10 Years Of Social Change In 1 Simple GIF

    
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2014 has been a tumultuous, watershed year!

10 Years Of Social Change In 1 Simple GIF

The battle for marriage equality in the courts is visualized in this GIF that reminds us that social change is years in the making.

Capital One

Capital One Impact Initiative

Veterans across the country are struggling to find stable housing. This affordable housing community is ensuring Los Angeles vets have a place to call home.

Courtesy of Benjamin Faust via Unsplash

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After years of service as a military nurse in the naval Marine Corps, Los Angeles, California-resident Rhonda Jackson became one of the 37,000 retired veterans in the U.S. who are currently experiencing homelessness — roughly eight percent of the entire homeless population.

"I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with no heat for two years," Jackson said. "The Department of Veterans Affairs was doing everything they could to help but I was not in a good situation."

One day in 2019, Jackson felt a sudden sense of hope for a better living arrangement when she caught wind of the ongoing construction of Veteran's Village in Carson, California — a 51-unit affordable housing development with one, two and three-bedroom apartments and supportive services to residents through a partnership with U.S.VETS.

Her feelings of hope quickly blossomed into a vision for her future when she learned that Veteran's Village was taking applications for residents to move in later that year after construction was complete.

"I was entered into a lottery and I just said to myself, 'Okay, this is going to work out,'" Jackson said. "The next thing I knew, I had won the lottery — in more ways than one."

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Capital One

Capital One Impact Initiative

Veterans across the country are struggling to find stable housing. This affordable housing community is ensuring Los Angeles vets have a place to call home.

Courtesy of Benjamin Faust via Unsplash

True

"I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with no heat for two years," Jackson said. "The Department of Veterans Affairs was doing everything they could to help but I was not in a good situation."

"I was entered into a lottery and I just said to myself, 'Okay, this is going to work out,'" Jackson said. "The next thing I knew, I had won the lottery — in more ways than one."

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veterans

Capital One

Capital One Impact Initiative

How one business is helping create a safety net for restaurants this winter

Courtesy of Maketto

Maketto, a communal marketplace located in Washington D.C. that combines retail, restaurant and cafe experiences.

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As the cold, dark days of winter carry on, restaurants all over the country are struggling to keep patrons coming in the proverbial door. Despite expensive and elaborate upgrades to help make restaurant dining safer, the one-two punch of the pandemic and frigid temperatures has done a number on restaurants' cash flow. Already, 17% of all restaurants in the United States have permanently closed since the start of the pandemic.

The National Restaurant Association described the industry as being "in an economic free-fall" in their plea to the U.S. House of Representatives, for some economic relief. If no help is received, they expect 58% of restaurants to continue furloughs and layoffs in the first quarter of the year.

There are, however, some big businesses doing their part to support the restaurant industry in its time of need. Capital One, for example, is taking a multi-pronged approach to helping the restaurant industry. One of those initiatives is providing over 30 restaurants nationwide with funding to safely and successfully winterize their outdoor dining options so they can stay open and keep their occupancy up.

"Restaurants are anchors in the communities in which we live and work, which is why we're providing them support so they can better access the tools they need to survive these difficult winter months," says Monica Bauder, Head of Cardholder Access at Capital One. "At Capital One, the dining industry has always been an important community to us and we want to continue to find ways to help them through this difficult time."

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Parents share their kids' hilarious reactions to learning about how sex works

Photo by Cassidy Dickens on Unsplash, @meganmuircoyle/Twitter, @Laruazaugg/Twitter

One of the greatest parenting milestones is the day you get to explain to your children the basics of sex. Sometimes that day arrives because a kid bluntly asks how babies are made, sometimes parents bring it up so their kids to hear it from them before they hear it from other people, and sometimes it's a result of an unexpected encounter (like a kid walking in on their parents doing the deed).

However you arrive at it, that initial conversation is always interesting. No matter how prepared you think you are, some awkward hilarity is inevitable as you navigate those new waters. Sex is pretty simple on the one hand, but quite complicated on the other, and figuring what details to share at what stage is a tricky balancing act.

Some kids are open and curious and ask a million questions. Some kids are quiet and reserved and process it all in their own sweet time. But the first reaction of most pre-pubescent kids when they first hear about the mechanics of sex, even if you introduce it in a sex-positive way, is something along the lines of "What?? Are you serious? EW." And when they connect the dots that their parents had sex in order for them to be alive, the reaction gets even funnier.

A thread on Twitter illustrates how true this is as parents share their children's reactions to hearing about the birds and the bees.

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Aerial camera captures dolphins hanging out with a huge aggregation of Florida manatees

See Through Canoe/YouTube

An aerial camera caught a delightful sight off the coast of St. Petersburg, Florida last week, as a small pod of dolphins swam through a huge aggregation of manatees. As the dolphins make their way through the shallow waters, we see around 170 manatees just chilling, as manatees do. Then we get to see the dolphins show off their playfulness, as dolphins do.

The marine mammal mingling is particularly meaningful knowing how the manatee has struggled for survival.

170 Manatees and Some Jumping Dolphins in St Petersburg, FL www.youtube.com

Florida manatees became protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1973, when their numbers were estimated to be between 800 and 1,000. By 1991, their population was still less than 1,300. But dedicated conservation and rehabilitation efforts in recent decades have increased that number to around 6,300. Manatees in Florida currently make up around half of the world's total manatee population.

The increase in numbers does come with a couple of caveats, however. Manatee populations are notoriously difficult to count accurately, so estimates are just that. The manatee was downgraded from "endangered" to "threatened" in 2017, but some advocates said that designation is misleading because the threats to its survival are still just as much of a problem.

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