Quiver Full of Good in the World

[HerNameIsBuffy]

8 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

And...I'm crying.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, CEOs who actually care for their rank and file employoees:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Newspaper deliveryman brings groceries to his older customers on morning route, no extra charge"

Spoiler

Days after New Jersey residents were ordered to stay at home last week because of the coronavirus, Sandy and John Driska were running low on groceries. Going out for food shopping seemed precarious since she had bronchitis and he was fighting Parkinson’s disease.

Then Sandy Driska, 72, who lives in the northern New Jersey township of Cranbury, heard through a friend that an acquaintance who subscribed to the local Newark newspaper, the Star-Ledger, found a typed note rolled up in her morning paper.

“My name is Greg Dailey and I deliver your newspaper every morning,” the note began. “I understand during these trying times it is difficult for some to get out of their house to get everyday necessities. I would like to offer my services free of charge to anyone who needs groceries, household products, etc. I will be shopping at ShopRite and [McCaffrey’s] and can deliver the goods directly to your front door."

It included his phone number. She was skeptical, but she reached out anyway because she was feeling desperate.

“I thought, ‘Oh, he’s too good to be true,’ ” Sandy Driska said. “But then I called Greg, and he delivered $302 of groceries to the front of my garage the very next day.”

She thanked him and wrote him a check. He didn’t charge her a penny more than what her groceries cost.

“What a godsend this man has been,” she said.

Dailey, 50, is a self-described “shy guy,” who would just as soon volunteer to have his teeth drilled than draw attention to himself, according to those who know him.

But when he noticed that an older customer didn’t want to walk down to the sidewalk to pick up her morning newspaper after the coronavirus pandemic arrived in New Jersey, it made him think there must be plenty of people on his route who were afraid to leave their home — even for necessities.

“I was at the grocery store a couple of days later and started thinking about this 88-year-old lady and an idea just popped into my head,” said Dailey, a newspaper carrier for 25 years who lives in East Windsor, N.J.

“I called her up and said, ‘Hi, this is Greg, your newspaper guy — I’m at the store, do you need anything?’ ” Dailey said. “She asked me to pick up a couple of things, and then she called me back and said, ‘Could you also get some brown eggs and bananas for the Millers across the street?’ ”

After dropping off the groceries, Dailey sat down at his computer and typed out an offer to shop for all 800 of his newspaper customers, and anyone else in his delivery area who might need a little help.

Some grocery stores deliver, but it can take days or weeks to get a delivery slot, if any are available at all. Customers have to figure out how to place their orders online, which can be confusing, and then there are delivery fees and tips to pay, a financial hardship for many.

When Dailey’s phone started ringing with requests from grateful subscribers, he enlisted his wife, Cherlyn Dailey, their children, Erin, 24, Sean, 21, and Brian, 17, and his mother-in-law, Carol Krohn, to help with the cause every morning.

“During a crisis like this, it’s so important to step back and look at the bigger picture,” Erin Dailey said. “The second my father looked beyond what’s in his mirror, we as a family knew [that we should] offer a helping hand to those in dire need.”

“It’s really very simple,” added Cherlyn Dailey, 48. “Our responsibility is to take care of one another."

For Greg Dailey, who also runs a frame shop that is closed during the pandemic, a love of flinging newspapers in the wee hours started when he accompanied his dad on a route as a boy growing up in East Windsor.

“I’d go out and help him all the time to deliver the Hudson Dispatch,” he said of the now-defunct newspaper. “Then after I got married and we had our first child, I decided that becoming a carrier was a good way to earn a little extra money.”

Over the years, he has gotten to know many of his customers, he said, so it made sense for him to offer to add a gallon of milk, produce and canned goods to the morning news after people were told to stay home due to the spread of the coronavirus.

“Most of the people we’re helping are elderly and really shouldn’t be out shopping now anyway,” Greg Dailey said.

After his paper route ends each morning around 7 a.m., he and his family visit two local grocery stores in the community, split up the shopping lists, then make the day’s deliveries after wiping everything down with disinfecting wipes.

“I give everyone a head’s up that I’m going to drop by, then they put out an envelope for me with their payment,” Dailey said. “Sometimes, we’ll sit and talk a bit from a distance. To be honest, this is one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done."

He doesn’t charge customers for his delivery service, but payment has come in other forms — smiles, appreciative notes and offers to pay it forward, he said.

