The week's good news: June 11, 2020

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1. Iowa teen launches free delivery service to ensure seniors always have groceries
2. Minnesota bakery gives away more than 1,000 cakes to celebrate high school graduates
3. Formerly homeless teen graduates as valedictorian of his class
4. Mother-daughter duo fulfills goal of graduating med school together
5. 8th grade students donate end-of-year trip money to help the Navajo Nation

published 11 June 2020

1. Iowa teen launches free delivery service to ensure seniors always have groceries

Tanner Kenin and more than a dozen other volunteers have made it their mission to keep senior citizens safe during the coronavirus pandemic. Kenin, 17, came up with the idea for T's Angel Hands after his grandparents struggled to find a grocery delivery time. He didn't want them to go to the store and risk getting sick, so he started T's Angel Hands as a way to help. Through the service, people in Polk County, Iowa, who are 60 or older — as well as those who are pregnant or have underlying health conditions — can request that a volunteer pick up their groceries and deliver them to their home, free of charge. Volunteers make 35 to 45 deliveries a week. Kenin told The Daily Optimist that T's Angel Hands recently helped a blind woman who was running low on food, and felt gratified knowing they could "impact someone's life like that."

More than 1,000 high school graduates in Minnesota were able to end their senior year on a sweet note, thanks to Hanisch Bakery. Owner Bill Hanisch wanted to do something to celebrate the graduates at his alma mater, Red Wing High School, and decided to make a small, personalized cake for all 200 seniors. Once word spread outside of Red Wing, donations began coming in so Hanisch could bake cakes for other graduates in the area. Over the last several weeks, he had been able to give away more than 1,000 decked-out cakes to students in 12 towns. "It's been so fun to tell the story of how it started, from just making cakes for my own town to how it's grown," Hanisch told People. "Now I've seen other bakeries doing it, too." Because of the generosity of donors, Hanisch has been able to keep all 21 of his full-time workers employed during the pandemic.

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Martin Folsom's perseverance paid off. Folsom graduated as the top student in his class at A. Philip Randolph Career Academy in Jacksonville, Florida. He overcame several obstacles to become valedictorian, including dealing with homelessness while in the 9th and 11th grades. "I never thought to myself, 'I can't do this anymore' or 'I'm done with this,'" he told News4JAX. "It's always been, well, it's happened again, and I've just got to keep myself up and keep moving forward." When he learned that he was valedictorian, "it kind of gave me a jolt in my chest a little bit, so it was a good feeling," Folsom told KABC. "It means a lot and it gives me a sense of all I've done and all I have accomplished was worth it." In the fall, he will head to Valdosta State University in Georgia, and hopes to work for the FBI after graduation.

Dr. Jasmine Kudji finished medical school alongside the woman who inspired her to be there: her mother, Dr. Cynthia Kudji Sylvester. The mother-and-daughter duo graduated in March from the University of Medicine & Health Sciences in St. Kitts. On July 1, they will launch their careers with the LSU Health System in Louisiana — Kudji Sylvester as a family medicine resident and Kudji as a general surgery resident. Kudji Sylvester previously worked as a nursing assistant, registered nurse, and nurse practitioner, and told Today that when Jasmine started college, she thought, "This is the perfect time for me to pursue my dream of being a physician." As a child, Kudji would spend time with her mom at work, and she says it "was just natural" for her to go into the medical field. They kept each other motivated during medical school, Kudji said, and she was glad they could "rely on each other throughout the entire process."

The eighth grade class at the Waldorf School in Santa Fe found a different way to celebrate the end of middle school, donating money raised for a rafting trip to help the Navajo Nation, which has been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic. Parent Jess Falkenhagen suggested using the $2,800 they raised to buy supplies for the Navajo Nation, which in May had more coronavirus cases per capita than any state. She spoke with Navajo leaders to determine what was urgently needed, and then got to work collecting the items, from diapers to medicine to bottled water. Falkenhagen and her daughters drove to Window Rock, Arizona, to make the delivery on behalf of the class. Their teacher, Daisy Barnard, told CNN this is "a very generous and compassionate group of teens. They have been raised to think outside their own immediate lives and it shows in moments like this."

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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.