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A safe, stable home can change lives for the better. Here’s how Habitat for Humanity wants to make that possible for everyone.
Better health, better jobs, and a brighter future all start with access to a safe, affordable home.
A single door can open up a world of endless possibilities. For homeowners, the front door of their house is a gateway to financial stability, job security, and better health. Yet for many, that door remains closed. Due to the rising costs of housing, 1 in 3 people around the world wake up without the security of safe, affordable housing.
Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity has made it their mission to unlock and open the door to opportunity for families everywhere, and their efforts have paid off in a big way. Through their work over the past 50 years, more than 65 million people have gained access to new or improved housing, and the movement continues to gain momentum. Since 2011 alone, Habitat for Humanity has expanded access to affordable housing by a hundredfold.
A world where everyone has access to a decent home is becoming a reality, but there’s still much to do. As they celebrate 50 years of building, Habitat for Humanity is inviting people of all backgrounds and talents to be part of what comes next through Let’s Open the Door, a global campaign that builds on this momentum and encourages people everywhere to help expand access to safe, affordable housing for those who need it most. Here’s how the foundation to a better world starts with housing, and how everyone can pitch in to make it happen.
Volunteers raise a wall for the framework of a new home during the first day of building at Habitat for Humanity’s 2025 Carter Work Project. Globally, almost 3 billion people, including 1 in 6 U.S. families, struggle with high costs and other challenges related to housing. A crisis in itself, this also creates larger problems that affect families and communities in unexpected ways. People who lack affordable, stable housing are also more likely to experience financial hardship in other areas of their lives, since a larger share of their income often goes toward rent, utilities, and frequent moves. They are also more likely to experience health problems due to chronic stress or environmental factors, such as mold. Housing insecurity also goes hand-in-hand with unstable employment, since people may need to move further from their jobs or switch jobs altogether to offset the cost of housing.
Affordable homeownership creates a stable foundation for families to thrive, reducing stress and increasing the likelihood for good health and stable employment. Habitat for Humanity builds and repairs homes with individual families, but it also strengthens entire communities as well. The MicroBuild® Initiative, for example, strengthens communities by increasing access to loans for low-income families seeking to build or repair their homes. Habitat ReStore locations provide affordable appliances and building materials to local communities, in addition to creating job and volunteer opportunities that support neighborhood growth.
Marsha and her son pose for a photo while building their future home with Southern Crescent Habitat for Humanity in Georgia. Everyone can play a part in the fight for housing equity and the pursuit of a better world. Over the past 50 years, Habitat for Humanity has become a leader in global housing thanks to an engaged network of volunteers—but you don’t need to be skilled with a hammer to make a meaningful impact. Building an equitable future means calling on a wide range of people and talents.
Here’s how you can get involved in the global housing movement:- Speaking up on social media about the growing housing crisis
- Volunteering on a Habitat for Humanity build in your local community
- Travel and build with Habitat in the U.S. or in one of 60+ countries where we work around the globe
- Join the Let’s Open the Door movement and, when you donate, you can create your own personalized door
- Shop or donate at your local Habitat ReStore
Every action, big and small, drives a global movement toward a better future. A safe home unlocks opportunity for families and communities alike, but it’s volunteers and other supporters, working together with a shared vision, who can open the door for everyone.
Visit habitat.org/open-door to learn more and get involved today.
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Strong 71-year-old woman is showing that heavy weightlifting is for seniors. Doctors agree.
“I don’t lift for my age – I lift for my life.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Emmie Sanh was at a low point. She didn’t feel good, barely exercised, and was tasked with caring for her aging mother. Like many people, she realized her life needed to change, so she decided to take up weight training. Here’s the thing, though: she started at the ripe young age of 68.
Now Sanh’s commitment to strength training has gotten her noticed, with many people inspired by the videos she uploads to her social media. Commenters have remarked on her energy level and have been impressed by the number of squats, curls, lunges, and other weight-room exercises she showcases.
“If you told me 50 years ago that I’d be lifting heavier than ever and feeling my most energetic at 71, I never would’ve believed you – but here I am,” Sanh told Women’s Health. “Getting older is inevitable but weakness is optional, and I’m so grateful that I get to do hard things at 71. After all, I don’t lift for my age – I lift for my life.”
Why many doctors recommend weight training for seniors
Understandably, many people consider weight training to be a younger person’s game. Typically, many older adults become weaker and lose size or stature, making weight training look like it’s for younger people. But that is precisely why many doctors recommend that adults include more weight training and resistance exercise as they get older.
