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“A balm for the soul”
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Stand Together
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Stand Together Against Poverty

He was looking at a life sentence. Now he's giving others a second chance.

He was looking at a life sentence. Now he's giving others a second chance.
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Stand Together

At 38 years old, Dave Durocher was looking at a life sentence.

Dave Durocher. All images in this post by Upworthy and Stand Together.

He was a self-professed corruptor who'd ruined people's lives. As a high-level drug dealer, he'd already spent years in prison. After completing a two-year sentence, he immediately went back to selling drugs then was arrested again. He did a five-year prison sentence that time. Then a six-year sentence. Then a 10-year sentence. Four consecutive prison sentences.

His was the story you hear about and would think - “people like that will never change." And based on Dave's pattern of behavior, you'd be right. Being incarcerated had become a way of life for Dave. So, he decided he was going to make a name for himself on the inside." He'd always be at the top of the food chain. He'd always be calling the shots.

Unfortunately, the mentality of survival at all costs, fueled by hate worked against him. It made him more venomous which, in turn, made life in prison even more unbearable.

“Prison is a hate factory..." Dave said. “It's like high school with knives."

After completing his 10-year sentence Dave promised himself he'd never live behind bars again. But that didn't mean he was planning on changing his ways. Without an alteration in habits, mindset, or behavior, he had no plan to live a crime-free life once he got out - it was what he knew - and what he was good at. So, unfortunately, he went right back to dealing drugs shortly after being released.

"Jails aren't conducive to change, prisons aren't conducive to change," he says. "They aren't designed to be."

The same habits and behaviors he'd mastered through crime, deceit and manipulation were still there and hadn't changed. His pattern of behavior caught up to him again.

As the police closed in on him during a high-speed chase, Dave attempted to take his own life - knowing if caught, he would spend the rest of his life in prison, a place he'd promised himself he would never go back to.

He failed and was arrested yet again, which was his breaking point. Dave knew deep-down that he wanted more out of life than this revolving door of crime, death, and hate. But up to this point, he hadn't been able to break his own destructive cycle. Why would anyone give him another chance? He didn't deserve one.

He wanted to change, but didn't know how to take that first step.

“When someone is ready to change their life and says, 'I need to do something different, but I need help?' Where do you send them?" Dave said.

Faced with a life sentence (another 29 years) Dave begged for leniency in court. He'd heard about an innovative program for individuals just like him, and pleaded with the judge to be sent there as a last chance to change his life.

The judge heard his pleas and gave him a once in a lifetime opportunity to attend the program. If Dave was able to complete it, he would not have to return to prison.

"Plead guilty for all charges and I'm going to send you to Delancey Street," Dave remembers the judge saying. "If you get kicked out, I've got you for the rest of your life."

Dave couldn't take the deal fast enough. But he also quickly learned that Delancey Street, a long-term (minimum of two years) peer-to-peer life-skills and vocational training program with a focus on social responsibility, wasn't going to be easy. At first, he started sliding back into his old ways of communicating — being arrogant, pompous, giving in to his ego and encouraging others around him to slip back into negative behaviors.

One day, Dave exploded at his program leader, telling the man that he'd never get what it was like to have served time.

“He said, 'I'm not here to tell you about your past, I'm here to tell you about how to change your life,'" Dave remembers.

That was a moment he'll never forget. It helped him realize he wanted to help others, too.

Dave was mandated to stay at Delancey Street for two years. He voluntarily stayed for eight, and ran Delancey's Los Angeles facility as its Managing Director for the last 5 years of his stay.

Today, Dave is the managing director of The Other Side Academy, another long-term residential training center similar to Delancey Streetthat helps people exiting prison, or recovering from a substance use disorder, completely transform their lives and reconnect with their communities.

Dave's past embodies the sobering rate of recidivism in America. Through his own experience he knew that the programs for people who had been convicted weren't working. 30, 60, and 90-day programs aren't enough to create wholly impactful change. With recidivism as high as 70 percent (or more) among those released from prison, Dave knew that people were leaving those programs and going right back to a life of crime.

