Christian Moore (right) holds the hand of Conner Crites.Courtney Moore

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Christian Moore looked at an 8-year-old classmate crying in a corner. It was the start of the school year in Wichita, Kansas.

Christian wanted to help the second grader, Conner Crites, who has autism and occasionally gets overstimulated.

“Instead of overlooking him like most kids would have, [Christian] just reached over, grabbed his hand and made my son’s day better,” Conner’s mom, April Crites, 29, told the Washington Post last week.

A photo of the moment on August 14, taken by Christian’s mom and shared on Facebook, went viral. “It is an honor to raise such a loving, compassionate child!” Courtney Moore wrote in her post. “He’s a kid with a Big heart, the first day of school started off right.”

The students’ nascent friendship has continued through shared lunches and recess play. The two had a long playdate one weekend day, and Conner has asked if Christian can come by for a sleepover. The lesson of Christian’s kindness, Crites said: Everybody has a choice to help or ignore someone in need. “You could,” she said, “say something nice, hand someone a tissue who’s crying and make their day better.”

Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

The wheels on the bus…go round and round more efficiently, thanks to an algorithm. This algorithm allowed the fleet of Boston school buses to eliminate 20,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions each day—and invest $5 million in savings back into the classroom. Two doctoral students designed the formula, which has enabled the system to remove 50 buses from the road. In 2017, the buses drove 1 million fewer miles. (Popular Mechanics)

One kick leads to another. One minute, soccer champ Carli Lloyd was just goofing around at an NFL training camp. Then she nailed a 55-yard kick. Now, people are asking: Could Lloyd, the two-time Olympic gold medalist and FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, become the first woman to play in the NFL? Within hours, a Baltimore Ravens assistant coach was on the phone, Lloyd said: “The coaches and his GM, they all saw the video. They were like, ‘What is she doing next week?’ I’m laughing about it, but the more I think about it, this has the chance to be sort of a pioneering moment for women.” (Washington Post)

A flight that made a difference. Speech pathologist Rachel Romeo found herself on an eight-hour international flight sitting next to a 10-year-old boy with severe nonverbal autism. His dad told Romeo it would be a rough flight, and the boy started shouting and hitting her before takeoff. Romeo put aside her academic work and started making drawings for him. “I made symbols for the things he was grabbing, for his favorite stuffed penguin, and for his dad.” The 10-year-old “took to it very quickly,” she wrote. “By the end of the flight, he had made several requests, initiated several times, & his behaviors had reduced quite a bit. The father was astounded—clearly no one had ever tried [such an] approach with him. I gave him the paper & showed him how to use it, and he nearly cried.” Communication, the MIT postdoctoral fellow wrote, is a human right, “and I was overjoyed to help someone find it.” Thanks to colleague Steve Katz for the story tip. (Twitter)

I’ll leave you with this flowing image from Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, via the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Thanks so much for reading, and have a great week ahead!

The forest parts like a curtain by a gentle stream, revealing another beautiful scene at @RockyNPS. Photo by By Dan Mitler (https://t.co/7u0uZGuWtK) #Colorado #FindYourPark pic.twitter.com/OMcWOolEC6

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) August 24, 2019

Bruce Springsteen, May 1974Courtesy Barry Schneier

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In the crowd, a music critic would write that he had seen the future of rock ’n’ roll. Sitting on a drum case at the same Harvard Square venue that night in 1974, photographer Barry Schneier focused his lens on the 24-year-old from New Jersey who was quietly beginning a song called For You on the piano.

Schneier printed a few of the images. Then he moved West, got married, had three children, and began a career in corporate video and event production. Decades later, prodded by his kids, Schneier submitted the photograph of Bruce Springsteen in a Boston Globe photo contest. He won.

The image captured the attention of Chris Phillips, the editor and publisher of Backstreets, a long-running Springsteen fan site. Backstreets published a few of Schneier’s photographs from that 1974 night in Cambridge, of which critic Jon Landau wrote: “I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.”

Readers wanted prints. A crowdsourced drive for a deluxe book of Schneier’s images raised $100,000. Suddenly, as the Boston Globe reported last week, Schneier was doing what he wanted to do as a young man—and taking photos again, not just of local concerts but of events at the Grammy Museum and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

One night, his wife, Marty, asked if Schneier, now in his 60s, wanted to devote himself fully to photography again.

“I think I do,” he said.

Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

First, citizenship. The 31-year-old Armenian American woman began to experience contractions while walking to her citizenship ceremony on Thursday. She was due to have a baby the following week, but it seemed to be coming now. The high school history teacher was so worried about President Trump’s threats against immigrants, she said—and so desperate to become a naturalized American—that she wouldn’t leave the judge before he administered her citizenship. US District Judge Cormac Carney rushed a personalized citizenship oath before the scheduled ceremony in Los Angeles. Minutes later, he presided over 3,200 new Americans, from 114 countries, taking the oath of citizenship. And the woman’s contractions eased after bedrest that afternoon. Her baby is scheduled to be delivered by cesarean section this week. (Reuters)

Celebrate good times. To save endangered pillar coral, scientists in Florida worked to improve the mood for romance. They set lighting and water temperatures in a lab containing coral. The idea: Make the critters think it was prime time to spawn—just after sunset. It worked. For a half-hour, a lumpy brown coral put a cloud of sperm into the water, and female coral pushed out eggs to mingle with the cloud. And voila!—30,000 coral larvae were wiggling around. Scientists have called the Florida experiment a massive breakthrough in trying to save coral. “Our celebration,” said Keri O’Neil, the Florida Aquarium’s senior coral scientist, “was just to collect the larvae and start raising them.” (Tampa Bay Times)

The political act…of swimming. A growing number of observant Muslim women are standing up and diving in, entering the surf in swimwear of their choice despite sometimes intolerant or hostile expectations and pressures from many directions. And institutions such as the YMCA are changing their policies to help them do it. After overcoming bureaucratic obstacles and a few scornful fellow swimmers, the women said it’s joyfully refreshing, empowering, and politically fulfilling. For some, their children forced them out of their comfort zone. For others such as Manar Hussein, who hadn’t been to the beach in years, they were tired of sitting on the sidelines. “I don’t want to have to worry about my burkini,” said Hussein, 27, entering the Atlantic surf in Long Branch, New Jersey, in her new swimsuit. “I just want to wear it, be happy with it and just go to the beach.” (HuffPost)

A puffin update. For those intrigued by last week’s Recharge column on surging Atlantic puffin pairings off the Maine coast, this summer was indeed record-setting for breeding, reports the Union of Concerned Scientists. On the Maine island of Egg Rock, where the National Audubon Society has had an outpost for nearly a half century, volunteers counted 188 breeding pairs of the birds, surpassing last year’s record of 178. Thanks to Derrick Z. Jackson for the tip.

I’ll leave you with this image, by Josh Packer, of Horseshoe Bend in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona, via the Interior Department’s Twitter account. Happy trails in the week ahead!

The Colorado River makes a dramatic statement at Horseshoe Bend in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Pic courtesy of Josh Packer #Arizona #FindYourPark pic.twitter.com/ucQeQzXcf8

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) August 18, 2019

Robert F. Bukaty/AP

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They’re increasingly vulnerable, threatened by warming oceans, predators, and a fluctuating food supply. But this summer, the waddling, colorful Atlantic puffins, known for their orange-red beaks, have feasted on plentiful haddock, hake, and herring off the Maine coast—and nested nonstop. “This is a good year,” National Audubon Society scientist Dr. Stephen Kress told the Associated Press.

Kress said the number of puffin nests on two of Maine’s remote islands may have surpassed last year’s 750. In a sign that the seabirds are in good condition, many puffins also laid eggs slightly early this year, he said.

Similar optimistic reports have come from the birds’ much larger colony on Machias Seal Island on the US-Canada water border, home to 5,000–6,000 pairs. More than half of the eggs will produce a successful chick, said biologist Heather Major of the University of New Brunswick. “There were lots of puffins around this year,” she said.

The puffins, once hunted by people, had nearly disappeared from the Maine coast before a program to reintroduce them began in the 1970s. Since then, more than 500 Audubon Society interns have helped out in the summers as the colonies have grown, Kress told NPR. The most important lesson, he said: People can nearly kill a species—but they can also help bring it back. 

Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

Coming to his rescue. She was an “awesome lady,” Antonio Basco said of his wife, Margie Reckard. She also was the only family Basco had. When a racist shooter on August 3 killed her in the Walmart massacre in El Paso, Texas, Basco decided to invite the community to her funeral. More than 1,000 flower arrangements flowed in. Hundreds of people showed their respects on Friday (this video shows the line). One of them, Lucy Flores, 72, said she was going to make burritos for Basco and other mourners. “They’re green and red burritos. It’s not much,” she told the Dallas Morning News. “But it’ll be done with much love. I hope he likes them.” Thanks to colleague Grace Molteni for the tip. (KVIA)

Found: Another “lost” Coltrane album. Saxophonist John Coltrane pushed toward a limitless creative horizon. Back in 1964, French Canadian director Gilles Groulx had tracked down the jazz leader and his quartet to provide a soundtrack to his film, Le chat dans le sac (The Cat in the Bag). The Coltrane recording session that June, previously unknown to his fans, makes up Blue World, which will be released on September 27. Last year, Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album, recorded by the quartet in 1963, gave Coltrane his first-ever debut on the Billboard 200, a half-century after his death. “There is never any end,” Coltrane once said. “There are always new sounds to imagine; new feelings to get at.” (NPR)

