From the Heart

Jun 27, 2021

Oklahoma imam left ’emotional’ over Jewish teen’s act of kindness

An Oklahoma City imam highlighted interfaith unity in his community after a teenage girl, who identified as Jewish, asked him at his mosque to donate her babysitting money to help Palestinians.

The imam, Imad Enchassi, said he was working outside his mosque last week when a car dropped off a teenager in search of the imam.

She arrived Wednesday between prayers before sunset, and the only person there was Enchassi, who was wearing gym clothes and a cap while he did yard work.

“Apparently, I was not dressed as an imam,” Enchassi, 56, said with a laugh. “And then I said: ‘Yes, I’m the imam. Can I help you?'”

He said the teenager was carrying an envelope with $80 and told him that she wanted it to help a family in Gaza.

“I want you to tell them this is from a young Jewish girl that worked all week babysitting. And that we love them and feel their pain,” Enchassi said she told him.

The gesture, which caught Enchassi off guard, inspired him to write about it in a Facebook post that has been shared 4,400 times and has received hundreds of comments.

“Humanity is marvelous indeed,” he wrote.

“Your post made me cry,” a Facebook user wrote in response. “Crying with you,” Enchassi responded.

“Kindness, humility and love has no boundaries of religion, race, ethnicity or nationality,” another wrote.

Enchassi, who is Palestinian American, said one of his congregants lost several relatives in Gaza during violence between Israel and Hamas before the cease-fire.

So when Enchassi was given the gift, it left him “emotional,” he said, and he told the teen her act was “awesome.”

The imam said the teenager didn’t give her name when he asked, which he interpreted to mean she wanted to remain anonymous.

“For this young lady to come — I’m just imagining my teenager, my teenage kid and their strong sense of social justice and their strength,” Enchassi said. “So I can see that it’s … her heart being poured out for the people of Gaza.”

Enchassi said that he didn’t get a chance to ask but that he believes the donation was prompted by a recent rally the mosque hosted where a member of his congregation spoke about losing 14 of her family members in Gaza.

“You know, losing 14 members of your family is extremely hard,” Enchassi said. “So she was shaking, and her voice was breaking, and it affects everybody’s heart. I mean, it was a speech that spoke to people’s heart and to people’s humanity.”

The teenager’s act of kindness came after airstrikes between the Israeli government and Hamas last month. Violence erupted after Palestinians protested the removal of Palestinian families from land claimed by Jewish settlers in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

Reports of antisemitic attacks increased over that time and after the cease-fire. The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group, said its preliminary research found an increase in online and real-world incidents of antisemitism during that time.

It’s not unusual for local Jewish and Muslim residents to come together to raise money for groups, but it did stand out when the teen took action on her own, Enchassi said, noting that the Oklahoma City community is home to an interfaith alliance.

Enchassi wanted to share the anonymous donation in the wake of antisemitic sentiment to distinguish between religious identity and political norms.

“My heart breaks for any violence against any religion in the United States that is perpetrated by hate,” he said. “So, as Muslims, we know the feeling, and we know how bad it is to generalize about a certain religion … and definitely, we could relate to antisemitism from that perspective.”

Imam Enchassi and his family

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A Dad on a Mission

Jun 20, 2021

Dad Breaks World Record by Completing 1.5 Million Pushups for Charity

By: Anabelle Doliner / Newsweek

A Wisconsin man has gone to extreme, near-impossible lengths to inspire his kids—while raising money for an important cause.

As of Sunday, Winneconne’s Nate Carroll completed his 1,500,231st push-up within the span of twelve months, says The Wisconsin State Journal.

Averaging 4,100 push-ups per day—and occasionally reaching a whopping 7,000 in one day—Carroll is using the challenge to fundraise for the Tunnels to Towers Foundation, an organization that offers housing and mortgage assistance to the families of officers and firefighters who are killed in the line of duty.

Additionally, Carroll hopes to teach his own children an important lesson in achieving one’s goals. Carroll told Fox News that he hoped to “demonstrate to my kids what goals that seem impossible look like when they are broken down into daily manageable chunks.”

“I understood if this challenge was going to be taken on, there had to be more depth to it besides just breaking a record,” he added. While his muscle tone certainly did increase over the course of the year, he explained, “What was most noticed was my awareness of how my body felt and responded to the stress of thousands of push-ups each day.”