So, in 2015, when he became the Managing Director of The Other Side Academy, he vowed to change that.

The focus of the program isn't just about abstinence from substance use — which Dave calls the easy part — it involves a complete change in character and behavior. The staff helps the program participants develop integrity and accountability through work and intense peer-feedback as they run the social enterprises that generate the revenue to support the operational costs of the program.

So far, the methodology is working.

Thanks to constant peer-to-peer feedback, the opportunity to stay in the facility long-term, and a focus on underlying behavior change, within its first three years of operation, 98 percent of the program's participants have not re-offended.

The Other Side Academy doesn't take any money from outside sources — the program generates it through business enterprises they've created in-house and through partnerships with nonprofits like Stand Together.

Stand Together is an organization that seeks to break the cycle of poverty in America by developing and investing in innovative solutions that target problems at the community level. The Other Side Academy participated in Stand Together's Catalyst Program in 2018, which provides business management training and helps social entrepreneurs develop a vision for growth based on their core capabilities and partners with them to increase their impact.

Today, Stand Together is helping The Other Side Academy expand to serve more individuals in their comprehensive and immersive program by investing to help them purchase a new 160-room facility, which will enable them to grow their programming, serve and employ more individuals, and build new social enterprises.

For Dave, that assistance allows him to give as many people as possible a new lease on life.

“I spent the first half of my life helping people die," he says. "I intend on spending the rest of it helping them live."

To learn more about Dave Durocher and the Other Side Academy, check out the video below:

Stand Together invests in solving the biggest problems facing our nation today in order to unleash the potential in every individual, regardless of their zip code. By supporting social entrepreneurs like Durocher who're close to social issues like recidivism and have developed innovative solutions, the company is helping combat these issues in ways that are working. You can get involved and find a transformative org near you at Standtogetheragainstpoverty.org.

To find out which of these organizations supports your values, take this quizhere and let Stand Together do the searching for you.

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National Geographic Documentary Films
National Geographic Documentary Films
Family

Nat Geo's 'Blink' tracks a family finding beauty while facing blindness as they travel the globe

“Let's go all in and fill their visual memory with as much beauty as we can."

via Edith Lemay/NatGeo

Mia, Leo, Colin, and Laurent Pelletier pose on top of their camper van in front of adouble rainbow while in Mongolia.

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“Blink,” a new film by National Geographic Documentary Films shows how a family with four children, three of whom are going blind, embraces life in the face of an uncertain future. It’s a testament to the resilience of the Lemay-Pelletier family but also a reminder for all of us to seize the day because all our futures are uncertain.

Edith Lemay and Sébastien Pelletier are the parents of Mia, a 13-year-old girl, and three boys: Léo, 11, Colin, 9, and Laurent, 7. Over the last six years, they’ve learned that Mia and the two youngest boys have retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disease in which the cells of the retina slowly die. As the disease progresses, the person develops “tunnel vision” that shrinks until very little vision remains.

The diagnosis devastated the parents. "The hardest part with the diagnosis was inaction. There's nothing they can do about it. There's no treatment,” Edith says in the film.

However, even though the parents couldn’t affect the progress of the disease, they could give their children’s senses an epic experience that would benefit them for a lifetime.

“We don’t know how fast it’s going to go, but we expect them to be completely blind by mid-life,” said the parents. Mia’s impairment advisor suggested they fill her visual memory with pictures from books. “I thought, I’m not going to show her an elephant in a book; I’m going to take her to see a real elephant,” Edith explains in the film. “And I’m going to fill her visual memory with the best, most beautiful images I can.”

The Pelletier family (from left): Mia, Sebastien, Colin, Edith Lemay, Laurent and Leo inKuujjuaq, Canada.via National Geographic/Katie Orlinsky

This realization led to an inspiring year-long journey across 24 countries, during which every family member experienced something on their bucket list. Mia swam with dolphins, Edith rode a hot-air balloon in Cappadocia, and Léo saw elephants on safari.

Colin realized his dream of sleeping on a moving train while Sébastien saw the historic site of Angkor Wat.