Reunited, thanks to a journalist. China determined that a woman had too many daughters, so family planning officials took one of two twins and “sold” her to an unwitting American family. Los Angeles Times journalist Barbara Demick told the story a decade ago, but at the American family’s request, she did not identify the American side of the family. In the intervening years, one daughter, now 18, wanted to find her twin, and the adopted mom wanted to help, so Demick went with them to China. The families spent a week together. The adopted mom told the birth parents, “I would never have adopted her if I knew she was stolen from you. It gives me pain knowing that my gain was your loss.” The birth father responded, “I am grateful to you. I can see that you raised her very well.” (Los Angeles Times)

Standing up. Here are three mini-Recharge stories to discover: The 9-year-old kid who brought cheer to a major league baseball player mired in a dreadful slump. The library system that repudiated its anti-union steel magnate namesake—and voted to unionize with the United Steelworkers. The jailed women’s activist in Saudi Arabia who would not lie about her mistreatment behind bars—even if a lie would lead to her freedom.

Which athlete inspired you most? We asked; you answered. Several mentioned Simone Biles, whose electrifying work we spotlighted last week. Others mentioned tennis trailblazer Serena Williams, and two athletes who suffered for their activism: Muhammad Ali and Colin Kaepernick. Reader Wolfram Hartwig suggested cyclist Greg LeMond, adding, “To come back from being almost shot to death, not only barely surviving, but winning the Tour de France (again) in 1989 and 1990 with some shotgun pellets still in his heart lining, all that while being clean, w/o the drugs that the whole next generation of cyclists (think Lance Armstrong and many others) used to improve their performance.” Reader Lynn Keltz makes a closer-to-home pick: “Young children starting out on the way to play a sport are most inspiring. Whether they are picking dandelions in the backfield while they wait for something to happen or are seeing that they really can hit a line drive, complete a pass or score a goal, they are in the moment and enjoying life.”

I’ll leave you with this image by Haji Mahmood at Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, via the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Thanks for reading, and have a great week ahead.

Find your senses heightened as you take soft steps along the sand at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. Pic Haji Mahmood (https://t.co/7u0uZGuWtK) #FindYourPark #Colorado pic.twitter.com/dn0JertXwr

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) August 14, 2019

Simone Biles competes in the floor exercise at the 2019 US Gymnastics Championships.Charlie Riedel/AP

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

She had taken time off. She finished fourth on Dancing With the Stars. Her coach since age 7 had moved on—because Olympic gymnast Simone Biles herself had said, three years ago, that she would do something else. 

“I really did in that moment feel like I was going to be done, but there was a slight chance that I would want to come back. Everyone’s like, oh, you’re going to come back, and I feel like I fought it more,” a triumphant Biles told NBC Sports after taking her sixth US all-around title last weekend. 

Had she quit, the world would not have seen her captivating triple twisting double somersault on floor exercise or her double twisting double somersault off the balance beam. (See this floor move in slow motion.)

No woman had done either before. If she does both at October’s World Championships, the moves will be named after her.

Viewers worldwide were in awe. “We are so lucky to share a planet with her—even if she has a unique ability to escape this planet’s gravity,” wrote Siva Vaidhyanathan, director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia.

Biles, who returned to training in November 2017, has fewer people, if anyone, to prove herself to in training for the next Olympics. “I’m just doing it for myself, and I think that’s the beauty of it,” she said Sunday.

Readers, who is the most inspiring athlete you’ve ever seen and why? Simone Biles? Serena Williams? Roberto Clemente? Someone else? Let me know at recharge@motherjones.com.

Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

Lost and found. After he retired, and lost his wife, music-lover Roger Goldin began volunteering at a place he adored, the Tanglewood summertime center for the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the Berkshires. He was on the case when Barbara Roney presented a challenge for the center’s lost-and-found department. He listened carefully. The diamond setting to a ring that Roney’s husband had given her had fallen off, and she presumed it was when she was applauding at a concert in July. Goldin, a forensic psychologist, searched around her seat for the microscopic diamond, by iPhone flashlight, poking through the dirt and around the metal legs of the seats. He searched again. “All of a sudden my light caught a sparkle, like a glint,” Goldin recalled. Roney, a psychoanalyst, was jubilant, adding that the most significant aspect of the experience “was just the kindness of one person listening to another person.” Goldin said it wasn’t just about “finding a person’s diamond, it’s dealing with loss. This resonated with me; there was an overtone to this story, just like in music.” (The Berkshire Eagle)

