computer, but they've got that one foot over there just rocking that little baby bouncer back and forth. That's what we need for him. I know. a lot of people in this neighborhood will like tie their dogs up outside. I'm like, first of all, it's hot as heck. And second of all, that's terrible. Yes. I have a working breed dog, so I cannot do that. Yeah, yeah. All righty. So should we get down to some good news today? Well, after we introduce ourselves, oh, I forgot. Yeah, I know. I forget too. It's okay. Welcome everybody to the Generational Tea Podcast. I'm Cana. And I'm Ronnie. And we are so glad that you guys joined us today. Today we're gonna do something, new. A little different. Yeah, a little different. We've not done this before, but. yeah, we feel like, you know, it's been a rough year. I think everyone could use some good news and mm-hmm. I think a lot of us go around with like this negativity bias. I know I do. Where. It's really easy for me to just see all the negative things and not all the positive things instead. We just wanted to come to you today. We each broke off separately and we found some good news stories and some inspirational and uplifting things. We just wanna have a little short, cute episode today. Make you feel good. So yes, we hope it, hope it accomplishes that goal, so yeah. Yes. Are we ready for story number one? Yes. Who's going first? Okay. You go first. I'll go first. Yes, I go first. Okay. Okay. Okay. Alright. We're weird today. Okay. We are in rare form. Alright, so the first story I found that I thought was really cool and wanted to share was about a lottery winner. and it actually went to a person that really needed it. So a homeless man who had been living on the streets in San Luis, oh my God, I'm not gonna be able to pronounce this. San Luis Obispo. Okay. That doesn't feel right. He, he lived a city in California. Okay. Yeah. Let, let's, yes, let's do a city in California. So this homeless man who I think had been been homeless for years, actually ended up winning a$1 million scratch off. And a little bit about him, we don't know his name, he didn't wanna share it, but he was a long time patron of Sandy's liquor store where he actually ended up buying the ticket and they got some information on him just from the store manager. So. The store manager there called this homeless man, a very loyal, trustworthy customer and a good person who really deserved this big winning. So the manager would even trust this guy to watch the store when he was like restocking items or had to step out a second. He even offered this guy a job at one point, but the lottery winner had to end up declining because he had a bad knee that would prevent him from doing necessary manual labor for the job. so it's amazing that someone who was unable to work ended up getting something when they really needed it the most. Oh yeah. And the manager said that the homeless man planned to buy a home, a car and invest the rest. Oh. And I just thought that was a really cool story. And that is so cool that he needed it and got his life changed. He got it. He got it. Wow. Wow. That's awesome. This good news story I thought was so appropriate because we know that Cana is our little bookworm, and so, uh oh yeah. Yes, yes. She's like, where's this going? so there was a Michigan community, a small little book store in Michigan in a little small community, and they were moving storefronts. And so instead of like a typical move, you have people come in, you pack it up, you get a moving truck. You load everything up, or you have people do that and then you move to your other place. Well, instead of doing that, they did something very unconventional, and I just think it's so cool. It's what they did is they created a human chain because it was a very small town, so it wasn't very far that the bookstore, it was several blocks that needed to move. They had 9,100 books that they needed to move. So this group of people, over 300 people. They stood side by side and made like a chain all the way from the previous location to the new location. And they all just stood in line, side by side and they passed the books and they were able to move this entire bookstore of 9,100 books through this human chain. They saved. Awesome. A ton of money. Yeah. Isn't that cool? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I, I always love stories of like large groups of people coming together. Yes. I like really nothing benefits them necessarily. Right. Like, you're not getting paid, like Right. Whatever it is. But that was really cool. Yeah. I love that. That was cool. That small town live in coming in handy. Yes, yes. Tell, tell myself that. Yeah, go ahead. Because you are in a small town, bow girl. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Okay. Next story I have, Well, oh gosh, I, I was thinking that this episode would release in April still, but it's not going to.'cause I was thinking autism awareness, but regardless. Anyways, so yes, we're gonna talk about Maureen Stanko and I'm gonna try not to make fun of her last name. I'm sorry. What's Stanko? Yeah, like S-T-A-N-K. Hmm. Oh God, we're good people. Let's, we're just immature. I wonder if she knows about the stanky lake. Okay. Okay. The sweet, sweet, lovely lady Marie. So she is actually the mother of an autistic child and she lives in a town in Pennsylvania and she opened the so much to give inclusive cafe in the town of Cedars because it would keep her awake at night, thinking of life after graduation for her 20-year-old autistic son. And she ended up opening this in January, 2023. So this cafe now employs 63 people, 80% of which have a disability, and they work as greeters, food runners, sous chefs, dishwashers, and servers. And Maureen says she has observed significant growth in her son's social skills and other employees confidence and abilities. So that's just really awesome, and I think the story of how it came about was really cool as well. Maureen actually brought these concerns she was having about her son to his therapist, and the therapist ended up being the one that bankrolled. The cafe because he actually had a dream of opening a restaurant exactly like that. So that was kinda like divine timing. It just all worked out so well and now it's like a staple in the community and just it's, it's awesome. I love it. I would, I would want to eat there all the time. I would want to go there for sure. Yeah. Yeah. You talking about positive vibes. Totally positive vibes. Mm-hmm. There are a few cats in there. And you have the ultimate cafe. Yes. I wanna go to Cat Cafe So bad. Yeah. It's actually a crime that I haven't been to one yet. I think you're actually making one yourself. Oh, great. A cat cafe with a resident dog. Um, this was a good one too, here. the title of it was Chef Lee's Job at Top Restaurant to provide delicious food for hospice patients in their last days. Mm. He does this to honor his son who died of leukemia. Oh. And the hospice that cared for him. So he was personally touched. Now this, this guy, his last name's Smith, he once cooked for. You wanna guess somebody really real, really famous that this guy could try a hint like it's not in the United States of America. it's like an actor, something that you're born into. You can only have this title if you have royalty. Um, go ahead. Um, I don't know any of the royal family. Okay. Queen Elizabeth. Oh Lord. Oh, I played the, no, um, queen Elizabeth ii, he used Okay. He used to cook for her and he just said, you know, you learn to live with. Losing a child, um, learned to live with it, but it changes your perspective. And without a doubt, he'd worked at top restaurants around the world, but decided he wanted to serve a different clientele. Wow. And so he went and he started serving at the hospice care center that his son was at during his last days, and it was called St. Catherine's. So That is so cool. That is so cool. That is, dang, that's like, it's sad, but it's, it's really cool that he handled up dedicating his skills to that. That's awesome. Yeah. And you know, in your grief, I think so much of grief, other than obviously the loss, it's the powerlessness of it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, especially, I mean, I can't imagine the most unnatural thing that you could ever do is bury a child. A parent burying a child. And so how cool he like took this and decided, I don't have to be a victim. I'm gonna get in here and be victorious and I'm gonna serve these people and, pass it on. So he used pay that forward in a big tent in a big time way. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Nice. That's a cool one. All right, we're gonna talk next about the goodest Boy ever. The goodest boy ever is his name. Sawyer Gillespie? No, he is the baddest boy. We're gonna talk about a different dog who's. A hero. Okay, go for it. Okay, so we're gonna talk about Buford and he is a 6-year-old, an Italian PP Pi Pyrenees, yeah. Yes, Pyrenees. So he wandered home on a random Tuesday with a 2-year-old boy who disappeared the day before from his home in Seligman, Arizona. Um, the store's pretty crazy more to it. The owner's ranch is seven miles away from the boy's home, dozens of search and rescue people. Spent an entire night searching for this little toddler in pretty dangerous Arizonan desert terrain. Yeah, so