The week's good news: September 20, 2018

1. D.C. students grow vegetables to feed the homeless

In the middle of a busy Washington, D.C., neighborhood, a garden is growing. The GroW Garden was launched by George Washington University students in 2009, and in recent years, most of the produce has been donated to Miriam's Kitchen, an organization that aims to end homelessness. Depending on the time of year, the garden is overflowing with tomatoes, zucchini, squash, Swiss chard, and various herbs. Every week, a vegetable delivery — sometimes as much as 40 pounds — is brought straight from the garden to Miriam's Kitchen, where the produce is then given to people living in permanent supportive housing, with the rest prepared for homeless people who eat at a nearby church. Senior Isabelle Moody told WTOP-FM the garden helps students understand the issue of food insecurity. The garden is "really special," senior Elizabeth Ferrante added, because "it connects people."

WTOP-FM

2. California teen finds $10,000, promptly turns it in to police

Rhami Zeini did the right thing, and he's now $100 richer. Zeini, a 16-year-old high school junior from Santa Barbara, California, was headed home from school last week when he saw a black purse in the middle of the street. He picked it up and started digging around, trying to find an ID. Instead, he discovered the purse was filled with money — $10,000 to be exact. Zeini notified his parents, and they brought it to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office. "To me, I figured this is the right thing to do ... because if the roles were reversed and I had lost something with a significant sum of money inside, I know I would want it back for sure," he told KEYT. Deputies were able to find the purse's owner, and she was so grateful that she gave Zeini $100 as a reward.

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KEYT

3. Wedding caterer saves the day after officiant breaks leg

A Cincinnati couple didn't realize that when they hired a caterer for their wedding, they'd be getting an officiant for free. During the rehearsal dinner, the man who was supposed to officiate the wedding fell and broke his leg, leaving the couple without anyone to marry them, WLWT reports. Enter Manny Morales, a caterer for City Barbeque, the company that was preparing food for the rehearsal. He told the couple he had a license and offered to perform the ceremony, a proposal they happily accepted. Bride Kelsey Schneck said she couldn't fully describe how grateful she was to Morales for stepping in. "Not only did we have a great dinner, but our wedding ceremony was saved and went off without a hitch," she said. "Thank you for saving my big day."

WLWT

4. Man makes it his mission to clean up 1 million cigarette butts

Jason Alexander is doing his part to help the planet, one cigarette butt at a time. Alexander, who lives near the coast of Suffolk in England, was taking pictures of the sunrise when he realized just how much garbage is strewn about in public areas. "As a society, we've become blind to a lot of the litter and plastic that we produce, in particular cigarette butts," he told The Washington Post. An estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are tossed out every year around the world, and the toxins can get into the water and ground. To raise awareness of the problem, Alexander set a goal to pick up one million cigarette butts, and shares photos of the piles he collects. It's not pretty, he told the Post, but needs to be done so people can understand the scope of the situation. "A million cigarette butts could just be the beginning," he said.

The Washington Post

5. Beluga whales welcome lone narwhal into their pod

Even the whales in Canada are nice, with a band of belugas adopting a lost narwhal far from home. Narwhals live in the Arctic, but in July a team of researchers from the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals (GREMM) filmed a narwhal playing with about 10 belugas in the St. Lawrence River, hundreds of miles from its normal habitat. The team believes the narwhal is a juvenile male, and even before the July spotting, he was seen with the pod four other times, starting in 2016. Martin Nweeia, a researcher from Harvard University who has spent two decades studying narwhals, told CBC News this shows the "compassion and the openness of other species to welcome another member that may not look or act the same. And maybe that's a good lesson for everyone."

CBC News