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Neighbors rally to throw an epic early Halloween party for a boy with terminal cancer

Nearly 1,000 people showed up to make sure it was a lasting positive memory.

sick kids

Photo by Rohan Reddy on Unsplash

Halloween should be a time of pure joy for kids.

It’s not every day that an act of kindness looks like a parade of witches, zombies and monsters. But for the Hurdakis family, it’s one they’ll likely never forget.

According to CBC, 5-year-old Alexandros Hurdakis had undergone surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation to fight ependymoma (a brain tumor that forms in the brain or spinal cord) for most of his young life. On top of these intense and expensive therapies, Alex uses a tracheostomy tube to breathe and eats with a gastrostomy tube. Despite his challenges, nothing stops him from “lighting up a room.”

Though the treatments did help, eventually his tumor grew back, and his parents, Nick and Kira, finally received the message they had been dreading—the cancer was now terminal. The family’s GoFundMe page shared on Sept. 8 that doctors expected them to lose Alex “within a week.”

Alex’s heartfelt wish was to celebrate Halloween by seeing the monsters at the haunted house in Niagara Falls. Though doctors said Alex would have to stay close to home, the entire community stepped up to bring Halloween to him..

A lot of the credit goes to Paula Tzouanakis Anderson, a family friend who blasted the community group page on Facebook looking for some basic decorations to build a modest haunted house.

Tzouanakis Anderson received an overwhelming amount of response from people wanting to help. So much so that she asked city officials to block off the street in preparation for a bona fide block party.

Alex wished for monsters and he got them. People paraded through the street dressed as dinosaurs, witches, zombies, Freddy Krueger, Darth Vader and more. Even English bulldog Rubble from “PAW Patrol” (one of Alex's faves) showed up. There were decked-out cars and motorcycles, plus festive face painters and cotton candy vendors. It was an all-out banger, and it became possible in a little over two days.

The expected guest count was initially 200. They had somewhere around 1000.

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"I started crying," Tzouanakis Anderson told CBC on Sept. 15, the day after the party. "So many individuals came together to make this night great.”

"We never expected so many people to help out," Nick added. "It was something else. There are no words."

As for Alex, he enjoyed giving everyone high-fives well into the night, despite being tired. "[Alex] was waving to every single person in the crowd. He knew it was for him …. You could see the love in his eyes,” Tzouanakis Anderson said.

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Support from the neighborhood continued to roll in long after the party had ended, as they were able to gather donations to help the Hurdakis family cover medical expenses during such a difficult time. Halloween is a time for fun and magic, and these strangers showed up in a big way to ensure Alex wouldn’t miss out. His time might be limited, but he got to experience the pure joy of the holiday, thanks to a loving community. This is humanity at its best. If you’d like to donate to the Hurdakis family, you can find their GoFundMe page here.

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best of humanity

Women working in Africa’s cocoa farms have received business education programs for 15 years. Here’s how that benefits the entire world.

All images provided by CARE & Cargill

The impact of the CARE and Cargill partnership goes beyond empowering cocoa farmers

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Cocoa, the key ingredient found in your favorite chocolate bar, has been a highly revered food product throughout human history. It’s been used for religious ceremonies in Peru, royal feasts in England and France, traded as currency for the ancient Mayans. And considering that many of us enjoy chocolate on a regular basis (mochas and candy bars, anyone?) it seems like that love is still going strong even today.

And if you are someone who looks forward to that sweet chocolate pick-me-up on a regular basis, you likely have the women of West Africa to thank.

Women like Barbara Sika Larweh, a mother of six who works as a cocoa farmer in Larwehkrom, a community located within the Sefwi Wiawso Municipality in the Western North Region of Ghana.

care, cargill Mama Cash now empowers other women to gain independence

Nearly 60% of the world’s cocoa comes from both Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, where Barbara and other mothers make up over half of the labor force. These female cocoa farmers shoulder the same physical burden as their male counterparts—all while also running households and paying for their children to go to school. And yet, they typically don’t receive equal income. Nor do they have access to the resources that could help them achieve financial independence.

Thankfully, positive changes are taking place. Barbara’s story exemplifies the impact of programs offered by CARE and Cargill, such as Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA), which are small groups that offer low-interest loans to individuals living in poverty, helping them to build savings without going into devastating debt.

Through these initiatives, women, like Barbara, are equipped with vital knowledge like financial literacy to improve household incomes, sustainable agriculture practices that improve yields, and nutrition education to diversify their family’s diets.

“They came and trained me on the VSLA. I dedicated myself and volunteered so that I would be able to train my people, too,” Barbara explains.

Within the first year of using the programs, Barbara and the people she trained profited—earning her the nickname of “Mama Cash.”