After yard-shaming, neighbors pitch in. The anonymous note came in while Randa Ragland was dealing with the stage 4 cancer of her 3-year-old son, Jaxen. Handwritten, the letter scolded her for not keeping up the exterior of her Pinson, Alabama, home. Ragland posted the note on Facebook—“I just didn’t have the energy to be negative,” she told CBS 42—and then people flocked to her home to help. “Look at this! This is love,” said Joey Harding, who pitched in. Harding, who lost his daughter to the very same cancer that Jaxen has, added, “This is love for a stranger.” Ragland was floored by the work of the volunteers, who called themselves “Jaxen’s Army for Justice.” “I don’t have a large family. My mom is gone, my dad is gone, my brother is gone,” Ragland said, “so this means a lot.” (The Root)

The latest crop. With California fields drying up, farmers are planting solar panels on their land. A new report says California may need thousands of square miles of solar power production—and ideally, up to half of that land would come from farms and ranches. At least 13,000 acres of solar farms have already been built in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley, and proponents say there is plenty of fallow or environmentally disturbed land to expand. The company behind Pom Wonderful and Fiji Water, building a 157-acre solar farm, said it may make as much from solar in 30 years as from almonds or pistachios today. “In one case we’re growing an agricultural product that has value, and in another case we’re producing electrons that have value,” said Steven Swartz, vice president of strategy for the Wonderful Co. (Los Angeles Times)

Evening it up. Jessica Wade is on a mission: Add profiles of remarkable women and underrepresented scientists to Wikipedia. The British physicist, troubled that only 20 percent of Wikipedia biographies were of women, has added 670 profiles so far. She also has led editathons at high schools and science conferences. Among her profiles: DNA pioneer June Lindsey and mathematician Gladys West. “If you put content on [Wikipedia], people don’t only read it, it changes their perception about who they think does science and what they think science is,” said Wade, who hopes it inspires young women and people from diverse groups in science. “Our science can only benefit the whole of society if it’s done by the whole of society. And that’s not currently the case.” Thanks to reader Stacey L. Kratz for alerting me to the story. (New York Times)

I’ll leave you with the swirling sandstone of “The Wave” at Arizona’s Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, via the Interior Department’s Twitter account. Thank you for reading, and have a great week ahead!

The cross-bedded and swirling sandstone of “The Wave” at Vermillion Cliffs National Monument is a photographer’s dream come true #Arizona pic.twitter.com/NbESkjRtKB

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) August 2, 2019

Glendon Oakley Jr., whose heroic instincts saved lives during the mass shooting at the mall in El Paso, Texas, on August 3, 2019Courtesy of Glendon Oakley Jr. and Task & Purpose

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

Recently back from duty in the Middle East, Army Pfc. Glendon Oakley Jr. was hanging out in a sports store in the El Paso mall on Saturday when the panic began.

He took out the 9mm Glock he had a license to carry.

Oakley served as a sort of rear guard for employees of a Foot Locker as they closed the security gate and decided to run toward an exit, away from the sound of gunfire. 

Then he saw kids, about a dozen of them, screaming for their parents in an open play area in the mall. He tried to get fleeing bystanders to help, but no one stopped.

Oakley, 22, took charge. “I didn’t even think. I just grabbed as many kids as I could and ran five stores down to the exit,” he said. “I wasn’t focused on myself, and I wasn’t focused on my surroundings…I was just focused on those kids.”

In an interview with Task & Purpose, Oakley said that despite his training, “[I was] scared for my life” during the mass shooting, which killed at least 22 people and wounded dozens.

“I heard four kids died,” he said. “I wish I could have gotten more kids out of there. I wish those guys who ran would have stayed…I just think, ‘What if that was my child? How would I want some other man to react?’”

On television and social media, Oakley, the son of career military service members, was hailed as a hero. “A fine soldier and a good man with a big heart,” tweeted Matthew McLellan. “He deserves a country in which he doesn’t have to rescue children from a shooter in a mall.”

