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This tear-jerking PSA shows a homeless woman discussing the one item she never let go.

'It means to me that I'm a fighter.'

The last thing Dawn Miller remembers after coming down with a sudden splitting headache in her Florida condo was calling an ambulance.

Then, it all went dark.

“I must have passed out," she recalls of that terrifying night in 2014. "Because the next thing I remember was three weeks later, waking up in the hospital.” When she came to, confused and with part of her head shaved, Miller learned she'd had an aneurism. She was lucky to be alive.


However, that's about the same time it felt like Miller's luck ran out.

Despite working two jobs, the medical costs Miller accumulated in the hospital were too much for her to handle. Eventually, as a new PSA from the Robin Hood Foundation notes, she became homeless.With the money she had left, Miller left Florida for her hometown of New York, believing there'd be more services for struggling people like her in NYC than in the Sunshine State. It was there, standing in a crowded, overwhelming transit hub asking others for help, when the realities of homelessness really hit her.

“I was in shock,” she said. “Once I got here, standing with my suitcases in Port Authority, I felt like I could break down and cry.”

She lost everything ... well, almost everything.

Throughout her experience being homeless, the one thing Miller never let go of was her college diploma.

She'd gone back to school at the age of 42. She graduated from Pace University with a degree in communications. She knows what it means — and what it takes — to work hard and achieve your goals.

"I graduated with a 3.71 GPA," she says. "I did very well. I was very proud of myself. And every time I look at my degree, I have something to be proud of.”

In some ways, just holding on to the diploma reminded her that she's a fighter. And it helped her find a path to a better life.

Miller is part of a new series called "The Things They Carry," where she appears along with four other people who've experienced homelessness discussing an item they never let go of.

The video is by the Robin Hood Foundation, a poverty-fighting group based in New York City. A man named William held on to a pair of pants he wore every day on the streets. "I keep these jeans here to remind myself of where I come from," he said.

For Hector, it was a wallet his mother gave him years ago. "The wallet saved me," Hector says in the PSA, explaining how just remembering his mother stopped him from killing himself moments before he was about to do so. "I always keep it for myself."

Thanks to a few helping hands, things are looking up for Miller.

She discovered Urban Pathways, a program of Robin Hood's focused on fighting homelessness in New York. Now Miller has a part-time job and expects to be living in a new home in the Bronx, before Christmas.

She hasn't forgotten what it felt like that day in Port Authority, though — that devastating feeling like she'd lost it all. She hopes her story inspires others to see the world a little bit differently too.

“Keep an open mind and an open heart when you’re dealing with someone less fortunate," she says, noting homelessness can come out of nowhere. "It can hit anybody."

Watch Miller's heart-wrenching PSA, part of "The Things They Carry," below:

"This is my college degree. It means to me that I'm a fighter."Dawn is a formerly homeless New Yorker and was helped by a #RHFunded organization.Each week between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we will be sharing the story of a NYer who overcame homelessness. What’s it like to lose everything? What do you fight to keep? How do you choose? These are their stories. These are The Things They Carry. http://bit.ly/2gkhaFl

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Robin Hood Foundation on Thursday, November 24, 2016
Planet

Easy (and free!) ways to save the ocean

The ocean is the heart of our planet. It needs our help to be healthy.

Ocean Wise

Volunteers at a local shoreline cleanup

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The ocean covers over 71% of the Earth’s surface and serves as our planet’s heart. Ocean currents circulate vital heat, moisture, and nutrients around the globe to influence and regulate our climate, similar to the human circulatory system. Cool, right?

Our ocean systems provide us with everything from fresh oxygen to fresh food. We need it to survive and thrive—and when the ocean struggles to function healthfully, the whole world is affected.

Pollution, overfishing, and climate change are the three biggest challenges preventing the ocean from doing its job, and it needs our help now more than ever. Humans created the problem; now humans are responsible for solving it.

#BeOceanWise is a global rallying cry to do what you can for the ocean, because we need the ocean and the ocean needs us. If you’re wondering how—or if—you can make a difference, the answer is a resounding YES. There are a myriad of ways you can help, even if you don’t live near a body of water. For example, you can focus on reducing the amount of plastic you purchase for yourself or your family.

