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One photo captures the power of a teacher's support — and it's making the rounds.

One photo captures the power of a teacher's support — and it's making the rounds.

The end of a school semester is like one big juggling act.

Between studying, final exams, and facing those research papers you've been putting off for a month, it can feel daunting to get through it all. And that doesn't even include what's happening in life outside the classroom.

Like ... finishing school and parenting at the same time!

When Monica Willard, an ROTC student and single mother of two, found out her kids' babysitter had to cancel right before she was supposed to take her final military history exam, she thought for sure she was dropping the ball on both her academics and her parenting.

Just trying to keep it all together. GIF via Channel Frederator.

After all, it's hard enough to get kids to be quiet at home, let alone when you're trying to focus on your academics in a public setting. But Willard knew she had no other choice. She took her 4- and 5-year-olds to school with her and hoped for the best.

Willard's professor, Dr. Daniel Krebs, was not only understanding of her situation, he offered to babysit her kids while she took her test.

By the end of the final exam, her kids were having a blast, as evidenced by this photo captured by a fellow classmate.

Krebs' nice gesture could have just saved Willard's focus – and her semester. But he doesn't want to take credit.

“A person like Monica, she’s a non-commissioned officer going to school, she’s a Mom of two kids. I mean that’s the kind of thing that’s really impressive,” Krebs told ABC News. “Me handling her kids for 40, 45 minutes, that’s not impressive.”

Regardless, it's an act of kindness that goes a long way, and it uncovers a bigger problem that many students face: the accessibility of child care in the United States.

Child care center costs are at an all-time high, ranging from around $3,500 to up to $19,000 a year, according to the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies. In Indiana, a single parent with two kids pays 73% of their income to child care centers. That's not sustainable — that's ridiculous.

There are some colleges that are beginning to recognize the problem and offer on-campus child care solutions, though. Organizations like the American Association of University Women are pushing for more to follow suit.

Women, men, and families shouldn't have to choose between accessing child care and getting an education. While there's a lot of work to be done on that front, it's heartwarming to see heroes like Dr. Krebs demonstrate that the support of teachers extends far beyond the classroom.

We've all have had a compassionate teacher like Dr. Krebs. Let's celebrate them!

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How do you convince people to vote? A marketing writer shares her attention-getting secrets

Photo by Jennifer Griffin on Unsplash
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Anne Hebert, a marketing writer living in Austin, TX, jokes that her closest friends think that her hobby is "low-key harassment for social good". She authors a website devoted entirely to People Doing Good Things. She's hosted a yearly canned food drive with up to 150 people stopping by to donate, resulting in hundreds of pounds of donations to take to the food bank for the past decade.

"I try to share info in a positive way that gives people hope and makes them aware of solutions or things they can do to try to make the world a little better," she said.

For now, she's encouraging people through a barrage of persistent, informative, and entertaining emails with one goal in mind: getting people to VOTE. The thing about emailing people and talking about politics, according to Hebert, is to catch their attention—which is how lice got involved.

"When my kids were in elementary school, I was class parent for a year, which meant I had to send the emails to the other parents. As I've learned over the years, a good intro will trick your audience into reading the rest of the email. In fact, another parent told me that my emails always stood out, especially the one that started: 'We need volunteers for the Valentine's Party...oh, and LICE.'"

Hebert isn't working with a specific organization. She is simply trying to motivate others to find ways to plug in to help get out the vote.

Photo by Phillip Goldsberry on Unsplash

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'Back to the Future' actor has a hilarious card for fans with questions about the movie

via KrustyKhajiit / YouTube

Thomas F. Wilson played one of the most recognizable villains in film history, Biff Tannen, in the "Back to the Future" series. So, understandably, he gets recognized wherever he goes for the iconic role.

The attention must be nice, but it has to get exhausting answering the same questions day in and day out about the films. So Wilson created a card that he carries with him to hand out to people that answers all the questions he gets asked on a daily basis.

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This Harlem chef is cooking up international dishes to strengthen his local community

Courtesy of FIELDTRIP
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The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected diverse communities due largely in part to social factors such as inadequate access to housing, income, dietary options, education and employment — all of which have been shown to affect people's physical health.

Recognizing that inequity, Harlem-based chef JJ Johnson sought out to help his community maximize its health during the pandemic — one grain at a time.

Johnson manages FIELDTRIP, a health-focused restaurant that strives to bring people together through the celebration of rice, a grain found in cuisines of countless cultures.

"It was very important for me to show the world that places like Harlem want access to more health-conscious foods," Johnson said. "The people who live in Harlem should have the option to eat fresh, locally farmed and delicious food that other communities have access to."

Lack of education and access to those healthy food options is a primary driver of why 31% of adults in Harlem are struggling with obesity — the highest rate of any neighborhood in New York City and 7% higher than the average adult obesity rate across the five boroughs.

Obesity increases risk for heart disease or diabetes, which in turn leaves Harlem's residents — who are 76% Black or LatinX — at heightened risk for complications with COVID-19.

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A U.S. Senate candidate asked people to prove her racist assertion wrong. And boy, did they ever.

Lauren Witzke, viet thanh nguyen/Twitter

Sometimes a politician says or does something so brazenly gross that you have to do a double take to make sure it really happened. Take, for instance, this tweet from Lauren Witzke, a GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate from Delaware. Witzke defeated the party's endorsed candidate to win the primary, has been photographed in a QAnon t-shirt, supports the conspiracy theory that 9/11 was a U.S. government inside operation, and has called herself a flat earther.

So that's neat.

Witzke has also proposed a 10-year total halt on immigration to the U.S., which is absurd on its face, but makes sense when you see what she believes about immigrants. In a tweet this week, Witzke wrote, "Most third-world migrants can not assimilate into civil societies. Prove me wrong."

First, let's talk about how "civil societies" and developing nations are not different things, and to imply that they are is racist, xenophobic, and wrong. Not to mention, it has never been a thing to refer people using terms like "third-world." That's a somewhat outdated term for developing nations, and it was never an adjective to describe people from those nations even when it was in use.

Next, let's see how Twitter thwapped Lauren Witzke straight into the 21st century by proving her wrong in the most delicious way. Not only did people share how they or their relatives and friends have successfully "assimilated," but many showed that they went way, way beyond that.

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Disney has added new 'negative racial depictions' warnings to six of its classic films

via WatchMojo / YouTube

There are two conflicting viewpoints when it comes to addressing culture from that past that contains offensive elements that would never be acceptable today.

Some believe that old films, TV shows, music or books with out-of-date, offensive elements should be hidden from public view. While others think they should be used as valuable tools that help us learn from the past.

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