“We were focusing on sights,” explains Pelletier. “We were also focusing a lot on fauna and flora. We’ve seen incredible animals in Africa but also elsewhere. So we were really trying to make them see things that they wouldn’t have seen at home and have the most incredible experiences.”

Cameras followed the family for 76 days as they traveled to far-flung locales, including Namibia, Mongolia, Egypt, Laos, Nepal and Turkey. Along the way, the family made friends with local people and wildlife. In a heartbreaking scene, the boys wept as the family had to leave behind a dog named Bella he befriended in the mountains of Nepal.

But the film isn't just about the wonders of nature and family camaraderie. The family's trip becomes a “nightmare” when they are trapped in a cable car suspended hundreds of feet above the Ecuadorian forest for over 10 hours.

annapurna range, blink, nat geoLeo, Laurent, Edith, Colin, Mia, and Sebastien look out at the mountains in the Annapurna range.via MRC/Jean-Sébastien Francoeur

As expected, NatGeo’s cinematographers beautifully capture the family's journey, and in the case of “Blink,” this majestic vision is of even greater importance. In some of the film's quietest moments, we see the children taking in the world's wonders, from the vast White Desert in Egypt to a fearless butterfly in Nepal, with the full knowledge that their sight will fail one day.

Along the way, the family took as many pictures as possible to reinforce the memories they made on their adventure. “Maybe they’ll be able to look at the photographs and the pictures and they will bring back those stories, those memories, of the family together,” Edith says.

But the film is about more than travel adventures and the pain of grief; ultimately, it’s about family.

“By balancing [the parents’ grief] with a more innocent and joyous tale of childlike wonder and discovery, we felt we could go beyond a mere catalog of locations and capture something universal,” the directors Edmund Stenson and Daniel Roher, said in a statement. “Keeping our camera at kid-height and intimately close to the family, we aimed to immerse the audience in the observational realities of their daily life, as well as the subtle relationships between each of them. This is a film built on looks, gestures and tiny details—the very fabric of our relationships with one another.”

Ultimately, “Blink” is a great film to see with your loved ones because it’s a beautiful reminder to appreciate the wonders of our world, the gift of our senses and the beauty of family.

The film will open in over 150 theaters in the U.S. and Canada beginning Oct. 4 and will debut on National Geographic Channel and stream on Disney+ and Hulu later this year. Visit the “Blink” website for more information.

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'It's not Little Sun': Mom admits she's having trouble pronouncing her newborn's name

It was fine 'til other people tried to say it and now she's confused.

via JustusMoms29/TikTok (used with permission)

Justus Stroup is starting to realize her baby's name isn't that common.

One of the many surprises that come with parenthood is how the world reacts to your child’s name. It’s less of a surprise if your child has a common name like John, Mohammed, or Lisa. But if you give your child a non-traditional name that’s gender-neutral, you’re going to throw a lot of folks off-guard and mispronunciations are going to be an issue.

This exact situation happened with TikTok user Justus Stroup, who recently had her second child, but there’s a twist: she isn’t quite sure how to pronounce her child’s name either.

"I may have named my daughter a name I can't even pronounce," Stroup opens the video. "Now, I think I can pronounce it, but I've told a couple of people her name and there are two people who thought I said the same exact thing. So, I don't know that I know how to [pronounce] her name correctly."


@justusmoms29

Just when you think you name your child something normal! #2under2mom #postpartum #newborn #momsoftiktok #uniquenames #babyname #babygirl #sahm #momhumor

Stroup’s daughter is named Sutton and the big problem is how people around her pronounce the Ts. Stroup tends to gloss over the Ts, so it sounds like Suh-en. However, some people go hard on the Ts and call her “Sut-ton.”

"I'm not gonna enunciate the 'Ts' like that. It drives me absolutely nuts," she noted in her TikTok video. "I told a friend her name one time, and she goes, 'Oh, that's cute.' And then she repeated the name back to me and I was like, 'No, that is not what I said.'"