A few days ago, when he received another thank-you note from a longtime subscriber, Dailey knew that his impact was having the effect he’d hoped for.

“Hi, Greg — We got your note this morning with our paper,” the note read. “We wanted to say thank you and although we don’t need the assistance ourselves, we wanted to support your generosity. I would like to send you a little money in support of your effort. How can I send it to you?”

The customer put $40 in his mailbox, which Dailey said he'll use to pay for gas and perhaps a few extras for a customer in need.

“This isn’t something that we’re just going to do for a few days — we’re in this for the duration,” he said. “My daughter and I delivered to a home yesterday, and the woman told me, ‘You’re the closest thing to an angel I’ve ever seen.’ Do you know what that does to your heart?”

“I just melted,” he said.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

There are some good people out there:

 

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

How sweet:

 

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"A former high school football player dove and caught a child dropped from the balcony of a burning building"

Spoiler

As a teenager a decade ago at Kalamazoo Central High School in Michigan, Phillip Blanks was a star football player. Last week, his athletic instincts helped save a toddler from an apartment fire that killed the child’s mother.

Blanks, now 28 and a retired U.S. Marine, was at a friend’s apartment in Phoenix on Friday morning when he heard frantic screaming and a commotion. He immediately ran outside, barefoot, and saw the top floor of the apartment complex was ablaze and enveloped in smoke.

He looked up and saw a petrified woman on a third-floor balcony with a child. Flames quickly crept up behind her.

“People started yelling for the lady to throw her kids down,” Blanks said.

The mother dropped her son over the railing. As Blanks saw the small child falling, he dove forward, arms out.

“I immediately got tunnel vision of the baby and somehow managed to catch him,” Blanks said.

The wrenching video, captured on a cellphone, shows Blanks sprinting toward the 3-year-old child and diving to catch him mere milliseconds before the boy would have hit the ground.

Right after the child was safely in Blanks’s arms, he and neighbors wrapped the boy in a blanket and attempted to pacify him until the ambulance arrived a few minutes later.

Blanks said his time in the Marines, coupled with his athletic training as a wide receiver in high school and college, prepared him for this moment. The Marines taught him to “always be on high alert, not be complacent and to have discipline,” he said.

Blanks, who now works as a security guard, said protecting others is a natural instinct for him. In this case, it prevented a tragic situation from becoming even more horrific.

After the child’s mother — identified by local NBC affiliate 12NEWS as Rachel Long — 30, dropped her son from the balcony, she turned and went back into the burning apartment where her 8-year-old daughter was. Long never came out.

But word started to spread below that a child was in the apartment, and that’s when a second heroic rescue took place.

Another bystander ran inside the building and through the flames to save the 8-year-old.

D’Artagnan Alexander, 42, was on his way to a nearby plaza, where he works as a barber, when he heard screams and saw the flames.

“I have a 3-year-old and a 9-year-old, so when I heard there were kids in there, that really hit my heart,” said Alexander, who immediately parked his car and ran toward the blaze.

Without hesitating, he said, he entered the smoke-filled building and made his way to the third floor, which he described as scorching hot.

“I heard someone scream for help and I found the girl on the floor and carried her outside,” said Alexander, who managed to escape the building mostly unscathed, aside from a few minor burns.

“Everything happened so fast,” he said. “I didn’t have time to think, my body just kicked into action and I went in.”

More than 100 firefighters arrived at the scene, according to 12NEWS, to find eight apartment units engulfed in flames. The cause of the fire is being investigated by police, though there was no immediate sign of foul play, local news reported.

Once Alexander brought the girl to safety, he spotted her 3-year-old brother whom Blanks had saved a few minutes earlier. But “it was all a blur,” he said, and he didn’t know who had rescued the boy.

Blanks said he had a similar experience. At the scene, he heard about a man who saved the young girl, but amid the flurry of ambulances and paramedics, he wasn’t able to figure out who it was.

After the fact, the situation became both personal and emotional for Blanks, and he wanted to know who had saved the girl.

“I reached out to a reporter at a local Phoenix station,” Blanks said. “I wanted to find the man and thank him. He deserves more recognition than I do.”

“Phillip sent me a text and he thanked me for what I did,” said Alexander, who added he was in awe of what Blanks did.

Both men say they are forever bonded by this experience.