This is no isolated event. In cocoa-growing communities supported by CARE and Cargill programming between 2019-2022, the number of households living below the national poverty line decreased by nearly 32% in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana - as a direct result of increasing and diversifying income through using these programs.

Like Barbara, who today is an executive member of the Community Development Committee, more than 2.4 million women have used their success as entrepreneurs to transform into leaders and decision-makers within their communities. Whether it’s giving most of their earnings back to their families, reducing child labor, or exponentially increasing overall farm yields, the rippling effect is profound.

The impact of the CARE and Cargill partnership goes beyond empowering cocoa farmers. The joint initiatives have fostered progress on complex global issues related to social justice, such as gender equality, climate change, and food security. By improving access to quality nutrition, water, and hygiene, the joint programs have positively influenced the cocoa communities’ well-being.

Suddenly there’s a lot more to think about the next time you eat a candy bar.

Find out more about the important partnership between CARE and Cargill here.

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Facebook group rallies to reunite members with long lost childhood items

Total strangers helped this woman find her favorite childhood toy

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Many of us associate connection with social media: connection to the world, to friends and family, and perhaps even to others who share their ideas and hobbies.

Sometimes, that connection can restore old relationships or begin new ones. For Mavis Moon, however, social media is what helped reunite her with a long-lost family member: a blue, stuffed toy dog.

Moon was raised by her grandfather, who struggled with chronic health problems. One day when they were home alone, he suffered a massive heart attack. She immediately dialed 9-1-1, and when the emergency responders who arrived on the scene recognized how traumatized she was after witnessing the event, they consoled her with a blue stuffed dog. Her grandfather eventually recovered, and from that day forward she was never without her dog. He became a member of the family.

The stuffed animal brought her security and comfort. It was such an integral part of her life that her grandfather would carry it around when she couldn’t—he could always be counted on to be in the stands at her basketball games, holding up the dog to cheer for her. That stuffed animal went everywhere she went for years, until one devastating day when she lost him at a local fair.

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Woman has wonderful response when hospital worker delivers ethnic hair products to her bed

Several hospitals are starting to carry supplies for kinky curls and its about time.

Katherine Lane|TikTok

Woman reacts to hospital providing ethnic hair products

Going to the hospital isn't fun for anybody, especially when you know you're going to be there for a few days. None of your stuff is there and you're left sporting a hospital gown while your real clothes are shoved in a bag somewhere. You're reliant on the hospital to provide everything from food to shampoo and while they can customize your food to your dietary restrictions, when it comes to hair products, you're usually stuck with whatever they have.

But all hair isn't the same and hair products made for straight fine hair won't work well for curly or kinky hair. Typically people who have kinky coils have to bring products from home but a good bit of hospital stays aren't planned, so then what?

Katherine Lane found herself in this situation recently. But when she asked for a comb to braid down her hair, she was so surprised by what was brought to her room that she recored a video and uploaded it to TikTok.

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Husband can't believe wife called him a 'jerk' for teaching daughter 'guy chores'

Is she right?

via Julien L./Unsplash

A wife is enraed that her husband taght their daughter to mow the lawn.

Everyone needs to know basic life skills no matter what gender we tend to associate with them. Sooner or later, one has to leave the nest, and mommy or daddy won’t be around to do your laundry or fix your flat tire.

Likewise, your spouse won’t always be around to make sure you have a home-cooked meal or help you turn off the water when there’s a leaky faucet. Knowing how to fix things or handle basic domestic tasks also makes economic sense. Most people can't afford to eat out every night, and plumbers are expensive.

A wonderful sense of freedom comes with being self-sufficient and not having to depend on anyone to get through the day.

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A couple in their 50s live permanently on a cruise ship because it's cheaper than a mortgage

They hope to spend around $36,000 a year.

via Pexels

The Emperor of the Seas.

Imagine retiring early and spending the rest of your life on a cruise ship visiting exotic locations, meeting interesting people and eating delectable food. It sounds fantastic, but surely it’s a billionaire’s fantasy, right?

Not according to Angelyn Burk, 53, and her husband Richard. They’re living their best life hopping from ship to ship for around $100 a night, depending on the cruise. "Cruise costs vary quite a bit, our goal is to average about $100 per night, for the couple, or less across and entire calendar year," Richard told Upworthy.

The Burks have called cruise ships their home since May 2021 and have no plans to go back to their lives as landlubbers. Angelyn took her first cruise in 1992 and it changed her goals in life forever.

“Our original plan was to stay in different countries for a month at a time and eventually retire to cruise ships as we got older,” Angelyn told 7 News. But a few years back, Angelyn crunched the numbers and realized they could start much sooner than expected.

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