Stroup also had a problem with her 2-year-old son’s speech therapist, who thought the baby’s name was Sun and that there weren’t any Ts in the name at all. "My speech therapist, when I corrected her and spelled it out, she goes, 'You know, living out in California, I have friends who named their kids River and Ocean, so I didn't think it was that far off.'"

Stroup told People that she got the name from a TV show called “The Lying Game,” which she used to watch in high school. "Truthfully, this was never a name on my list before finding out I was pregnant with a girl, but after finding out the gender, it was a name I mentioned and my husband fell in love with," says Stroup. "I still love the name. I honestly thought I was picking a strong yet still unique name. I still find it to be a pretty name, and I love that it is gender neutral as those are the type of names I love for girls."

The mother could choose the name because her husband named their son Greyson.



The commenters thought Stroup should tell people it’s Sutton, pronounced like a button. “I hear it correctly! Sutton like Button. I would pronounce it like you, too!” Amanda wrote.

“My daughter’s name is Sutton. I say it the same way as you. When people struggle with her name, I say it’s Button but with a S. That normally immediately gets them to pronounce it correctly,” Megan added.

After the video went viral, Stroup heard from people named Hunter and Peyton, who are dealing with a similar situation. “I've also noticed the two most common names who run into the same issue are Hunter (people pronouncing it as Hunner or HUNT-ER) and Payton (pronounced Pey-Ton or Pey-tin, most prefer it as Pey-tin),” she told Upworthy.

“Another person commented saying her name is Susan and people always think it is Season or Steven,” Stroup told Upworthy. After having her second child, she learned that people mix up even the simplest names. “No name is safe at this point,” she joked.

The whole situation has Stroup rethinking how she pronounces her daughter’s name. Hopefully, she got some advance on how to tell people how to pronounce it, or else she’ll have years of correcting people in front of her. "Good lord, I did not think this was going to be my issue with this name," she said.

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Health

Interesting video explains why people looked a lot older in the past than they do today

Were people unhealthy? Did they spend too much time in the sun?

via Vsauce/YouTube

Norm was only in his 30s?

Ever look at your parents' high school yearbooks and think people looked so much older back then? All of the teenagers look like they’re in their mid-30s and the teachers who are 50 look like they’re 80.

When we watch older movies, even those from the 1980s, the teenagers appear to be a lot older as well.

Why is it that they looked so much older? Was life harder? Did people act more mature? Did they spend more time outdoors and less time playing video games? Is it their sense of fashion? Were they all smokers?

Educator Michael Stevens, who runs the super-popular Vsauce YouTube channel, explains the phenomenon in a new video called, “Did people used to look older?” In the video, he explains that people in the past appear a lot older due to a phenomenon known as retrospective aging.

When we see people in the past, they are wearing outdated styles that we associate with older people; therefore, we think they have aged rapidly. For example, a teenager in the 1950s may have been in fashion while wearing thick Buddy Holly-style glasses.

But as people age, they tend to cling to the fashion of their youth. So many people of that generation continued to wear the Buddy Holly-style glasses into their 50s. So when younger people see those glasses they see them as old people's glasses and not a hip kid from the '50s.

So in the photo from the '50s, the teen appears to look a lot older because our perspective has been tainted by time.

But it isn’t all just an illusion. Stevens also points out that people did age faster back in the day due to differences in nutrition, lifestyle and medicine.

This article originally appeared on 07.11.22

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Dad uses simple math trick to stop his 6-year-old's tantrums in their tracks

It works — and it's psychologist approved.

OPPO Find X5 Pro & Chris Liverani/Unsplash

Sometimes parenting tricks are deceptively simple.

Tantrums, meltdowns, and emotional outbursts are the bane of parents' existence.

Once they start, they're like a freight train. There seems to be almost no way to stop them other than staying calm and letting them run their course.

That is, until one dad on Reddit revealed his secret method.

A thread titled "Hack your youngster's big emotions with math" has every parent on Reddit saying, why didn't I think of that?

User u/WutTheHuck posted a simple comment on the subreddit r/daddit earlier this month.

"Heard about this recently - when your kid is having a meltdown, doing math engages a different part of their brain and helps them move past the big feelings and calm down," he writes.

"We've been doing this with our very emotional 6-yr-old, when she decides that she wants to cooperate - asking her a handful of simple addition and subtraction questions will very quickly allow her to get control of herself again and talk about her feelings."

So, basically, when the sobs and screams come on strong, having your kid tell you the answer to 3+3, or 10-7 is a good way to get them calm again, and fast.

OP goes on to call the technique "magical," and mentions that his 6-year-old is legendary in his household for her epic tantrums.

The unique trick became a popular post on the subreddit, with a few hundreds comments from dads who were intrigued and willing to give it a try.

A month later, the results are in. The math trick works wonders.

math problemsOK, we said SIMPLE mathAntoine Dautry/unsplash

What struck me as I read through r/daddit was how many follow-up threads there were that said something to the effect of:

The math trick worked!

One user wrote that when his kids woke up screaming from a nightmare, he responded with a simple addition question.

"Soon as my wife closed the door ... [my kid] wanted mommy and started yelling her head off. I remembered the math trick and went 'what's 2+2?' It worked like a charm; the screaming ceased by the second question," he said.

In a separate thread, u/LighTMan913 had a message for "whoever posted here a few days ago about having your kid do mental math when they're upset..."

"You're a mother fudging genius," he said.

"My 7-year-old got in trouble for being mean to his brother shortly before bed time. He was rolled over facing the wall in bed. Wouldn't say goodnight. Just giving mumbles into the bed that are impossible to hear for answers.

"Started with 2+2 and by the time we got to 4096 he was smiling and laughing. 5 minutes after I left the room he called me back in to tell me he thinks he figured out 4096 + 4096 and I worked him through his wrong, albeit very close, answer.

"Worked like a charm. Thank you."

It's not just random dads on the Internet. Experts agree that this method is a bona fide winner for dealing with tantrums and outbursts.

upset kidHelping kids calm down can be a challenge.Annie Spratt/Unsplash

Amy Morin, a psychotherapist and author, had this to say about the viral technique:

"When our emotions rise, our logic decreases. The more emotional we feel, the more difficult it is to think clearly.

"A simple math problem requires you to raise your logic, which automatically decreases the intensity of an emotion."

Morin says that the math trick basically boils down to a distraction. A distraction with the added bonus of re-engaging the logical side of a child's brain.

"If you do what's known as 'changing the channel' in your brain, you get your mind thinking about something else--like a math problem. When you shift your attention, your thoughts change," Morin says, adding that adults can use this concept when they're feeling overwhelmed, too.

"When a child is upset, don't talk about why they're upset or why a tantrum is inappropriate. Instead, help them change the channel in their brains and raise their logic. When everyone is calm, you can have a discussion about how the strategy works--and how they can apply it themselves when you're not available to remind them."

Now I just need to get my 4-year-old up to speed on basic addition and subtraction and I'll be made in the shade!

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Pop Culture

Weird viral photo of Adele's face exemplifies the phenomenon called the Thatcher effect

The 42-year-old optical illusion is still astounding people.

upload.wikimedia.org /Credit: Condé Nast (through Vogue Taiwan)

Prepare to get Thatcherized.

It seems that Adele is going viral once again.

Perhaps you’ve seen the image in question previously (it seems to make the rounds every couple of years). But in case you missed it—it’s Adele’s face. Normal, just upside down.

Only it’s not normal. In fact, when you turn Adele’s face right side up, what you notice is that her eyes and mouth were actually right-side up THE ENTIRE TIME, even though the entire head was upside down. So when you turn the head right side up, the eyes and mouth are now UPSIDE-DOWN—and you can’t unsee it. Do you feel like you're Alice in Wonderland yet?

Just wait. Things get even more fascinating. Especially because this optical illusion is over 40 years in the making.

Below you’ll find the Adele photo in question. Go ahead. Take a look at it. Then turn the image upside down.

adele, thatcher effect, psychology

Can't. Unsee.

scontent-lax3-2.xx.fbcdn.net

Crazy right? And just a little terrifying?