Alexander and Blanks have also been in contact with the children’s father, Corey Long, who they said was at work during the fire. Long declined to be interviewed by The Washington Post, saying he was not ready to talk.

The men visited with Long on Wednesday, and they said Long expressed extreme appreciation to them for rescuing his children.

“It was very emotional,” Blanks said. “We became family, all three of us.”

The men vowed to help Long in any way they can. His two children are in the hospital with serious injuries that are not life-threatening, Blanks said. A GoFundMe page has been set up for the family to help cover medical and other expenses.

“Saving this child changed my entire perspective,” Blanks said. “It made me realize how short life is, and how we need to protect each other and treat people better.”

“I couldn’t be more thankful that we both happened to be there,” echoed Alexander.

But beyond the two strangers who were able to rescue the siblings, it’s Rachel Long — the mother who saved her son but didn’t survive herself — who is “the real hero,” Blanks said.

Bless both Mr. Blanks and Mr. Alexander.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

7 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"A former high school football player dove and caught a child dropped from the balcony of a burning building"

  Hide contents

As a teenager a decade ago at Kalamazoo Central High School in Michigan, Phillip Blanks was a star football player. Last week, his athletic instincts helped save a toddler from an apartment fire that killed the child’s mother.

Blanks, now 28 and a retired U.S. Marine, was at a friend’s apartment in Phoenix on Friday morning when he heard frantic screaming and a commotion. He immediately ran outside, barefoot, and saw the top floor of the apartment complex was ablaze and enveloped in smoke.

He looked up and saw a petrified woman on a third-floor balcony with a child. Flames quickly crept up behind her.

“People started yelling for the lady to throw her kids down,” Blanks said.

The mother dropped her son over the railing. As Blanks saw the small child falling, he dove forward, arms out.

“I immediately got tunnel vision of the baby and somehow managed to catch him,” Blanks said.

The wrenching video, captured on a cellphone, shows Blanks sprinting toward the 3-year-old child and diving to catch him mere milliseconds before the boy would have hit the ground.

Right after the child was safely in Blanks’s arms, he and neighbors wrapped the boy in a blanket and attempted to pacify him until the ambulance arrived a few minutes later.

Blanks said his time in the Marines, coupled with his athletic training as a wide receiver in high school and college, prepared him for this moment. The Marines taught him to “always be on high alert, not be complacent and to have discipline,” he said.

Blanks, who now works as a security guard, said protecting others is a natural instinct for him. In this case, it prevented a tragic situation from becoming even more horrific.

After the child’s mother — identified by local NBC affiliate 12NEWS as Rachel Long — 30, dropped her son from the balcony, she turned and went back into the burning apartment where her 8-year-old daughter was. Long never came out.

But word started to spread below that a child was in the apartment, and that’s when a second heroic rescue took place.

Another bystander ran inside the building and through the flames to save the 8-year-old.

D’Artagnan Alexander, 42, was on his way to a nearby plaza, where he works as a barber, when he heard screams and saw the flames.

“I have a 3-year-old and a 9-year-old, so when I heard there were kids in there, that really hit my heart,” said Alexander, who immediately parked his car and ran toward the blaze.

Without hesitating, he said, he entered the smoke-filled building and made his way to the third floor, which he described as scorching hot.

“I heard someone scream for help and I found the girl on the floor and carried her outside,” said Alexander, who managed to escape the building mostly unscathed, aside from a few minor burns.

“Everything happened so fast,” he said. “I didn’t have time to think, my body just kicked into action and I went in.”

More than 100 firefighters arrived at the scene, according to 12NEWS, to find eight apartment units engulfed in flames. The cause of the fire is being investigated by police, though there was no immediate sign of foul play, local news reported.

Once Alexander brought the girl to safety, he spotted her 3-year-old brother whom Blanks had saved a few minutes earlier. But “it was all a blur,” he said, and he didn’t know who had rescued the boy.

Blanks said he had a similar experience. At the scene, he heard about a man who saved the young girl, but amid the flurry of ambulances and paramedics, he wasn’t able to figure out who it was.

After the fact, the situation became both personal and emotional for Blanks, and he wanted to know who had saved the girl.

“I reached out to a reporter at a local Phoenix station,” Blanks said. “I wanted to find the man and thank him. He deserves more recognition than I do.”

“Phillip sent me a text and he thanked me for what I did,” said Alexander, who added he was in awe of what Blanks did.

