A $6,000 tip, and more

A $6,000 tip

Nebraska waitress Abigail Sailors earned a $6,000 tip at Cracker Barrel after telling some sympathetic lunch customers her life story. The 18-year-old related how she’d overcome a rough childhood in foster homes to enroll at Trinity Bible College in North Dakota, but said she couldn’t afford to pay for her second semester. The men left a $100 tip; then one of them wrote the college a $5,000 check to cover her tuition and another for $1,000 to cover Sailors’s expenses. “It forever changed my heart and my life,” Sailors said

Clean socks matter

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When retired Illinois teacher Tom McNamara learned that aid agencies often forget that homeless people need warm, clean footwear as much as sweaters and hats, he didn’t just donate some old boots to charity. He sold his house, bought an RV, and now travels around the country handing out newsocks to the homeless. McNamara has already distributed thousands of socks from Missouri to New Mexico. His next destination is Phoenix, where he’ll be accompanied by his dog and 5,000 pairs of new socks. “The smiles you see when a kid gets a pair of dry, clean socks are incredible,” McNamara said.

Michael Scheerhorn's fundraising

As he took the field for the BCS National Championship Game this week, Florida State University lineman Michael Scheerhorn didn’t just have a victory against Auburn in mind. He was also doing his part against cancer. In the stands was 12-year-old Jayden Laspada, a Seminoles fan and a cancer patient for whom Scheerhorn raised over $12,000 on the Internet. Scheerhorn’s brother had fought and beat cancer as a boy. “The fact that I’m in the position to do something special for somebody who has gone through the same hell that we have, it really blew me away,” Scheerhorn said.