Studies have found that heavy weight training by seniors can benefit their lives. Such strength training can help prevent muscle mass from deteriorating and can improve mobility. Muscles build, tendons get stronger, and bone density increases. Building bone density is important as a person ages, helping reduce the risk of osteoporosis.
What weight training exercises should seniors try?
Personal trainers who spoke to Upworthy offered exercise recommendations and tips for seniors who want to head to the weight room.
United States Marine Corps veteran and professional trainer Victor Kanashiro suggests Smith machines as a great place for older lifters to start.
“A few examples of safe heavy weightlifting exercises for older adults include Smith machine squats, Smith machine bench press, and Smith machine rows are effective options,” said Kanashiro. “These movements provide the benefits of compound barbell lifting while adding built-in safety features like adjustable safety stops, which help reduce the risk of injury and make heavy lifting more accessible.”
Strength and fitness trainer Allison Kalsched echoed that weightlifting machines can offer more stability and safety. Kalsched also recommends that older lifters start much lighter than they might think, as they are not in the same bodies they were in during their 20s.
“I would always suggest starting simple with the basic movements such as squats, pulling movements, pushing movements and carrying weights while walking,” said Kalsched. “These moves mimic the activities we all have to complete to be an active participant in life, so training in the gym should prepare us for a long and strong life.”
Other workout tips
Kalsched also mentioned that seniors can check their eligibility for SilverSneakers through Medicare to receive free memberships to participating gyms. On top of that, she recommends a private session with a personal trainer for exercise guidance. If they cannot afford it long term, one or two sessions should be enough to help a senior learn a routine and proper form so they can continue their fitness journey independently, if they wish.
To keep your golden years golden, it is worth going to the gym to lift some iron.
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Philosopher Socrates offered the perfect advice for anyone struggling with self-identity
He shared his ancient advice to “find yourself.”
Struggling to find a sense of self is part of the human condition. What makes each person unique and “themself” is a complex topic in psychology and philosophy.
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), identity is defined by two major aspects. The first: “A set of physical, psychological, and interpersonal characteristics that is not wholly shared with any other person.”
And the second: “A range of affiliations (e.g., ethnicity) and social roles. Identity involves a sense of continuity, or the feeling that one is the same person today that one was yesterday or last year (despite physical or other changes).”
The APA adds that it is also “derived from one’s body sensations; one’s body image; and the feeling that one’s memories, goals, values, expectations, and beliefs belong to the self.”
Greek philosopher Socrates addressed the human struggle with self-identity and self-knowledge—”to know thyself”—and he offered a simple sentence to help.
Socrates’ advice on self-identity
According to Socrates, the key to self-knowledge starts in your brain:
“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think. To find yourself, think for yourself.”
In the book Socrates and Self-Knowledge, author and professor of Philosophy and Classics at The Pennsylvania State University specializing in ancient Greek philosophy, Christopher Moore, theorizes that Socrates based “knowing thyself” on questioning one’s self.
He writes, “a person can be said to have self-knowledge whenever he knows the truth of a statement in which there is reference to himself.”
However, this does note solely require self introspection. Moore argues self-knowledge is actually best achieved with the help of others. “Socrates, at the end of his long speech in Plato’s Phaedrus, urges his friend to dedicate his life single-mindedly to ‘love accompanied by philosophical talk’,” adding that “self-knowledge comes about through conversation with others, and
that self-knowledge is akin to knowledge of others.”Moore concludes: “Socratic self-knowledge means working on oneself, with others, to become the sort of person who could know himself, and thus be responsible to the world, to others, and to oneself, intellectually, morally, and practically.”
How to tap into your inner-Socrates
In a podcast episode with Yale psychology professor Dr. Laurie Santos, fellow Yale professor and philosopher Tamar Gendler explained how to apply Socrates’ lessons into your personal life to help better understand your self-knowledge. She explains that, according to Socrates, self-knowledge is a paradox.
“To know ourselves is to not know ourselves,” says Gendler. “It is to know that in many ways we do not have direct access to our motivations, that we do not have direct access to what it is that we are actually responding to when we do something. And it’s an endless process of engaging in Socratic self-question.
To tap into that inner-Socrates, she says there is an inner dialogue looks something like this:
“Why do you think that?”
“Is it possible that you think that for a different reason?”
“Is it possible that even though you assume you value that, actually that’s just an old habit that you haven’t questioned?”
“Is it possible that you think you’re responding to a person, and in fact you’re responding to a stereotype about people of that kind?”
Dr. Santos adds that harnessing your inner-Socrates isn’t always comfortable, and involves “intentionally questioning why you think certain things, and why you take certain actions. It also involves admitting that you probably aren’t as smart as you think you are.”