Both men say they are forever bonded by this experience.

Alexander and Blanks have also been in contact with the children’s father, Corey Long, who they said was at work during the fire. Long declined to be interviewed by The Washington Post, saying he was not ready to talk.

The men visited with Long on Wednesday, and they said Long expressed extreme appreciation to them for rescuing his children.

“It was very emotional,” Blanks said. “We became family, all three of us.”

The men vowed to help Long in any way they can. His two children are in the hospital with serious injuries that are not life-threatening, Blanks said. A GoFundMe page has been set up for the family to help cover medical and other expenses.

“Saving this child changed my entire perspective,” Blanks said. “It made me realize how short life is, and how we need to protect each other and treat people better.”

“I couldn’t be more thankful that we both happened to be there,” echoed Alexander.

But beyond the two strangers who were able to rescue the siblings, it’s Rachel Long — the mother who saved her son but didn’t survive herself — who is “the real hero,” Blanks said.

Bless both Mr. Blanks and Mr. Alexander.

And I'm crying at work.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

What an industrious young man:

 

[fraurosena]

 

[47of74]

Loras College here in Dubuque found out that the man the school was named after - Bishop Matthias Loras - had owned another human being while living in Mobile.  The school decided to take down a statute to him while working out how they're going to respond.

Quote

Loras President Jim Collins wrote in a letter to the campus community today that the statue will be placed in storage "until we have convened as a community to discuss the impact of this knowledge about our founder and, specifically, whether and in what context the statue could or should be displayed in the future."

Loras, the first bishop of Dubuque, in 1839 established the seminary that would eventually become Loras College.

Collins wrote that school officials in recent weeks received information about Loras from a researcher who was using the bishop's personal records for scholarship purposes. The researcher confirmed that Loras purchased an enslaved woman named Marie Louise while he was living in Mobile, Ala.

Loras enslaved the woman from 1836 to 1852. He left her behind when he moved to Iowa but "hired her out to others and used proceeds from her labor to help build his various ministries" in Dubuque, Collins wrote. 

Of course I had to go out and buy some more of this for reading the various BTs responding to it....

[47of74]

Johnson County, Iowa is looking at changing who they were named after. 

Quote

Johnson County will not change its name but rather who it is named for in response to the racial justice movement.

The Board of Supervisors informally agreed Wednesday to replace its namesake with Lulu Johnson, the first Black woman to get a doctorate degree at the University of Iowa in 1941.

The county is currently named for Richard Mentor Johnson, who served as Vice President to Martin Van Buren. That namesake came under fire during racial justice protests because of his owning slaves, having a relationship with one that resulted in two children. His only connection to Iowa was that he was the sitting Vice President at the time Johnson County was founded.

Lulu Johnson’s biography presented to supervisorsnotes a family of black pioneers and leaders, including Fred “Duke” Slater who was the first black football player in the Big 10. Her grandparents lived through slavery but her family was described as a successful one from Taylor County in Iowa. 

Good. 

[Audrey2]

I've been a Cleveland Browns fan for 40 years. This story got me.

Cleveland man with blown tire on interstate gets surprise assist from Browns' Ronnie Harrison

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/nfl-browns-ronnie-harrison-helps-man-blown-tire-interstate-cleveland-165316527.html

Spoiler

A man traveling on Interstate 80 in Cleveland this week was thankful a fellow driver stopped to help when his tire blew. He had no idea that person plays for the Cleveland Browns.

Browns player stops to help man in I-80

Michael Cutlip realized his vehicle was pulling right and pulled over on the interstate during a Thursday afternoon trip, News 5 Cleveland reported. The tire had completely blown, rolling off the car and down the side of the road.

Browns safety Ronnie Harrison was driving behind him, saw the incident and pulled over to check on Cutlip. As he was helping to change the tire, they began chatting and Cutlip asked why the kind stranger with an out-of-state license plate was in town.

Harrison said he’d been traded — the Jacksonville Jaguars sent him to Cleveland on Sept. 3 for a 2021 fifth-round pick — and explained that he played for the Browns.

“I had this professional football player — millionaire — stop and change my tire for me,” Cutlip said, via News 5 Cleveland. He called Harrison the most “kind, gentle person I’ve met in a long time” and wished him well on the season.

