+
upworthy
More

Why a photo of a little boy inspired this mom to turn her town into a refugee sanctuary.

She's changing minds by keeping the issue a conversation rather than a debate.

True
Starbucks Upstanders Season 2

Mary Poole was breastfeeding her 9-month-old son when she was horrorstruck by the image of this refugee boy:

The body of Alan Kurdi being taken out of the ocean. All photos provided by Starbucks.

The boy was 3-year-old Alan Kurdi. In the summer of 2015, he drowned along with his mother and brother as they were attempting to escape war-torn Syria.


While holding her own son in her arms, the image was too much for Poole to bear. It simply broke her heart.

That was the moment she became compelled to do something in her town of Missoula, Montana for these fleeing families looking for solace and safety.

In 2016, Poole started Soft Landing — a nonprofit designed to help welcome refugees and integrate them into the community.

Missoulians arguing over Soft Landing's refugee plans.

Its beginnings, however, were more than a little bumpy.

Despite there being a number of compassionate Montanans willing to welcome refugees with open arms, many others remained skeptical. And they weren't alone.

Montana was one of only two states that didn't participate in the refugee resettlement. The news and unjustified alarmism on social media platforms planted fear of the "unknown immigrant" into the minds of many Montanans. Needless to say, that fear wasn't easy to dislodge.

But that didn't stop Poole. She was determined to find a way to broach the subject.

Mary talking to her neighbors at a town meeting.

"I don’t think anyone here is the 'racist,' 'bigot,' 'hater' that people are getting called," said Poole to members of her community at a town meeting.

Her patience and compassion eventually made many of the less supportive citizens more receptive to her mission.

"It never became about convincing anyone to wholeheartedly agree that I was right and they were wrong," says Poole.

Poole talking with a neighbor about the refugee issue in Missoula.

It was simply about showing the people who were distrustful of her mission that refugees aren't looking for anything other than sanctuary.

She regularly sits down and has conversations with Montanans who are feeling uneasy about the refugee resettlements. She listens to their concerns and offers any advice she can. Often just being heard is enough to put folks at ease. Even if they're still on the fence about refugees in general, they become more receptive to Poole's initiative.

“The only thing that I can hope is that when you meet that [refugee] family you can say, ‘Gosh, they’re pretty normal folks,’” said Poole to her neighbors.

One such family that Soft Landing helped bring into Missoula were the Abdullahs from Syria.

Poole meeting with the Abdullahs.

Like so many others, the Abdullah family had to leave their home due to escalating conflict.

“Life became horrific, not only difficult," explains husband and father Jaber Abdullah. "We were all forced to leave. Nobody chose to leave.”

Thanks to the 200 Soft Landing volunteers, however, the Abdullahs have received a warm welcome and are adjusting nicely to life in Missoula.

Poole with a little refugee boy.

The Soft Landing volunteers teach classes, set up apartments, manage in-kind donations, and a number of other things that help refugees, like the Abdullahs, acclimate to their new environment. And so far they've welcomed more than 120 refugees from Eritrea, Congo, Iraq, and Syria.

But it's not just about supporting the refugees — it's about supporting Missoulians who are still on the fence about this whole mission.

The conversation to keep pushing the refugee agenda forward is challenging and ongoing, but for Poole, it's more than worth it.

Refugees playing soccer in Missoula in honor of World Refugee Day.

Especially when it leads to softening views and more receptive neighbors.

"I’ve sat down with people who’ve told me to my face, ‘I will never agree with you, but I’ll be the first to extend a hand when someone gets here,’” says Poole.

With an issue that's as contentious as the refugee crisis, that's more than half the battle.

Learn more about Poole's work here:

Upstanders: From War to Montana

She had never met a refugee, but she mobilized her community to welcome dozens of them.

Posted by Upworthy on Thursday, November 2, 2017
Community

How to end hunger, according to the people who face it daily

Here’s what people facing food insecurity want you to know about solving the hunger problem in America

True

Even though America is the world’s wealthiest nation, about 1 in 6 of our neighbors turned to food banks and community programs in order to feed themselves and their families last year. Think about it: More than 9 million children faced hunger in 2021 (1 in 8 children).

In order to solve a problem, we must first understand it. Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, released its second annual Elevating Voices: Insights Report and turned to the experts—people experiencing hunger—to find out how this issue can be solved once and for all.

Here are the four most important things people facing hunger want you to know.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pets

Family brings home the wrong dog from daycare until their cats saved the day

A quick trip to the vet confirmed the cats' and family's suspicions.

Family accidentally brings wrong dog home but their cats knew

It's not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It's like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.

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.

Keep ReadingShow less
via Pexels

A teacher lists his class rules.

The world would be a much better place if humans weren’t so … human. We all fall short of perfection. Common sense is, sadly, not too common. And there’s one guy out there who always manages to screw things up when things start getting good.

Call it Murphy’s law. Call it the great “reason we can’t have nice things.” Call it entropy. It feels like a whole lot of pain could be avoided if we all had just a little bit more sense.

But what if there was one rule that we all agreed to follow to make everyone’s life better? What would this magical rule be?

A Reddit user who goes by the name P4insplatter came to this realization and asked the AskReddit subforum, “What simple rule would fix the world if everyone actually followed it?” They received dozens of simple rules that if everyone got behind would make the world drastically better.

Keep ReadingShow less
Sandra Maria/Youtube, Official Lives & Music Videos/Youtube

You can't not sing this song.

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.
Keep ReadingShow less

Movie critic Roger Ebert speaking his mind at the Sundance Film Festival.

It’s been ten years since the world lost Roger Ebert to cancer, and his voice is sorely missed. Ebert had a pure love of cinema, and even though he was a film critic in a sweater with a Pulitzer Prize, he wrote and spoke in a way accessible to every man.

He didn’t care if a film was a Hollywood blockbuster or art-house fare; what mattered was whether it deserved his highly-coveted “thumbs up.”

Ebert was an extremely gifted communicator whose interests went far beyond film. In his later years, he often mused about music, politics, and American cultural events with the same eloquence, thoughtfulness and wit.

Keep ReadingShow less
@over40slbmom/TikTok

Feeling nostalgic yet?

It seems like so many iterations of unfettered joy from our childhood haven’t made it to the modern age, and playgrounds are no exception.

Gone are the days of metal slides that scorched the derriere in the summertime, seesaws that doubled as human catapults and the notorious merry-go-rounds that separated the weak from the strong. Good old fashioned character building—safety be damned!

As it turns out, a few of these old relics are still standing. And footage of kids playing at one of these bygone parks is filling adults—particularly Gen Xers—with sweet nostalgia.
Keep ReadingShow less

A couple shares why they decided to leave the United States.

Although it is difficult to tell if there is a trend of Americans moving out of the country, rough estimates show that around 8 million currently live in other countries—double the 4.1 million living abroad in 1999.

The most popular countries for Americans to move to are Mexico, Canada and the United Kingdom, in that order.

A big reason why some are leaving the U.S. is that an increasing number of employers allow people to work abroad. Others are choosing to leave because of cost of living increases and “golden visa” programs. Golden visas offer the chance to get a foreign residency permit by purchasing a house or making a significant investment or donation.

Keep ReadingShow less