In related news, thank you to El Paso sixth grader Ruben Martinez, whose challenge to perform an act of kindness for each person killed in the shooting (the toll has since risen) has gained momentum on social media:

My 11 year old came to me with an idea. #elpasoCHALLENGE He challenges ALL El Pasoans to commit 20 Random Acts of Kindness. One for every person that was killed in our city’s mass shooting. Let’s get this done El Paso. @abc7breaking @kels1142 @YsletaISD @EPPOLICE @elpasoisd pic.twitter.com/pvy5Q9G4f6

— Rose (@rgandarilla99) August 5, 2019

Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

Thinking of others. Carrie Jernigan’s daughter wanted to get a pair of shoes for a friend but didn’t know the size. At a Payless store, which was closing, the Arkansas woman had an idea. “How much,” she asked a clerk, “for the rest of the shoes in here?” She bought all 1,500 pairs and is helping distribute them to people in need. Thanks to Erin Ruberry for the tip. (NBC News)

Never too late. This longtime car mechanic was looking for something new. Carl Allamby wanted to get a college degree. One thing led to another, and at 47, he has become a doctor in his hometown of Cleveland. Allamby’s college path began in 2006, when he decided to get a business degree. The last class he took, biology, changed his life. “After the first hour of class, I was like, ‘This is what I want to do. I have to go into medicine.’ It was like a light switched on.” He went to a community college, got a second undergraduate degree, and enrolled in med school. “It was a steep climb, but he had the intellect,” said Dr. Ormond Brathwaite, Allamby’s chemistry professor. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Teach by doing. Plastic waste is being recycled into a type of brick to be used in building schools in Ivory Coast. The bricks, which also could be used for teachers’ housing, promise to provide a decent living for the many women who are doing the recycling, said Mariam Coulibaly, who has been collecting plastic waste for 20 years. “We think there is a future in plastic,” she said. Thanks for the link, Elizabeth Arnold. (New York Times)

A path to success. The number of Americans dropping out of high school has fallen by two-thirds since 2000. Why? One primary reason: More jobs require diplomas. The drop is even more pronounced among Latino and Latina teens (75% reduction) and black teens (69% reduction). “If you think about education as an equity issue, we had some progress in changing that gap over the last generation,” said John Farden, associate vice president for US programs at Save the Children. (Christian Science Monitor)

Quote(s) of the week. The just-departed Nobel-winning novelist Toni Morrison once said, “Make a difference about something other than yourselves.’’ She also said, “Just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else.” Rest in power. 

I’ll leave you with this placid, shady image of trees from Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida, via the Interior Department’s Twitter account. Have a thoughtful, purposeful week ahead.

The shade, colors & reflections draw you deeper into the wonderland @BigCypressNPS #Florida #FindYourPark pic.twitter.com/DW1FosQeQy

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) July 22, 2019

Sovereign Valentine, a personal trainer in Montana, underwent dialysis and got stuck with an incorrect bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars.Tommy Martino/Kaiser Health News

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

The dialysis kept him alive. Then the Montana physical trainer, Sovereign Valentine, got the bill after insurance—for $524,000.

Now that bill is zero, wiped clean after journalists investigated and shared the story.

Valentine was diagnosed with kidney failure in January and was told he needed 14 weeks of dialysis. The clinic to which he was sent, 70 miles from his home, charged him $13,868 per session—59 times the Medicare price. His insurance company claimed Valentine was out of his coverage network, which he disputed.

Last Thursday, after a probe by NPR, Kaiser Health News, and CBS This Morning, dialysis provider Fresenius—one of the country’s two biggest dialysis outfits—agreed to treat Valentine as an in-network patient. That means he’s on the hook for just a $5,000 deductible, which he has already hit for the year. 

Valentine said he hopes his outcome sheds light on the gross inaccuracies of medical billing—such as in-network and out-of-network determinations—and inspire all patients to demand clarity and stand their ground.

The victory means Valentine can focus on his next step: a kidney transplant. Now, he told Kaiser Health News, “I can just save my energy for that.”

Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

Harvesting seaweed. England’s first commercial seaweed farm is opening, using the once-discarded plant for food, cosmetics, and biotechnology. Seaweed is increasingly used as an experimental, climate-friendly substitute for plastics, making headlines this year when London Marathon runners were given water-filled seaweed pouches instead of plastic bottles. “We don’t need land, we don’t need power, we don’t need freshwater, and we don’t need chemicals,” said Wave Crookes of SeaGrown farms. “All we need is sun and the sea.” (Positive News)

The optimists’ club. At age 104, Virginia Leitner has begun a new project, one that emphasizes lessons she’s learned. The former teen tailor, self-taught painter, and Ms. Missouri Senior America pageant contestant is organizing an optimists’ club in her building, where people can focus on the brightness of life. Leitner says that’s been one secret to her longevity, along with good genes and exercise. “Just don’t tell me to be good,” she adds, “because I want to dance and have fun.” (STAT News)

People power. After widespread protests, the Trump administration has halted plans—for now—to imprison migrant kids at an Army base in Oklahoma where Japanese Americans were held during World War II. Japanese Americans and Native Americans (some of whose ancestors were imprisoned at Fort Sill in the 1890s) were among those who had protested outside the base. The Department of Health and Human Services said Saturday it was placing many migrant kids with sponsor families and wouldn’t use the base at this time. (Associated Press)