Harrison: I was raised to be kind, helpful

Harrison said no one was stopping to check on the driver, so he did and the two assessed the damage. Since Cutlip didn’t have a jack, Harrison got his and helped him change it quickly.

“I just wanted to help and I knew I could get it done real quick and get him on his way,” Harrison said, via News 5 Cleveland. “I just had to pull over and make sure he was OK, to make sure he was going to be safe because I knew it was probably a crazy event for him.”

Harrison, in his third NFL season out of Alabama, said it made him feel good and it was how he was raised. Via News 5 Cleveland:

“That’s how my mom raised me. Be helpful, be kind to people, be respectful, help others, treat people the way you want to be treated—that’s what I always heard growing up,” Harrison said. “It just goes to show a little goes a long way, just being kind to people, just being there to help others.”

He tweeted the story and gained a lot of new fans in the mentions, with many welcoming him to Cleveland. Tyrann Mathieu called him a “real one in any lifetime.”

 

[47of74]

The crying Nazi is going to the big house 

Quote

“Crying Nazi” Chris Cantwell is headed to prison.

A jury in Concord, New Hampshire, on Monday found the racist podcaster guilty of extortion and interstate threats related to a threatening message he sent fellow neo-Nazi Benjamin Lambert, aka “CheddarMane,” in 2019, in an attempt to extort information about rival neo-Nazi Andrew Casarez, aka “Vic Mackey.”

Cantwell is also expected to face a civil trial this spring for his role in the Charlottesville violence. More than two-dozen neo-Nazis have been named in the federal lawsuit, brought by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Integrity First for America.

Enjoy prison asshole. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"This Texas farm connects special-needs kids with injured animals: ‘They’re just like me’"

Spoiler

Harper Wulms was 2 the first time she met Priscilla — a turkey with a rare condition that’s similar to the one she has.

Harper, now 5, was born with symbrachydactyly, a congenital hand abnormality. Harper’s right hand is disproportionately small and is missing one finger. Her parents call it her “lucky hand.”

Harper and her mother were visiting an animal sanctuary near Austin, where they live, when they met Priscilla, a rescued turkey that happened to be born with a “lucky claw.”

The toddler tottered over to the turkey, her mother recalled, and the moment Harper understood the similarity between them, she smiled.

“It was such a coincidence,” said Celine Wulms, Harper’s mother. “Meeting Priscilla has been a gift.”

The bond between Harper and Priscilla perfectly captures the reason Jamie Wallace-Griner started her animal sanctuary, Safe in Austin.

“There is something absolutely magical about watching a child with differences come out here and say, ‘They’re just like me,’ ” Wallace-Griner, 40, said. “When you see Harper holding Priscilla’s lucky hand with her own lucky hand, it just does so much for her heart.”

Priscilla is one of more than 150 animals with a background of abuse, neglect or special needs that Wallace-Griner has rescued and cared for at her sanctuary in Leander, a suburb just north of Austin.

Beyond saving animals that, in most cases, would otherwise be euthanized, Safe in Austin also serves as a haven for people and animals with disabilities, special needs, mental health challenges and traumatic past experiences.

All species are welcome at the sanctuary, regardless of the condition that Wallace-Griner finds them in: “We have animals that are blind or deaf, have diabetes, cerebral palsy, deformities, missing limbs, broken spines … they all become part of our family.”

She was inspired to open an animal sanctuary upon witnessing the immense impact a service dog named Angel had on her autistic son, Jackson. Angel was 6 when they got her in 2012.

“Angel gave my son confidence and strength beyond anything I was capable of doing as his mother,” she said. “We saw a dramatic difference within weeks.”

Angel, who passed away two years ago, was a big, fluffy Great Pyrenees who was specifically trained to temper and protect Jackson.

“The security of having an animal that understood him and what he was going through changed everything,” Wallace-Griner said.

Her son’s relationship with Angel propelled Wallace-Griner to create a safe space for people and animals to form bonds and love one another without any judgment.

In 2014, she and her husband, David Griner, a lawyer, bought an overgrown, unkempt 10-acre ranch, with the intention of moving their family of five there and creating a home for neglected animals.

Wallace-Griner said they now have “20 dogs, 14 cats, eight horses, 32 goats, four rabbits, three tortoises, one parrot, four turkeys, lots of chickens, 18 pigs and four cows.”

Every one of them has a name.

“Except some of the chickens are doubled up because they look the exact same,” she said. “We have eight chickens named Ashley.”

