The week's good news: August 23, 2018

(Image credit: Adidas)

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1. Tennessee teens blanket their school with notes of encouragement
2. Miami football team to wear uniforms made from recycled materials
3. 8-year-old from Texas spent summer in the magical world of books
4. Missing ring found wrapped around carrot in family's garden
5. Man planted one tree every day for more than 35 years

published 23 August 2018

1. Tennessee teens blanket their school with notes of encouragement

The notes are simple, but powerful. A group of middle school students in Harriman, Tennessee, decided to cover their campus with uplifting notes, sticking them on mirrors and tucking them into lockers. The colorful messages say things like "Never give up," "Stay strong," and "We love you." Eighth grader Nicole True, one of the students who came up with the idea, said she's been thanked by many of her peers who like reading the positive reinforcement. "I think it makes all the difference in the world," True told WBIR. "Considering the fact that all of us have had someone come up to us and say, 'that's really affected us in a major way.'" There are at least 100 notes on campus, with more to come.

The University of Miami's football team will make history with their uniforms during the season opener against LSU on Sept. 2. The Hurricanes will become the first college team to don uniforms, cleats, and gloves made from repurposed ocean waste. Adidas worked with Parley for the Oceans, an organization that brings attention to the amount of plastic garbage in the world's oceans, to design the uniforms. Each uniform is made with ECONYL yarn, repurposed from fishing nets and other nylon waste, USA Today reports. The uniforms are primarily orange, with wave and palm patterns to "pay homage to South Florida landscapes." Coach Mark Richt said in a statement the team is happy to "help promote sustainability around the world."

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Hope Faith Wiggins set a goal for herself: to read 300 books before the summer was over. The 8-year-old from Aldine, Texas, was successful, even surpassing that number. By mid-August, she had 302 books finished. She spent her entire summer with a book in her hand, and told ABC 13 she likes reading because "It's like being inside of a whole other world. You can imagine that you're the character, and for me, one thing that happens when I read a book or watch a video is I dream about it." Her mother told ABC 13 the "library opened up so many worlds. It was like a vacation, but inside our house." For her efforts, Wiggins received a medal from her library.

Lin Keitch thought her ring, a 40th birthday present from her husband, was gone forever, until dinner one night last week. Her husband, Dave Keitch, dug out some vegetables from their garden in Somerset, England, and gave them to her to clean. "I cut the greens off and scrubbed them, and I thought, 'What's that? Goodness, it's my ring,'" Lin told BBC News. Lin gave the ring to her daughter after it became too small for her, and she lost the ring in the garden at least 12 years ago. Lin was surprised the carrot managed to grow through the ring, which she instantly recognized, even though it was covered in dirt. Dave said he would always look for the piece of jewelry when he was out there in the garden, and called it a "chance in a million" discovery.

It all started with one tree. In 1979, Padma Shri Jadav "Molai" Payeng came across several snakes on Majuli Island in Assam, India. Flooding brought the snakes to the island, but due to erosion, there wasn't any shade, so the snakes died from the heat. Payeng was 16 at the time, and decided he was going to make sure this never happened again. So he planted a sapling, and continued to plant one a day for the next 35 years. Now, 39 years later, the trees cover more than 1,360 acres. Named Molai Forest in his honor, the forest is about 1.6 times larger than Central Park and has several thousand varieties of trees. Elephants, Bengal tigers, rhinos, and reptiles call the forest home, and Payeng wants to plant 5,000 more acres. The environmental activist received one of India's highest civilian awards in 2015, and also teaches children how to care for trees.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.