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Heckler flirts with comedian on stage and it turns into a surprise masterclass on romantic chemistry
“… and, that is how I met your mother.”
Dealing with hecklers just comes with the territory of being a comedian. But flirting with them? That wasn’t something Rebecca Reingold had prepared for.
On March 11, the New York City-based stand-up comic uploaded a recent set to her Instagram aptly captioned “We found love in a hopeless place (a comedy club).”
In the now-viral clip, Reingold shared a bit about not being “good” at flirting with men, saying that she would inadvertently “be mean” to them “because they liked it.”
Playful roasting turns into something more
Microphone against a blurry backdrop Photo credit: Canva Then, during the set, someone from the crowd must have been talking too enthusiastically, because Reingold playfully called them out for being loud. This someone, a man, responded that he was with his parents at the show, to which Reingold quipped, “You look bad. Your parents look a lot younger than you.”
Without missing a beat, the man in the audience responded that, given the logic she gave just moments earlier, she must like him, since she was throwing shots at him.
“Oh yeah, you’re right! That does mean I like you! You were listening. Oh my god, I’m in love,” said Reingold, blushing. “You’re so annoying but so loveable so its so tough, you know what I mean?”
The Internet wastes no time weighing in
Over 16 million viewers later, and people were applauding both Reingold’s ability to go with the flow, and this mysterious man’s mad game. Many were hoping that this became an actual meet-cute.
“Damn she really turned red when she realised he listened.”
“You handled this so well 👏🙌”
“… and, that is how I met your mother.”
“The fact that he did not drop the ‘I’ll shut up in exchange for your number’ line is mind boggling to me.”
“So when’s the wedding. Lol”
Romantic antagonism IRL
Perhaps people were rallying for this interaction to lead to romantic entanglement because it resembles the ever-popular enemies-to-lovers trope found in countless rom-coms and romantasies. This dynamic of building attraction through animosity and tension makes for great entertainment…but does it make for healthy relationships in real life? The annoying but accurate answer is, of course: it depends.
Primarily, it depends on a) whether both partners are enjoying the teasing and b) whether the jokes are landing in sensitive territory. If both those parameters are met, it can become its own love language. If not, then it can foster resentment.
This can obviously become even more complicated when it comes to flirting, since there is already a lot of indirect language happening between strangers. But at least in this case it looked like everyone was having a good time.
Sadly, it has yet to be revealed whether or not Reingold and this heckler ever did connect after the show. We’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, be sure to give her a follow on Instagram to stay tuned on both her comedy stylings and, perhaps, her love life.
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Man strokes strange woman’s hair as she slept in hilariously embarrassing mixup
“I legitimately did not see that ending coming.”
After a stressful day, it can be soothing for a loved one to stroke your hair as you relax. It’s a sweet gesture that can make the one on the receiving end feel cared for, which is exactly what this dad was attempting to do. But as he finished comforting his wife, he got the shock of a lifetime when another man walked in—her husband.
Tyson Popplestone is a father of three, but he says he’s lucky to have escaped the birth of his last child. The dad recently took to social media to do the popular “put a finger down” challenge about the birth of his youngest. No one could’ve predicted the wild ride the tired dad was going to take everyone on.
Man kissing woman’s head in hospital bed
Photo credit: CanvaThe video starts normally enough, with Popplestone explaining that his wife had just given birth to their third child. Giving birth requires a lot of energy, so she asks him to go home and cook up her favorite meal. Everything seems normal up until this point in the challenge. He goes home, cooks the meal, packs it up, and heads back to provide his wife sustenance and support.
Popplestone returns to find his wife asleep in the bed. Instead of waking her, he sets the food down, sits next to her, picks up the fussy baby, and begins stroking his wife’s hair. Clearly, the woman is exhausted because she doesn’t stir, but this is to be expected after such a big event. Plus, the room is completely dark. Perfect conditions for napping.
Man and woman sleeping in hospital bed
Photo credit: Canva“You know she’s not going to get much sleep in the next few weeks, so you just let her sleep,” Popplestone says. “But then, your brand-new baby starts to cry, so you pick it up, and then you go over and just sit down next to your wife and stroke her hair for 40 minutes. And then, after 40 minutes, a strange man walks into the room and says, ‘What the hell is going on here?’”
The strange man flips on the light to find Popplestone holding his child and stroking his wife’s hair. When Popplestone realized that he was indeed stroking the hair of someone else’s wife while holding someone else’s baby, all he could do was apologize. He handed the strange baby to the strange man while trying to explain that the hospital must have forgotten to inform him of the room change.