More than physical the “most dramatic change was…mental strength and the understanding that the body is a phenomenal creation, and if properly cared for and conditioned, can endure significant physical stress and accomplish tremendous feats.”

To mark the momentous occasion, he completed the record-breaking push-ups during halftime of the 48th annual Fun City Bowl, a football game for New York City first responders.

Over the past year, Carroll, a social worker, has been completing the majority of his push-ups in between his daily responsibilities, turning everywhere from his living room to his office into a makeshift gym. “Trying to balance this amount of push-ups with being a father and working full time sometimes creates obstacles that you sometimes have to overcome,” he explained to The Wisconsin State Journal.

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Blooms and Friendship – being there for one another

May 30, 2021

Field of tulips joins worried mom with widow battling cancer

By: Kelli Kennedy / AP News

When the coronavirus upended daily life, Amy Baird was frightened, like much of the world — for her children and what would become of their school and friends, for her in-laws in their 70s, for her own health marked by a pulmonary embolism.

“I hate COVID,” her 4-year-old son became fond of saying, begging to hug his grandma, confused by the bright streamers in the driveway marking a safe distance for their brief, touchless outdoor visits.

On a spring day that would change two lives, the dispirited 38-year-old drove a familiar road near her home in Spanish Fork, Utah, where tulips had bloomed for years. This time, though, she caught her breath when she saw the hundreds of vibrant red and white flowers along the gentle slope.

Maybe the world would make it after all, she thought.

“It was almost like: Life is going on, the flowers are still blooming, life is coming back after winter,” said Baird, an adjunct professor at Utah Valley University.

When she heard Hallmark was giving away greeting cards to encourage connections in an increasingly isolated world, she knew she wanted to send one to the mysterious gardener.

A little sleuthing led her to the nearest house and the likely tulip planter, 79-year-old Marjan Martin Curtis.

Baird selected a card with a simple, fitting sentiment: “What you do matters.”

“You take care of this little area along the road and, you might not know it, but it impacts people,” Baird wrote, unaware that the elderly widow was battling Stage 4 cancer, undergoing taxing radiation treatments and growing increasingly despondent.

Curtis and her late husband had planted the Netherlands’ distinctive national flower for years in honor of her native country, where her family hid children fleeing Nazis in their barn during WWII.

Nature has always been her healing balm, a place to escape. Decades ago when her 4-year-old daughter was kidnapped and rescued, five years ago after the death of her husband and now still, in a pandemic, she finds hope in the craggy rocks and calming waters.

Even these days, she’s known to take off on a whim to explore Red Rocks or Canyonlands National Park, hiking along streams and exploring the ruins built into canyon walls where the desert varnish has darkened the pictographs.

“It takes my troubles away,” she said.

She hadn’t realized that her tulip field would have the same effect on others.

Curtis had been feeling particularly down when Baird’s letter arrived. She’s been extra cautious during the pandemic and hasn’t seen much of her six children. The cancer had recently spread to her pancreas and remaining kidney, which she prays she won’t lose and be forced onto dialysis.

“My heart just warmed up. It almost brought tears to my eyes. It was almost like she knew I needed human contact because I was so isolated and so alone. And then I got this card and I thought, ‘There are people out there that care, so don’t give up.’”

Curtis typed a heartfelt response a few weeks later and the two developed a fast friendship.

Baird sent more letters; they exchanged numbers. Baird texted pictures of her kids carving pumpkins. At Curtis’ urging, she stopped by in person, dropping off homemade brownies and talking briefly from a masked distance.

“I just adore her the more I get to know her,” Baird said. “We need each other right now more than ever. Everybody is going through a difficult time.”

Curtis sent Baird a book about her family’s rescue efforts during WWII, and Baird was inspired by her resilience and adventurous spirit.

“The fact that she was experiencing pain and loneliness and sadness and that I was able to write a simple letter that made her feel appreciated, just that power,” Baird said. “It’s made me feel better and helped me move outside myself because life had been so hard.”

Curtis ordered more tulips in August but wasn’t strong enough to plant them, so the women from Baird’s book club took over. They planted the first batch Tuesday and her 4-year-old even helped pile up the dead leaves.