As the Facebook post explains, this mind-boggling image highlights a phenomenon known as the Thatcher effect. Our brains, so much more used to recognizing faces that are right-side up, have difficulty detecting specific changes once a face is upside down.

Seeing that everything is more or less where it should be, our brains don’t notice anything out of the ordinary in Adele’s face until we turn her face back to a normal position.

The Thatcher effect got its name from British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, on whose photograph it was first demonstrated back in 1980 by Peter Thompson, Professor of Psychology at York University.

This demonstration was one of the first to explore just how facial recognition works, and certainly the first to suggest that humans (and monkeys, it turns out) process faces on a more holistic level, rather than by individual components like lips and eyes. Since its publication, there has been a wealth of research exploring how our brain takes in both subtle and striking facial configurations.

Funny enough, it was once believed that this illusion only worked on the Prime Minister’s face. But as Adele has proven, anyone can be Thatcherized.


This article originally appeared on 8.31.23

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14-yr-old Alabama boy blew AGT judges and audience away with soulful 'You Don't Own Me'

It just got better and better.

America's Got Talent/YouTube

Reid Thomas Wilson got the coveted Golden Buzzer for his AGT performance.

Ever since American Idol gave us the one-and-only Kelly Clarkson in its first season, modern talent competitions have become a staple of television viewing. We've seen so many incredible performers come through shows like "American Idol," "The Voice," and the "Got Talent" series, but there are still some singers who manage to surprise and delight audiences with their powerful, unique voices.

For instance, 14-year-old Reid Thomas Wilson.

Reid performed Lesley Gore's 1963 hit "You Don't Own Me" on "America's Got Talent," and it's safe to say no one expected the voice that came out of a boy from Alabama who's still in braces.

Gore was only 17 when she released "You Don't Own Me" and the song has been covered by artists such as Dusty Springfield, Joan Jett and Ann Wilson over the decades, but it's never sounded quite like this. It's no wonder Howie Mandel smashed that Golden Buzzer button, rocketing Reid to the live show round of the competition.

"Well, Reid, we weren't expecting that," said judge Simon Cowell. "You know, I shut my eyes for a moment when you were singing, just to listen to your voice, and then I opened them again and there's this sweet young kid."

Howie Mandel concurred. "I was bowled over because I was surprised…first of all, you're just a 14-year-old kid from Alabama, so I would imagine—I put myself in your position—you were very nervous. And you did come off incredibly nervous, that was a surprise."

As the judges and Reid's mother pointed out, Reid was very nervous at the beginning of the audition, but he ultimately knocked it out of the park.

When Cowell asked what singer he draws inspiration from, Reid said singing legend Aretha Franklin. "Your parents must have great taste in music," said Cowell, to which Reid simply and hilariously responded, "No."

Speaking of Aretha Franklin, Reid has had some experience with virality on social media for some of his at-home singing videos, including one where he sings Franklin's "Aint' No Way." Broadway great Lea Solanga commented on the video, "What on earth????? This kid is incredible!!!!!!!!" Another video in which Reid sang part of "The Impossible Dream" prompted a wave of big-name comments as well, such as Kristin Chenoweth telling him he should audition for her Broadway Boot Camp and Boy George commenting, "Write songs. Your voice deserves new songs."

People on AGT's TikTok of Reid's audition had nothing but praise for the young singer.

"The longer he sang ,the better he got!"

"His voice is very transatlantic vintage and it's AMAZING"

"Amazing voice control. This kid is going places!"

"You could see Simon listening closely and I love it when he does that. He’s picturing success I think."

"His clarity and control at 14 years old HOLY HECK!! he deserves that golden buzzer 😭"

Reid apparently comes from a talented family. His brother, Ryley Tate Wilson, was a competitor on "The Voice" in 2023 at age 16, making it to the semi-finals before being eliminated.

Reid is definitely one to watch, with this much talent at such a young age. Watch the full AGT audition and judges' comments here:

Reid Wilson Receives The GOLDEN BUZZER For "You Don't Own Me" | Auditions | AGT 2024www.youtube.com


This article originally appeared on 7.12.24

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