“No one wants to hear what you’re saying because everyone just assumes you’re a massive psycho,” Popplestone laments.
Viewers of his “put a finger down challenge” cannot get over the wild turn the story took. One person writes, “I was NOT ready for the plot twist.”
Someone else says, “I legitimately did not see that ending coming.”
Another jokes, “Meanwhile your wife is hungry and you’re out there stroking some other lady’s hair.”
Man rubbing woman’s head in hospital bed
Photo credit: Canva“Tell the part where you explained this to your wife as she has to eat her favorite meal cold. I would be EMOTIONAL haha,” this person laughs.
“This video is impressive because it’s been a pretty long time since I’ve felt such strong secondhand stress from a reel,” another person says.
“I hope that stranger mama, whose hair you stroked, gets to see this and finally believes the wacky “story” her husband has been telling everyone for years and is finally believed! Too good,” someone else adds.
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40-something woman who grew up in foster care beats the odds in college graduation video
Less than 5 percent of people in foster care go on to get a bachelor’s degree.
Jade Tompkins, who goes by @Craftyhag on social media, made a simple video on TikTok. In a moment of pure vulnerability, she humbly shared her story. What she might have felt was merely a cool accomplishment feels, to many of us watching, like a triumph.
In the clip, she sits at a table in a simple gray sweater with yellow flowers, holding colorful ropes. Looking straight into the camera, she asks, “You guys wanna see something cool? I don’t have a lot of friends, or at least people who can be proud of me, I guess. I’m 40-something, and I get to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in a few weeks or a month, I guess.”
Beating the odds
Tompkins takes a slight pause and adds, “I grew up in foster care, and a lot of people might not know this. But people in foster care–like less than 2 percent of them, I looked it up–of people in foster care go on to get a bachelor’s degree. I don’t know, maybe it’s just because I’m older.”
And Tompkins is right. The numbers for people who experience life in foster care are extremely challenging. More recent numbers say only about 3-4% of people with a background in foster care end up graduating with a bachelor’s degree, compared with more than 30% of the general population, according to research.
She takes a breath, seemingly letting the information she just shared sink in, even for herself. “Anyway, I just wanted to show you guys. I don’t even know if I’m gonna go to graduation, but I still got the stuff just in case.” She holds up a red, satin-looking sash. “This is my stole thing. And I got all these cords. And if I do go, I don’t know if I’m gonna wear them or not.”
Her achievements are nothing short of incredible. “My grades are really good. I have almost a 3.9. And I’ve worked full time since I’ve been doing it, so that feels like a big accomplishment. And I joined student associations and stuff.”
“You’re never too old to set another goal”
Picking up her graduation hat, she shows off the colorful writing on top. “So this is my graduation hat. I had it made. It says, ‘You’re never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.’ So I thought that was kind of appropriate. And I already got accepted to a Master’s program, so I think that’s kind of cool.”
She ends the video as humbly as she began it. “Anyway, I just wanted to share because I don’t really have a lot of people to share it with. And I guess if anyone sees it and thinks, ‘Hey, I should go back to school,’ and you have the means or the dream or wish to do it and think you can, whatever. I don’t know. Just thought I’d share.”
“Walk for all of us!”
Her story was exactly what a lot of people needed to hear. On TikTok alone, she has nearly 850,000 likes and almost 70,000 comments.
“Foster kid to foster kid, please walk,” one person shared. “Walk for all of us! Walk for those of us that are still trying to find out confidence. Walk for those of us that are not sure if we should dream. Walk for those of us that want to see our own kind SHINE. Your shine will help to light another’s pathway. I can say that the Class of Foster Kids, we are proud of you! Keep going.”
Even some corporations, like Hilton (and many others), jumped into the chat. They sent her a little gift, writing, “Jade, milestones like this deserve to be celebrated. DMing you as we’d like to send something sweet your way.”
This TikToker might have summed up what so many seem to think: “1. You’re f-ing awesome! 2. That cap is f-ing awesome. 3. Damn, that’s a lot of cords. 4. Your TikTok friends are f-ing proud of you!”
According to an update posted just under a month later, Tompkins did attend and “walk” at graduation. Chyroned over a meme, she writes, “Me deciding to go to graduation because 700,000 people convinced me to go.”
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She got fired from her bank job on the way home, sat on the train, said a prayer. Her phone rang 15 seconds later.
Sometimes the way you treat people at the job you lost is what gets you the next one.
She had just been let go from her job as a bank teller. The mistake was an $800 error she couldn’t fix, and when she came back to work her manager told her she was done. She got on the train home feeling “so sad,” as she put it, and cried.