There’s also a 250-pound potbellied pig named Peter; a family of goats named Sapphire, Curly and Ruby; plus a tortoise called Rex.

Initially, friends of friends with special needs children would request to visit the sanctuary. As word got out, more people asked to come, and bonds continued to form between visitors and animals.

“It just kept getting bigger and bigger and I realized that it was time to open up in a way that would help more people and more animals,” Wallace-Griner said.

For several years, the cost of rescuing and caring for the animals rested exclusively on the Griners. But as veterinary bills, medication, food and the cost of other supplies mounted, the couple decided to officially make Safe in Austin a nonprofit organization in 2018 to accept donations. While the suggested donation amount is $25 per family, visitors may enter for free.

Just as they welcome all animals, all people are welcome, too: “We don’t care about the choices you made in the past, what you look like, who you love or what you eat. We concentrate on no judgment at all,” said Wallace-Griner.

Gracelyn Woods, a 9-year-old girl who moved to Austin in June with her family, was struggling with the transition and the coronavirus pandemic, her mother said.

“The ranch has helped our little one embrace change,” said Jess Woods, Gracelyn’s mother, adding that they visit weekly. “We kept coming back and our daughter started coming out of her shell. Life just sparked back into her.”

Before the pandemic, Safe in Austin would host “public days” on weekends, in which groups could come walk through the sanctuary, guided by volunteers — many of whom were once visitors, including Harper and Celine Wulms, who now volunteer weekly. To accommodate pandemic restrictions, the sanctuary has shifted to private family tours and what they call “healing hearts” tours only.

“If anybody emails that is having a hard time for any reason, we invite them out for a healing hearts tour. I ask them for a little background as to what they’re dealing with, and I decide which animals to introduce them to,” Wallace-Griner said.

“Covid is hard on everyone, neurotypical or not, but for special-needs kids it heightens every aspect of what is different about them,” she added. “A lot of people really needed us during the pandemic.”

Skylar Carson, 28, volunteers five days a week at the sanctuary, and she first came as a visitor in need of support.

“I have a background of childhood trauma,” she said, adding that the sanctuary has played a pivotal role in helping her heal.

For Carson, what makes Safe in Austin a second home for her is “the unconditional love, the grace and the freedom to make a difference no matter what your story is — whether you’re a kid or an adult or an animal.”

While she feels bonded to all the animals at the sanctuary, there is one recent addition that Carson is particularly fond of: a calf named Ruby Sue.

Wallace-Griner rescued Ruby Sue from a beef cattle ranch in South Texas. She was born with a genetic defect known as Curly Calf syndrome, which usually results in calves being stillborn.

“From the hips up, she is a healthy, loving calf,” said Wallace-Griner, explaining that her spine and hind legs are fused together, preventing her from walking.

“When she got home, I fed her the first bottle,” said Carson. “I have a shirt that says, ‘a cow is my best friend’ and we made her a bandanna that says, ‘a human is my best friend.’ ”

When Wallace-Griner posted photos and videos of Ruby Sue to Safe in Austin’s social media pages, a pet supply company specializing in manufacturing equipment for disabled pets reached out and offered her a custom wheelchair.

“We knew we wanted to help her live longer,” said Mikayla Feehan, social media coordinator at Walkin’ Pets.

On Sept. 19, Ruby Sue took her first steps, with the help of her new wheels.

The company has also donated several wheelchairs to animals at the sanctuary in the past.

“We have four dogs with broken spines or paralysis that use wheelchairs to get around, and they donated all of those chairs to us,” Wallace-Griner said.

This week, a rescued dog named Halo received a prosthetic leg. She, too, took her first steps.

“She actually ran,” Wallace-Griner said.

She revels in moments like these, but above all, her favorite part of the farm is helping animals give hope and confidence to those who need it.

“This is a place for anyone who’s heart is in need of some unconditional love and friendship,” Wallace-Griner said.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Why this woman is donating thousands of pet oxygen masks to firefighters out West"

Spoiler

Debra Jo Chiapuzio adopted a puppy years ago that had been found during a California wildfire.

She learned that animals like dogs are so affected by fires because when flames break out, dogs will often run into a smoke-filled house, rather than away from it since they want to return to their comfort zone.

Then she found out that when firefighters rescue pets, they rely on human oxygen masks that aren’t very effective on animals because they’re designed to fit humans.