Another side of the story. Baltimore, in the news lately, is also a leader in urban forestry. While many US cities are losing their trees rapidly, Baltimore has joined cities like Barcelona and Melbourne in prioritizing the expansion of canopy coverage. Studies show crime and temperatures decrease with more shade—and home values increase. Trees also help with air pollution removal, carbon sequestration, even work productivity, said David Nowak, a senior scientist with the US Forest Service. “We might as well work with the forests. Nature is giving us this amazing resource…We should be smart about this whole process and use nature to make our lives better.” With 2.6 million trees, Baltimore is up slightly in its canopy coverage and is aiming to do more. “We’re at the forefront of a lot of green infrastructure,” said city arborist Erik Dihle. “We have a lot to champion.” (Christian Science Monitor)

Readers, is your community expanding its tree canopy coverage? Let me know at recharge@motherjones.com.

Sesame love. Thanks to all the readers who keep sending messages about how our article on Sesame Street reminded them of the way the show affected their lives. Andrew Thorton of San Antonio wrote over the weekend: “Sesame Street, with its wealth of diversity and inclusion, was elemental in shaping my view of the world, and the world I wanted to live in. I am eternally grateful to the creators of that show, and I feel so fortunate to have been raised on it. My parents had no idea!” Reader Kate Amon of Fremont, California, added: “Not only did I love watching Sesame Street in my youth…I’m STILL waiting for life to be Sesame Street for childhood and Star Trek for adulthood! Getting impatient about it as I’m in my fifties now and our country is backsliding. Here’s to hell-raising to make America a less hellish place.”

I’ll leave you with this blooming image from Glacier National Park in Montana, via John Weatherby and the Interior Department’s Twitter account. Have a great week ahead!

Just in case you need more proof that @GlacierNPS is one of the most gorgeous places on Earth. Pic courtesy of John Weatherby #FindYourPark #Montana pic.twitter.com/judUpXxNQ6

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) July 24, 2019

Clarification: Valentine’s insurance company had claimed he was out of his coverage network, which he disputed.

Protestors assembled by a majority-Jewish group called Never Again Action make their way to Independence Mall on July 4, 2019, in Philadelphia.Jacqueline Larma/AP

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

Never again. That’s the two-word message these young Jewish activists were told growing up. And that’s why they’re working to stop the targeting and imprisonment of migrant kids in US detention camps.

Only a month old, the Never Again Action movement has launched at least seven protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement nationwide, including this week in Washington, DC.

The organization is growing at a dizzying speed, said Evan Feldberg-Bannatyne, a 21-year-old student at Earlham College in Indiana, who runs a team that handles the group’s sponsorships, budgeting, and reimbursements.

“This is really how I practice my Judaism—through social justice,” he said.

Brandon Mond, 25, said young Jews of conscience have no other choice than to stand up for persecuted people.

“This is authoritarianism—we’ve seen this before,” Mond told BuzzFeed News. “This is a state agency that’s able to just roll around the streets and abduct people at random. My whole life I’ve been told these stories by my community that say that’s a bad sign, so those alarms are going off in my head.” 

Other groups are joining the cause. We reported recently on Japanese American detention camp survivors rallying outside an Oklahoma base that is scheduled to become a child detention camp. On Saturday, Buddhist priests and Native Americans joined them in protest.

Two days earlier, 70 Catholic nuns and parishioners were arrested in Congress in a protest against the detention centers. (BuzzFeed News)

Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

• The iceman cometh. The white gas station attendant hissed at the Latina customers, saying they should “go back” to the country they came from and that “ICE will come.” The convenience store owner fired the clerk after a video of the exchange went viral and protesters converged on the Naperville, Illinois, gas station. “We do not tolerate any behavior that is insensitive to our valued customers,” the company said. “Bucky’s Convenience Stores is a very diverse and inclusive company that believes in treating all individuals with the utmost respect.” (BuzzFeed News)
• Individual action. James Neal lives by a motto: One person cannot change the world, but one person can change the life of one person. In 2016, he donated a kidney to save one person. In March, in an operation in Pittsburgh, he donated part of his liver to save a stricken stranger, Margaret Boden, who wanted to see her daughter get married. Thanks to Neal, whose liver regenerated to normal size after three months of recuperation, she did. (CBS News)
• Books for change. An independent bookstore and social workers have joined forces to get books quickly in the hands of teens in a juvenile detention center in the Bronx. The teens are asking for titles like Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. The books are a pathway to serious conversations about teens’ lives—and can lower recidivism rates, says Mary Beth Zeman, author of Tales of a Jailhouse Librarian. “If a bookstore can partner [with a juvenile justice organization], that’s nothing but beneficial,” Zeman says. (The City)
• “One tiny bee at a time.” How can one person make a difference? For Brenna Maloney, struck by the decline of insect species, the answer is measured in bees. The Washington, DC–area beekeeper encourages others to join her pursuit, which she began on Mother’s Day. “If I’m lucky, my 10,000 bees will become a colony of 60,000 by summer’s end,” she wrote in an essay. “Maybe I can’t change the whole world, but I can take charge of my own backyard.” (Washington Post)

I’ll leave you with this stunning image from Capitol Reef National Park in south-central Utah via the Interior Department’s Twitter account. Have a great week ahead!