Then, instead of sitting with the loss, she prayed. Not a prayer asking for something, but one offering thanks. “God, thank you so much for allowing me to have this job for so long,” she said quietly. She put on a worship song.
Fifteen seconds later, her phone rang.
A woman looks at her cell phone. Photo credit: Canva The man on the other end had a cheerful voice. His sister, he explained, had worked with her at the bank and spoken highly of her, perticularly her kindness and her service. Based on that, he thought she’d be a good fit for his company. She got the job that same day.
The woman, who shares the story on TikTok under the handle @ashp_tv, posted about it in March and it spread quickly. The timing is the part that gets people because it’s not just that something good followed something hard, but how fast it happened, and that the call came specifically because someone had noticed how she’d treated people at the job she’d just lost.
“All you need is faith,” she said. Whether you take that literally or as shorthand for something more like trust and openness, the story holds up either way.
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A middle school Greek history simulation asked girls to act subservient to boys for weeks. One mom asked a simple question: was this necessary?
“How would you feel if your 13-year-old daughter came home with a paper saying she couldn’t enter a classroom without a boy escort and would be required to pick up after them every day?”
A seventh-grade class at a middle school was assigned a simulation of ancient Greek society. Students got Greek names, learned to wear Greek clothes, built temples, represented city-states, staged short dramas, and participated in Olympic events. By most measures, an unusually creative history project.
It also required the girls to demonstrate their “secondary position.” They couldn’t enter the classroom without a male escort. They were expected to clean up after the boys each day.
Nico, who goes by @nicorette on TikTok, found out about it when her 13-year-old daughter came home from school and told her it had made her uncomfortable. Nico posted about it, and the video spread.
“How would you feel if your 13-year-old daughter came home with a paper that said they wouldn’t be able to enter a classroom without a boy escort and would be required to pick up after them every day?” she asked. She was clear that she liked a lot of what the project was trying to do, like the Greek names, the costumes, and the intellectual discussions so that just made the subservience requirement harder to explain away. “So why was this even necessary?” she asked.
Middle school students working quietly. Photo credit: Canva The comments split in predictable directions but a few stood out. One viewer defended the assignment, arguing it could help female students understand how far women’s rights have come and how quickly they can erode. A commenter who identified as a teacher pushed back harder: “I wrote my master’s thesis about classroom simulations. They only work if the power dynamics stay equal among students.” Another drew a sharper comparison: requiring girls to perform submission to boys isn’t meaningfully different from asking Black students to perform submission to white ones.
That last analogy tends to clarify things pretty quickly. The goal of a history simulation is to understand the past, not to rehearse it on the bodies of kids who are still figuring out who they are.
Nico said the school office was closed by the time her daughter got home. She was planning to raise it with administrators the next day.
You can follow Nico at @nicorette on TikTok for more parenting content.
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Tenant got a $2,500 check in the mail from an ex-landlord who sold the house.The note that came with it is something else.
A former landlord tracked down every tenant they’d ever had after selling their house and mailed them each a check.
Chris Robarge had rented a house after his divorce, his first place on his own during a hard stretch of his life. He paid his rent, eventually moved on, and didn’t think much more about it.
Then, years later, his former landlord reached out asking for his current address. A day later, a check for $2,500 arrived in the mail with a handwritten note.
The landlord had sold the house. And before keeping the profit, they tracked down every tenant who had ever lived there because, as the note explained, those monthly rent payments had helped pay off the mortgage. The tenants had contributed to the equity. It only seemed right to give some of it back.
“While it’s not much, it’s yours,” the letter read. “It was a great house, and I’m glad that I was able to share it with you.”
Chris posted about it on Facebook, where it spread quickly partly because people were so unused to a landlord story going this direction. He wrote that there’s a difference between people who talk about their values and people who actually live them, and that this was the clearest example of the latter he’d ever seen personally. “Do it off the clock, do it when no one is watching, do it always,” he wrote.
A man hands out cash to someone. Photo credit: Canva He kept $500 to fix his car. The rest he gave away to Black and Pink Massachusetts, to free fridges in Worcester, to OurStory Edutainment, and directly to people on the street who needed it. He turned an unexpected windfall into a chain of smaller ones.
One Facebook commenter said she’d started reading the post braced for bad news like a surprise bill or some old debt being called in, and was so conditioned to that outcome that the actual ending genuinely shocked her. Which is maybe the most telling part of the whole story.
You can follow Chris Robarge on Facebook.
Heckler flirts with comedian on stage and it turns into a surprise masterclass on romantic chemistry
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