Beauford, this breed is the type that will sleep all day, and then they usually patrol like a ranch or a property at night to keep coyotes away and protect the livestock. This dog actually tracked this child's footprints for a mile. What, and brought him back to his owner the next morning. Did he go on this? Like, was he charged to do this? No, he was just patrolling the ranch at night and he ended up tracking this little boy that was wandering out in the desert. Wow. And yeah, the owner said he. Was outside in the morning and he had seen the news stories of the Missing Boy, and he saw his dog and he saw this little kid beside him and he was like, oh my God, that's the same boy. Oh my goodness. And the the best, the best part is Buford, that dog, he was treated to a two pound rib for just being the cutest, cutest boy ever. Oh yes, for sure. He deserved that. Oh my gosh. Ribeyes for life. For him. Ribeyes for life. Yes. Yes. He should have gotten that reward. Hey, he did it so quickly that it didn't even have to put out that there was a special reward. He didn't even know he was gonna get that big old rib eye. I know he did it. He's a good boy. I love that he did that. Mm-hmm. Okay. Here's another one. this one's it's close to home. Uh, so you guys know Michael Jordan, right? Mm-hmm. he's been opening health clinics in North Carolina to help with, um. Difficulties from Helene, things that had been closed down. Oh, cool. yeah, so he started, this life-changing initiative in 2019 with opening of two clinics in Charlotte. and they were, you know, to, to service the less fortunate, um, those that aren't insured or underinsured and, So on February 19th, he opened his fourth facility also in North Carolina in Wilmington, North Carolina, and he did this one with a$10 million donation. Wow. So nice. That's be like Mike. Be like Mike, and be generous. Yeah. Even if you don't have$10 million, right, right, right. You can still give what you have to give and it'll make a difference. Yep, yep. For sure. And he says hi. His mantra is that every human deserves access to quality healthcare, regardless of their location or insurance status. Mm-hmm. So I love that. Yes, I do. That is awesome. Go, Mike. Yes, you do. You boo. Alright, my next story, it's a, it's a really good one. It's very heartwarming. This story is called The Tip of a Lifetime. So Tammy Coner, I don't know if I'm saying her last name right, but we're gonna go with it. she's a Pittsburgh area, aesthetician and a talker. So she was grabbing a bite with her son at a local restaurant when she noticed her servers struggling to get around. So the server being 81 years old was actually confiding to another patron, and Tammy overheard this, that she has chronic back pain, but needed the job because her$910 social security payout wasn't enough to cover her bills. Mm-hmm. Tammy being the amazing person she is, use the power of TikTok and use this platform to highlight Betty the server. and Betty said this, I worked all my life as the waitress and can't retire. I'm 81, but I can still outdo all these whippersnappers love. I love that Betty. Awesome. Betty and the Jets. I wonder if that's who's talking about. It's Benny in the jet. It's not Betty. Oh, okay. Let's, yeah. Well, that's embarrassing for you. I'm not cutting that out. Yes, yes. Oh, well, oh, well, anyway, it's okay. You can't, you can't get it all, you know, you can't have it all. You cannot be beautiful. You cannot be perfect. Yeah, gotta, somethings gotta, you gotta dumb sometimes you gotta be dumb. You gotta just be real ridiculous. It's true, but, and I am good with that. Yes, go ahead. Okay. Using her TikTok platform, she shared Betty's story on TikTok and it went viral within 24 hours and over a short amount of time. Her GoFundMe that Tammy helped set up has raised a whopping$328,000. Oh, and Betty has been able to retire finally. Yay. But I just really love the story because, well, I'm actually a big proponent of TikTok. I spent years hating it, but. I think as a social media platform, its algorithms are great and I've seen so many positive things like this happen on TikTok. And yeah, I think it's just a good example how any of us can be out on any random day, look at another human being and through a simple, selfless act. Change their lives, or even if it's not on such a grand scale, like you can do something that'll maybe help someone out in a major way or mm-hmm. Just a little small change or a little dose of hope that they needed. So, yeah. I, I just love that story. I thought that was so cool. And I saw the videos of Betty. She's precious. Go Betty. Yay. You enjoy that retirement, girl, girl. Yes. Yes. You