Grab some water & enjoy the amazing solitude @CapitolReedNPS. Pic by #Utah #FindYourPark pic.twitter.com/ql9gAcmWEM

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) July 19, 2019

Beneath the ice on Canada’s Ellesmere Island is hidden life waiting to reawaken as the glacier melts and reveals ancient moss.Mario Tama/Getty

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

Buried under ice for centuries, plants in the warming Arctic have hit air and are awakening, to the surprise of scientists. The resilience of these species suggests newly known plants may emerge as other species die off, sped up by the climate crisis.

“You wouldn’t assume that anything buried for hundreds of years would be viable,” Catherine La Farge, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Alberta, told the Washington Post.

La Farge brought back Arctic moss from Canada’s Ellesmere Island to her Edmonton lab, where almost a third of the samples reawakened. “The material had always been considered dead. But by seeing green tissue, I thought, ‘Well, that’s pretty unusual,'” she said. The plants left La Farge and colleagues “pretty blown away.”

Others have made similar discoveries from Earth’s polar regions amid fears of reborn bacteria or pathogens. Mosses frozen for thousands of years in Antarctic permafrost have been reborn. A University of Tennessee microbiologist has coaxed back to life a Siberian nematode estimated at more than 40,000 years old. 

“If they survived 41,000 years,” researcher Gaetan Borgonie told the Post, “I have no idea what the upper limit is.”

Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

• One with nature. The dying forest ranger had one last wish. Firefighters were happy to oblige. They took Edward Reis, still in his gurney, on a three-hour springtime journey through the woods and the shore of Washington state’s Meadowdale Beach Park, on Puget Sound. They paused to let him hear the running of a brook, smell the fragrance of cedar, and view a verdant vista. “We would stop every so often and he would just sit and listen,” says his hospice nurse, Leigh Gardner, who accompanied him. “He was just smiling the whole time.” Reis, 62, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2008, died this year on April 13, and an account of his excursion on hospice volunteers’ Facebook page became popular in June. “I miss his presence,” Gardner says. “He was a gentle, gentle soul.” Thanks to Recharge reader Karen Weintraub for the story tip. (ABC News)
• The youngest constituents. Who stands up for the next generations, for kids who haven’t been born yet? In Wales, there’s a Cabinet minister for that. Sophie Howe’s first-of-a-kind job, called the Future Generations Commissioner, is to improve the lives of those to come. Under a 2015 act, all Welsh public bodies must ensure their decisions don’t hurt tomorrow’s citizens. Howe’s post has drawn attention from the Netherlands, Finland, and South Korea, and she’s made an impact by promoting bike-sharing and other future-thinking programs. “I think there is a recognition dawning that the way we have been doing things across the world is no longer fit for purpose—it is damaging the planet and people,” she says. “I’m proud of what Wales has done.” (Positive News)
• Cookies for all. That’s the philosophy of 13-year-old Michael Platte, who has channeled his passion for baking and social justice into a business. The Bowie, Maryland, teen, who learned to bake from YouTube videos, donates one cookie, cupcake, or slice of cake to homeless people for every one he sells on Facebook or his website. Twice a month, he donates food around Washington, DC, and he has helped raise money for the charity No Kid Hungry. His selection includes shortbread cookies and a monthly cupcake inspired by freedom fighters such as Nelson Mandela, Harriet Tubman, and Maya Angelou. “It’s all about helping people,” Michael says, “not just having a purpose for yourself.” Thanks to Alisa Hermann-Wu and Lynn Johnston for the story tip. (Washington Post)

I’ll leave you with this image of a Calico sea bass at Channel Islands National Park in California, via the Interior Department’s Twitter account. Have a great week ahead!

Don’t be surprised if fish don’t like you. They’re fin-icky.

Calico sea bass 🐟 at Channel Islands National Park @CHISNPS #California #FindYourPark pic.twitter.com/zlUdHZ6Bt0

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) July 5, 2019

Indonesia's National Board for Disaster Management spokesperson Sutopo Purwo NugrohoTatan Syuflana/AP

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

Can you imagine if one of the most trusted people in the United States was the spokesperson for FEMA?

