Positive News in 7 Minutes - Week of May 22, 2020

Hi! Welcome to this week’s episode of all the good, happy, and inspiring stories.

The Afghan Dreamers, an all-girls high school robotics team in Afghanistan is using MIT's open-source ventilator design to make ventilators that could cost only a couple hundred dollars. There are 200 ventilators in all of Afghanistan. The girls are using car parts from Toyota Corolla's found at marketplaces because they can't order the needed parts online or find them in stores. This team is resourceful and amazing!

In Santa Cruz, CA, a hospital received a generous donation of $1 million from an anonymous donor who asked for the money to be split between all hospital employees. People who work there full-time will get $800 per month and part-time staff $600.⁠ This includes doctors, nurses and staff who clean the floors, deliver supplies, fix machines, and everything in between.

Cutest story of the week -  IKEA has published a set of how-to guides for the perfect family activity: building blanket forts. Like every other set of IKEA furniture, there is some assembly required—but the Swedish company made sure to include illustrated instructions for each of their designs which are made using household items like a pillow, chair, standing lamps, laundry pins and blankets. You can learn how to make a tent, a castle, a fortress and three other designs.

Here’s a fun story - a peacock found roaming the streets in Boston was able to be safely returned to the zoo it left when a police officer downloaded a mating call app on his phone to lure it to safety.

In product news, Crayola is releasing Colors of the World crayons to advance inclusion within creativity and impact how kids express themselves. The crayons reflect 32 different skin tones are the packs get released in July.

Lastly I want to highlight a really cool product that is made by a non-profit in Uganda. Bead For Life is providing thousands of women the opportunity to start businesses, put food on the table, send their children to school and lift themselves and their families out of poverty by empowering them to make necklaces out of recycled paper. 

I hope you enjoyed the dose of positivity! Feel free to rate, review and share this episode with anyone who would enjoy it!