enjoy that? Well, I told you I only had three good stories, but actually have four oh, the the last one that I have on my list, and I just want, let's just not read anything into it, but let's just celebrate that it's finally on the radar. This past week, the National Institutes of Health for United States of America mm-hmm. Has come together and they are raging more against food dice and there's six food dyes that are gonna have to be out of our. Our country, by 2026, sometime in 2026. But I thought this was so interesting because being a nurse and then doing a lot of holistic health things, you, you really can see how much, these food dies, contribute to behavioral issues or, uh, memory, just different things like that, or just chronic illness. And so when looking at this. I was like, man, that's awesome that we're gonna start doing this. But then I went back and I'm like, there are so many countries that I already have these bands. In fact, their countries, so, so let's just start off Norway, Finland, Germany, France, Switzerland, the uk, the European Union. So we are finally going to do something and, and no longer, well, hopefully. Sorry. No, go ahead. Hopefully what I just said, hopefully it doesn't stop if the food dies.'cause I know there's a lot of stuff that's in all kinds of our food that stands in other countries. Oh yeah. Plastic. It's crazy. Yes, it's, it is crazy. So I'm glad that at least some of it's on the radar and we're looking at it because there, I mean there are manufacturers of what, let's just say General Mills are some kind of, cereal company and they tried to do this at one time. I think it was. A cereal company started to use like, beets, beet juice to, to make colors that To dye? Yes. Okay. Beet juice. Carrot juice for orange. you know, that kind of thing. Nice. Well, people didn't want it. It wasn't as bright, it wasn't as pretty. but these companies all about how it looks. Yes. These companies make a different product for us. Yeah. Than the one they export to all these other countries. So I, I, I hope we're gonna take this back and take our health back I mean, even cosmetics and stuff, there's so much. I know. It makes me anxious. It does, because I'm like, I could be, I'm buying something in the back of my head. I'm like. What if this is like poisoning me because I know that we don't regulate stuff the way it needs to be regulated. Well, and it's stressful. It's very stressful and, you know, having, behavior issues or like attention deficit and, and seeing so many people now as adults that are really still struggling with attention deficit. Is really, I mean, it, it's paralyzing, I mean mm-hmm. So many times, these newly married people, they get together, they don't even know that much about each other. And maybe it's something that, that kids think, oh wow, I've outgrown that. But then sometimes when you go back into a more structured situation, like a, a job or something that you're learning something new and such. Mm-hmm. All those things, these. These little issues raise their head back up. And so I know it's a big thing as far as even in marriages, younger marriages, is how do, how do you deal with an adult with a DD? So I'm hoping that this is gonna help a lot. Mm-hmm. With that, definitely. When you were talking about, feeling anxious about what you're buying, thinking it's healthy, but it may not be. I had overheard, someone talking about that, like deli ham. Okay. Like if you get a ham mm-hmm. Deli sliced ham for sandwiches, that its natural look is grayish brown in color. Ooh. And ours is pink'cause they've loaded it up with dye. Is that not crazy? Yeah. And there's a lot of fins that live in this, in this area in upstate South Carolina. And they were talking about, yeah, you go to Finland and the food looks so boring. Yeah. And all this stuff because they do serve the brown and grey ham and different things like that. And she said this one couple had just gotten back from there, uh, over the holidays and, and they were just talking about, yeah, it was the best food we've ever tasted, you know? Wow. The food is delicious. It looks terrible. it looks bland. It doesn't look like because it's just like we've trained ourselves. Yeah. Well, we've been conditioned to look for things that are bright and pretty. And as soon as we grab that piece of ham and if it's got any of those, gray or colors. Immediately. It's like, Ugh, throw that out. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. So not only are we being poisoned, but we're being robbed of flavor. Yes, yes. For sure. So come yay, go. S of a in a time. Yeah. We'll, it'll focus on that win. Yes. Don't, don't stop there. Right, right. Keep going. Oh God. Okay. Well my last good news story is actually about free tuition outta college. So. In Oregon, Reed College announced a groundbreaking new initiative that will make education more accessible to Oregon and Washington students. as of December, 2024, Reed will offer tuition free education for newly admitted Oregon Washington and transfer undergrad students whose family income is under a hundred K annually. This is a big move and yes it is for how. Expensive colleges nowadays, this move eliminates financial barriers from talented students who wanna pursue their dreams at a top liberal arts college. and I just wanted to include some stats in there as well. Mm-hmm. So, especially like this is generational tea and. I think my generation struggles with affordable education more than your generation had, so, oh yeah. For anyone that's listening that maybe doesn't realize how different things are now, just wanna give you some stats. So the US student loan debt exceeds 1.7 trillion with the average debt around 38,000 per student. Mm-hmm. And many low income students struggle to afford the cost of even community college with some Unable to afford 95% of colleges. which sucks because it's the way, it's, it's going. Education is turning into a privilege and it's something that should be accessible to everybody in my own opinion. And I even have student debt. My husband struggles with student debt. My sister struggles with student debt. Like it is, it feels paralyzing, honestly. And. It makes me regret even going to college, being how bad it is. And yeah, I mean, things are expensive nowadays. It sucks. So that made me just think this story is really cool that someone's making a move to make education affordable for the people that are unable to access it. I love that. Hop off my soapbox. But yeah, that, that is huge. Well, not sure where you guys are all listening from, but we'll definitely tell you that Western North Carolina, or just all of North Carolina, tuitions are really, really affordable. In fact, Western was able to go to a state supported school app state because, we're residents. He, we actually had a home in Boone. he was able to go per semester for$3,500 Yeah, that's not bad. And that was full time. Mm-hmm. And it's cheaper. It was cheaper for him to go there than it was for him to go to our local technical college. Mm, here in South Carolina. If you're looking for places that have more affordable education, North Carolina may be one for you. and there's also a western North Carolina, it's called Western Carolina University, that they are now, their tuition rates$500 per semester for instate undergraduate and. 2,500 per semester for outstate undergraduate. Okay. That's not bad. I still think it should be free, but whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll die on that hill, but it's uh, yeah, it's not gonna happen. Yeah. For a while, at least we'll see. Okay. Okay. Tuition itself based on 24 and 25 is instate at Western Carolina University is a thousand dollars for tuition. Outta state is 5,000. So it's not bad. It's not bad. Yeah. Yeah. And of course that doesn't include like housing and we know there's a lot that goes into total cost, but Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy how expensive it is to getting It's a shame is what it's, it is, it's shame. Anyways, let's, let's stay on good vibes. Yes. We'll try. Yes, yes. Well, we hope that our little good news stories that we rounded up for you guys major day, hopefully, or just gave you a little dose of hope and a year, that's been difficult for a lot of us, so. Mm-hmm. Hang in there. We see you. You're heard? Yeah. Okay. Yep. We're, we're here for you. I think if anyone ever needs to talk to us, DM us, message us. Yeah. We'd love to hear from you guys, whether that's, if you need to connect to someone and talk to someone, or if you just wanna. Share what you thought about our episodes. Share maybe if you have a good news story, something happened in your life, or something that you heard. Yeah, we wanna hear it too, so yeah. Yeah. Talk to us at Generational Tea Pod. That's our social media. We are on TikTok and Instagram. while we're on that note, we would really appreciate if you guys leave us a review before you go today. we haven't gotten a ton so far and it will help us boost our podcast to get out to more people. So go ahead, leave us a review, leave us a comment. Every little thing makes our day and we really appreciate you guys doing that work for us. Yeah. And thanks for spending this little bit of time with us. Yes. And what do we do now? That's, that's the tea. Alrighty. Bye y'all. Bye.