Another easy way to help clean up our oceans is to be aware of what’s known as the “dirty dozen.” Every year, scientists release an updated list of the most-found litter scattered along shorelines. The biggest culprit? Single-use beverage and food items such as foam cups, straws, bottle caps, and cigarette butts. If you can’t cut single-use plastic out of your life completely, we understand. Just make sure to correctly recycle plastic when you are finished using it. A staggering 3 million tons of plastic ends up in our oceans annually. Imagine the difference we could make if everyone recycled!

The 2022 "Dirty Dozen" ListOcean Wise

If you live near a shoreline, help clean it up! Organize or join an effort to take action and make a positive impact in your community alongside your friends, family, or colleagues. You can also tag @oceanwise on social if you spot a beach that needs some love. The location will be added to Ocean Wise’s system so you can submit data on the litter found during future Shoreline Cleanups. This data helps Ocean Wise work with businesses and governments to stop plastic pollution at its source. In Canada, Ocean Wise data helped inform a federal ban on unnecessary single-use plastics. Small but important actions like these greatly help reduce the litter that ends up in our ocean.

Ocean Wise, a conservation organization on a mission to restore and protect our oceans, is focused on empowering and educating everyone from individuals to governments on how to protect our waters. They are making conservation happen through five big initiatives: monitoring and protecting whales, fighting climate change and restoring biodiversity, innovating for a plastic-free ocean, protecting and restoring fish stocks, and finally, educating and empowering youth. The non-profit believes that in order to rebuild a resilient and vibrant ocean within the next ten years, everyone needs to take action.

Become an Ocean Wise ally and share your knowledge with others. The more people who know how badly the ocean needs our help, the better! Now is a great time to commit to being a part of something bigger and get our oceans healthy again.

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Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings.

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“This is THE sisters experience…you captured the whole thing."

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But there’s also a beautiful loyalty. Sure, sisters can turn from friends to enemies on a dime, but in those purer moments, you’ll see them stop at nothing to help one another.

And it’s all these aspects, and everywhere in between, that were captured in a hilarious TikTok as three sisters banded together to fix a DIY haircut gone wrong…the day before school picture day, no less.
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The music of Queen has a profound visceral effect on everyone. Few pieces of art can cause complete strangers to put aside their differences and come together in song, but by golly, “Bohemian Rhapsody” is one of them. It would be cheesy if it weren’t so absolutely beautiful.

This pertains even to non-English-speaking countries, it appears. Recently, thousands of Harry Styles concertgoers in Warsaw, Poland, began cheering as those iconic beginning piano notes penetrated the air.
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Mom tells wild story of how her daughter kidnapped a 'chocolate baby' while out grocery shopping

People have a sneaking suspicion that the little girl has seen 'Corina, Corina' one too many times.

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Sometimes we hear a story that makes us collectively confused. Should we be offended? Laugh? Donate to a parents future bail fund for their children? It's really a toss up but the consensus on this mom's eyebrow raising story is that laughter and bail money are both appropriate responses.

Maranda Arbogast, a mom that runs the TikTok page, momma.chaos, shared a hilariously mortifying story of a time she took her three daughters grocery shopping and somehow wound up in a, "one of these things is not like the others" moment. The mom of three leads into the story by explaining that she is raising children that will likely have run ins with the law.

"Some families gotta save money for medical expenses or college funds. We gotta save money for bail because we are raising criminals, especially my middle daughter. It's always the middle child," Arbogast jokes. "She's gotta be frisked before we leave anywhere."

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That’s where the watermelon challenge comes in.

TikTok’s watermelon challenge is a simple concept, where dads-to-be strap watermelons, weighing somewhere around 14 pounds, onto their bellies in order to simulate what it’s like for pregnant moms. Bonus point for taping mangos onto the chest because #lactation.

The results are both hilarious and illuminating.

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Over the past few years, "Don't Say Gay" bills have been introduced across the U.S., sparking widespread controversy about how LGBTQ issues should be addressed in schools. Supporters argue they protect children from inappropriate content by restricting discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in educational settings.

Opponents believe these bills marginalize LGBTQ individuals by fostering stigma and potentially infringing on teachers' ability to openly address students' questions or experiences.

Currently, 11 states have banned LGBTQ discussion in public schools, and 5 require parental consent.

Author and comic book expert Marc Tyler Nobleman recently found himself at the center of the controversy, and his simple rationale for using the word “gay” in his school presentations presents an age-appropriate and inclusive way to approach at the issue.

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