“I just knew there had to be a better way,” she said.

Chiapuzio, who was working as a medical tattoo artist for burn victims, started looking on the Internet and found that a company sold oxygen masks specially designed to fit pets’ faces.

“I called my local fire department to see whether they had used them,” said Chiapuzio, 58, who lives in Anaheim, Calif.

When she was told no, she suddenly had a new mission.

In 2011 she started the Emma Zen Foundation, a nonprofit named after her rescued Great Dane/Labrador.

After she’d raised enough money to ensure that all engines at her local fire department were outfitted with a pet oxygen mask kit, Chiapuzio began contacting other departments throughout California, she said.

The cone-shaped masks cost about $75 and are designed to fit tightly around a dog or cat’s snout. They have helped to revive several dozen pets trapped in house fires in recent years in Redlands, Calif., said firefighter Brent Fuller with the Redlands Fire Department.

“I’ve personally used them on dogs and cats at least 10 times,” Fuller said. “It’s a rewarding feeling to revive an animal that has given unconditional love to a family.”

Until Chiapuzio donated masks to his department, he and other firefighters had to rely on human oxygen masks that didn’t fit properly around a pet’s small face, he said.

“If we pulled a dog or cat out of smoky conditions, we’d do our best to seal the human mask around its face,” Fuller said. “But they weren’t very effective because the animal wouldn’t get enough oxygen.”

Nine years after she started the initiative, Chiapuzio estimates her foundation has raised enough money to donate more than 7,500 kits containing three sizes of masks (small for puppies and kittens; medium and large for bigger dogs and cats, as well as the occasional potbellied pig) to about 650 fire departments. Most of them are in Western states, she said.

“Last week, I was sitting in front of the TV watching news about the fires in California, Arizona, Oregon and Colorado, and I was relieved to see that every single fire department mentioned carried our equipment,” Chiapuzio said.

Although she hasn’t heard whether her foundation’s pet masks were used in the recent wildfires, she felt comforted knowing they were available, she said.

Until the pandemic hit, Chiapuzio said she taught pet safety classes throughout Southern California to educate owners on how to react if their animals were poisoned, hit by a car or suffered puncture wounds.

“I’d show them what to put in a pet first aid kit and how to use those items, including how to check an animal’s breathing and deliver CPR if necessary,” she said.

Fire captains up and down the West Coast said they are grateful that she reached out and offered to give them the pet oxygen masks.

Because of tight budgets, most fire departments aren’t able to purchase and replenish pet oxygen mask kits on their own, said Bill Metcalf, a recently retired San Diego fire chief.

Metcalf, 64, worked with Chiapuzio to ensure that all of the engines in San Diego County were outfitted with veterinarian-quality oxygen masks purchased by the Emma Zen Foundation from a national medical supply company.

“Our normal equipment isn’t well suited to helping our animal friends when they’ve suffered trauma in a fire or vehicle crash,” he said.

Erika Skipper said the masks saved her puppy’s life.

The mother of five from Redlands came home from picking up her children at school one afternoon three years ago and found the bottom level of her house on fire.

“The dishwasher had exploded and the entire house was filled with black smoke,” said Skipper, 41. “My kids could only think of one thing: our new Shih Tzu puppy, Penelope.”

Skipper frantically dialed 911 and firefighters were at her house within minutes. They found Penelope in her kennel, submerged in rapidly rising water from the emergency sprinkler system, she said.

“She was barely breathing when she was brought out, but they revived her with one of their special pet masks, then transported her to the vet,” Skipper said.

“When we went to see her, the kids were thrilled,” she said. “They’d lost all their toys and everything in the house was smoke-damaged. But we had our dog back. It was like a miracle.”

Her family now donates every year to the Emma Zen Foundation, hoping to give other pet owners a happy outcome, Skipper said.

“I know how traumatic it would have been to lose our dog that day,” she said. “Not every pet is as lucky.”

For Chiapuzio, who shares her home with Emma Zen, a potbellied pig named Baby Binks, a 200-pound tortoise, three parrots and a cat, stories like Skipper’s help keep her motivated.

“Just recently, a reptile store in the area burned down,” she said. “The fire department helped rescue the reptiles and I saw a picture of an iguana wearing an oxygen mask.”

“I was happy to see it was one of ours,” Chiapuzio said.