In the spring, amid the uncertainty of life under the pandemic, the field on the gentle slope will come alive again with a kaleidoscope of tulips — a reminder of the power of hope and the bond it created along this Utah road.

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Chief Kindness Officer

May 16, 2021

8-year-old Virginia boy on a mission to help the homeless

By Ariana Freeman / CBS News

An 8-year-old boy in Virginia is going the extra mile to help the homeless. CBS News first met Zohaib Begg last year, after he made it his mission to gather as much personal protective equipment as possible for frontline workers. He ended up with more than 6,000 items. Now, the self-proclaimed “Chief Kindness Officer” has shifted his focus to uplifting the homeless community.

“The reason I want to give to the homeless is because every time I go to D.C. I see it’s a problem with my own eyes, and I had the desire to help them from my own heart,” Begg said.

Begg recently set his sights on reaching at least 1,000 people in need for Global Youth Service Day, the largest youth service event in the world highlighting the heroics of those aged 5 to 25.

“It means a lot to me and I know how the families feel and I just hope these kits give the families who are dealing through this hard time right now a little bit of comfort,” he said.

Sharon Wise, who was once homeless and now advocates on behalf of homeless people, was by his side. Together, they went to the underskirts of the 3rd Street tunnel off New Jersey Avenue in Washington, D.C., to pass out food, toiletry kits and supplies to people in need.

“They weren’t born one day and say, ‘Hey, I think I want to be in a camp one day.’ You know, they ended up there and seeing him out there with me and some of the other volunteers, it just gives them hope, saying, ‘Wow, this little boy is out here. He cares about us,'” Wise said.

Each kit was filled with donations from local companies to whom Begg personally reached out. “I kept making holes in my socks so my mom got me Bombas, and I thought they’re very comfy. Then I thought, ‘Hey maybe Bombas could give me some socks.’ So me and my mom emailed them for 50 socks and they ended up giving us 600,” Begg said.

He also connected with dentist offices, Trader Joe’s, Wegmans and Chick-fil-A.

“I believe in spreading kindness, and all my donors and partners for this event share this vision and also believe that no one is too young to make a difference,” he said.

Although Global Youth Service Day has passed, Begg says his mission is far from over. As long as he’s helping those around him, he said he’s one happy third-grader.

“It makes me happy to give to others,” he said. “I also want to show children that no matter your age, you can always make a difference and a positive impact in your community. You just have to find the problem and find one solution.”

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Giving with Walking Sticks

Apr 18, 2021

A 93-year-old veteran is whittling walking sticks to raise money for an Ohio food pantry.

By: National Desk Staff /WLWT5

When the going gets tough, the tough keep going, or at least that’s what you do when you’re a 93-year-old retired Air Force Colonel—and John Hobson likes to keep busy.

“If he just got put somewhere and told him to sit down, he’d go crazy,” his son Mark Hobson, told WKEF-TV.

In 2020, Hobson occupied himself by handcrafting close to 100 walking sticks, the proceeds of which, he donated to a local Ohio charity outreach group, the Xenia Area Fish Food Pantry.

“He’s just a sweet man who gives a darn about other folks who don’t have [anything],” Mark Hobson said.

To sell his wares, Hobson set up a roadside stand in his front yard. The price was beyond reasonable: $3.00 each, or a food pantry donation.

Not surprisingly, the senior whittling-wonder was sold out in just a few days, having earned about $600.

Wanting to do more, Hobson and his family set up a GoFundMe page which has since raised $9,565 in cash for the Xenia Area Fish Food Pantry. All told, donations from the sale of the walking sticks, the GoFundMe campaign, and additional donations made in Hobson’s name total close to $16,000.

“Thank you for doing a very kind thing to make Grandpa happy and to make a difference for so many in our community,” Hobson’s granddaughter Jenny Denen wrote. “We have been so touched by your kindness and generosity.”

“We have been told by the pantry that a $1 donation generates five pounds of food. That means that we have helped the pantry be able to distribute about 40 tons of food to the Xenia community! What a massive blessing to those in need during this very difficult time.

Staying busy is certainly one factor that keeps Hobson hard at work, but his main motivation is likely more simple. He says knowing that he’s still able to help others in need in a meaningful way just makes him feel good.

Watch this Video from WLWT5: