This teacher promised to always support her students — years later she went the extra mile.

    
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This teacher promised to always support her students — years later she went the extra mile.

Being an educator is a profession, but most people who choose to be teachers aren’t there for the money.

Their career choice comes from a deep need to nurture and develop their students and communities.

Recently, Chicago teacher LaShonda Carter showed how being an educator goes well beyond what happens in the classroom.

Carter was up late on the morning of August 23rd and received a message on Facebook from Larresha Plummer, 18, a former student at Harper High School. “We always talk, even though I left Harper, I still keep in contact with all of my students,” Carter said told CNN.

Photo by LasShonda Carter/GoFundMe

Plummer has a three-week old baby named Taliyah and was struggling to get by. She wanted to attend a job fair the next day, but didn’t have a ride or anyone to babysit.

“There was no way I would have let her take a baby in a bus, I told her right away that I would pick her up in the morning,” Carter told CNN.

Hours later, Carter picked up Plummer and Taliyah and drove them to the job fair. She sat with the baby in her car while Plummer filled out job applications. Carter posted a video on Facebook to ask for help for Plummer and her baby.

“I’m reaching out because I need you alls help. I need my village because this beautiful little baby needs some things,” Carter said. “I'm going to do what I can as much as I can as an educator.”

The Heart of Educator Pt.2 (I need your help)
Posted by LaShonda Carter on Thursday, August 23, 2018

After the job fair, Carter took Plummer to apply for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), to get some milk for Taliyah.

She also started a GoFundMe page for additional help.

She also gave some important advice to her former student at a pivotal time in her life.

“My previous student needs to know she can still be successful, even though she's a teenage mother. A teenage mother does not equal failure,” she wrote on Facebook.

According to Carter, Plummer now has a job and is looking to attend college in the fall.

Carter’s actions are just another example why educators are a vital part of our communities. And why real communities, where people look out for each other, are so important.

“As an educator, it goes beyond the classroom. There are things that nobody ever knows that educators do,” she wrote on Facebook.

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Amazon Climate Pledge Friendly

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New Amazon badge helps you discover and shop for more sustainable products

Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels

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Increasingly customers are looking for more conscious shopping options. According to a Nielsen survey in 2018, nearly half (48%) of U.S. consumers say they would definitely or probably change their consumption habits to reduce their impact on the environment.

But while many consumers are interested in spending their money on products that are more sustainable, few actually follow through. An article in the 2019 issue of Harvard Business Review revealed that 65% of consumers said they want to buy purpose-driven brands that advocate sustainability, but only about 26% actually do so. It's unclear where this intention gap comes from, but thankfully it's getting more convenient to shop sustainably from many of the retailers you already support.

Amazon recently introduced Climate Pledge Friendly, "a new program to help make it easy for customers to discover and shop for more sustainable products." When you're browsing Amazon, a Climate Pledge Friendly label will appear on more than 45,000 products to signify they have one or more different sustainability certifications which "help preserve the natural world, reducing the carbon footprint of shipments to customers," according to the online retailer.

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In order to distinguish more sustainable products, the program partnered with a wide range of external certifications, including governmental agencies, non-profits, and independent laboratories, all of which have a focus on preserving the natural world.

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People who downplay the threat of this pandemic are as deadly as the disease itself

Images via Canva and Unsplash

If there's one thing that everyone can agree on, it's that being in a pandemic sucks.

However, we seem to be on different pages as to what sucks most about it. Many of us are struggling with being separated from our friends and loved ones for so long. Some of us have lost friends and family to the virus, while others are dealing with ongoing health effects of their own illness. Millions are struggling with job loss and financial stress due to businesses being closed. Parents are drowning, dealing with their kids' online schooling and lack of in-person social interactions on top of their own work logistics. Most of us hate wearing masks (even if we do so diligently), and the vast majority of us are just tired of having to think about and deal with everything the pandemic entails.

Much has been made of the mental health impact of the pandemic, which is a good thing. We need to have more open conversations about mental health in general, and with everything so upside down, it's more important now than ever. However, it feels like pandemic mental health conversations have been dominated by people who want to justify anti-lockdown arguments. "We can't let the cure be worse than the disease," people say. Kids' mental health is cited as a reason to open schools, the mental health challenges of financial despair as a reason to keep businesses open, and the mental health impact of social isolation as a reason to ditch social distancing measures.

It's not that those mental health challenges aren't real. They most definitely are. But when we focus exclusively on the mental health impact of lockdowns, we miss the fact that there are also significant mental health struggles on the other side of those arguments.

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Let's Do More Together

Meet the people infusing their communities with love and support when it’s needed most

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If the past year has taught us nothing else, it's that sending love out into the world through selfless acts of kindness can have a positive ripple effect on people and communities. People all over the United States seemed to have gotten the message — 71% of those surveyed by the World Giving Index helped a stranger in need in 2020. A nonprofit survey found 90% helped others by running errands, calling, texting and sending care packages. Many people needed a boost last year in one way or another and obliging good neighbors heeded the call over and over again — and continue to make a positive impact through their actions in this new year.

Upworthy and P&G Good Everyday wanted to help keep kindness going strong, so they partnered up to create the Lead with Love Fund. The fund awards do-gooders in communities around the country with grants to help them continue on with their unique missions. Hundreds of nominations came pouring in and five winners were selected based on three criteria: the impact of action, uniqueness, and "Upworthy-ness" of their story.

Here's a look at the five winners:

Edith Ornelas, co-creator of Mariposas Collective in Memphis, Tenn.

Edith Ornelas has a deep-rooted connection to the asylum-seeking immigrant families she brings food and supplies to families in Memphis, Tenn. She was born in Jalisco, Mexico, and immigrated to the United States when she was 7 years old with her parents and sister. Edith grew up in Chicago, then moved to Memphis in 2016, where she quickly realized how few community programs existed for immigrants. Two years later, she helped create Mariposas Collective, which initially aimed to help families who had just been released from detention centers and were seeking asylum. The collective started out small but has since grown to approximately 400 volunteers.

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