Real, messy hope delivered to your inbox daily, from Good Good Good.

Good headlines...

✏️ Michigan lawmakers passed a historic education budget that includes a record $10,050 investment per student, universal school meals, universal pre-K for 4-year-olds, community college access for all, expanded literacy programs, and more.

🥘 People are helping in the midst of the government shutdown: Sharon McMahon’s “Governerds” community raised over $640,000 over the weekend for food banks, equating to 6 million meals, and World Central Kitchen is serving free, hot meals to federal workers. (Instagram)

LGBTQ+

A Texas church painted a rainbow on its front steps in protest of a state order to remove painted crosswalks

Oak Lawn United Methodist Church in Dallas painted its front steps in rainbow colors in response to a statewide order requiring cities to remove rainbow crosswalks from public streets.

The church decided to act following a rally in the Oak Lawn neighborhood, where residents were encouraged to display rainbows on private property as a form of peaceful protest. It wanted to let people know it was a place people “can come and find sanctuary.”

Why is this good news? While the LGBTQ+ community needs more support than rainbow-painted crosswalks, they are an important signal of representation and visibility, and that a community is welcoming and inclusive. Arguably, these church steps will be an even more powerful, visible welcome sign to passersby.

→ Read more

More Good News

Thanks to a coalition of anonymous donors, Muir Woods National Monument will reopen to the public for one week. The national park site is closed as a result of the government shutdown, but through Oct. 31, visitors won’t have to pay the monument’s $15 per person entrance fee — just for parking.

A new device helps people with hearing impairment still get restful sleep at night. When people take their hearing aids out before bed, anxiety can creep in about things they may not hear without them, leading to lower-quality sleep.

A “hopeful and imaginative” social housing project won this year’s prize for the UK’s best new building. The 57-unit building won the prize for setting an “ambitious standard for social housing among older people” and for acknowledging “two crises, an acute housing shortage and a growing loneliness epidemic among older people.”

An LA-based company created a solar device that can pull 1.5 liters of clean, drinkable water out of thin air every day. The device, called Spout, is made from recycled materials and does not require you to replace filters or anything that would add to your waste, and the company is working on new iterations that could store solar power so that the device can be used at night.

Extinct in the wild, an incredibly rare Spix’s macaw chick hatched at a European zoo, giving new hope for the species. The Spix’s macaw is a brilliantly blue parrot once native to the dry tropical forests of northeastern Brazil, but now only exists in captivity. It’s perhaps best known as the inspiration for the 2011 animated movie Rio.

Mental Health

New study: Dungeons & Dragons is good for your brain — especially if you have a mental illness

→ Read more

People doing good

After a catastrophic flood, a small Massachusetts town united to help a 99-year-old WWII veteran who lost everything

When a devastating flood destroyed the home that 99-year-old WWII veteran Leo Valente and his daughter Cheryl had shared for nearly 60 years, and insurance and the VA failed them, they turned to their community for help.

Cheryl explained their situation to a local news station, and neighbors rushed to the comments in a Facebook post to not only share their condolences, but to offer help in the form of monetary donations, furniture, and more.

At the time of publication, a GoFundMe in Leo’s name had raised $15,875 in six days, just short of their $18,000 goal, which will go towards temporary hotel fees and, later, a new apartment.

→ Read more

More Good bits

🚲 He could have profited from internet fame, but did this instead. (Instagram)

🎻 When music and medicine collide … magic.

🦋 Six beautiful, scaly new butterflies were found in the Himalayas.

🦁 You could witness an extraordinary wildlife restoration in Rwanda.

🌺 Conservation dogs are saving orchids from extinction! (TikTok)

What’s good?

I’ve only ever witnessed Dungeons & Dragons being played — but I may need to partake myself?

Do you play D&D?

Reply and talk me into it!

— Megan