In Indonesia, with 2,300 natural disasters a year, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, head of public relations for the National Board for Disaster Management, became a star by tirelessly informing the public with accurate, timely accounts of unfolding disasters. As his body weakened with stage 4 lung cancer, he typed news releases from his hospital bed on the latest earthquake, tsunami, flood, or landslide. His warnings saved lives. 

Guardian reporter Kate Lamb said that Sutopo, known widely and affectionately as Pak Topo, was energized by helping others. Upon his death at age 49, announced Sunday, he was hailed throughout the nation of 270 million people, including by President Joko Widodo, for his commitment to the facts and for his passionate public service.

When Lamb visited the ailing Pak Topo in November, his office was filled with letters, packages, and medicine from well-wishers from across Indonesia. He said he would serve the people until the end.

“Life isn’t determined by how long we live, but how useful we are to other people,” he told Lamb. “Every job, if intended with heart, will have good results.”

Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

• A matter of integrity. A Florida library tried to hold an LGBTQ prom, but a conservative blogger riled up his 700,000 social followers so much that the library feared for the kids’ security and canceled the event. A neighboring church stepped in, and more than 100 teens had their dance without incident, as scheduled. “It was the right thing to do,” says Grace Repass, past president of the Buckman Bridge Unitarian Universalist Church in Jacksonville. “We see our church as a safe place for people who are figuring out who they are…So, it’s a matter of integrity—to act in alignment with who we say we are.” (Washington Post)
• The birthday gift. Last week, we wrote about Little Free Pantries, the outdoor boxes where neighbors can put in canned goods for others. In Boise, Idaho, 3-year-old Miles Herndon and his family decided that, in lieu of birthday presents, contributions to a Little Food Pantry would be appreciated. Miles even got his dentist to donate toothbrushes. “We don’t need that much stuff,” says Miles’ mom, Macy Miller. Her son wanted, she says, “to find ways to direct the kindness to where it was more needed.” (KTVB)
• First scoop. A Massachusetts teenager found out his high school was going to use prison labor to reupholster the furniture in its auditorium. After the teen published his story in his school newspaper, showing that workers were paid less than a dollar an hour, the school district agreed not to use prison labor again. (The Marshall Project)
• Quote of the week. “It takes courage not to be discouraged,” says Ben Ferencz, a pioneering attorney who prosecuted Nazi killers more than seven decades ago at Nuremberg and has been fighting for justice ever since. At 99, Ferencz swims, works out in the gym, and does pushups daily, praising the progress in women’s and LGBTQ rights in recent decades. “You know what keeps me going?” he asked CBS’s Lesley Stahl. “I know I’m right.” (60 Minutes)

I’ll leave you with this image of a black bear cub with the cub’s momma at Glacier National Park, via the Interior Department’s Twitter account. Have a great week ahead!

Tender times in national parks with family. Isn’t that what life’s all about? Pic of a black momma bear & cub @GlacierNPS courtesy of Seth Anderson #Montana #FindYourPark pic.twitter.com/2ZAJRBbjpI

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) July 6, 2019

Japanese Americans protest at an Oklahoma military base where 1,400 migrant children are locked up. The base has a history of detaining people seeking asylum as well as imprisoning Japanese Americans during World War II.J Pat Carter/Getty

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

They too were children when they were rounded up and incarcerated in an “internment” camp on US soil.

In their 70s and 80s now, a group of former Japanese American detainees rallied outside a military base in Oklahoma on June 22, urging US officials not to repeat America’s shameful history of forcing children behind bars and fences.

“We need to be the allies for vulnerable communities today that Japanese Americans didn’t have in 1942,” Seattle-based historian Tom Ikeda told the Los Angeles Times. Ikeda joined about two dozen of the World War II detainees and their descendants outside Fort Sill.

“We are here today to protest the repetition of history,” said Satsuki Ina, 75, of San Francisco, among 120,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned during World War II for their background.

It’s not easy to stand up for others and risk arrest. These protesters, many elderly, were met by uniformed military police, one of whom shouted, “You need to move right now! What don’t you understand? It’s English: Get out.”

The elderly protesters stood their ground. 

Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

• A pantry for others. Think of a Little Free Library, a wooden set of shelves from which neighbors can share books. Now think of a similar outside box with canned goods to help less-fortunate neighbors. That’s the idea behind Little Free Pantries. More than 600 have sprouted up across the United States in the past three years, and they’ve appeared in Canada, the Netherlands, and New Zealand as well. “Addressing food insecurity takes a lot, and this is another pretty innovative piece to the puzzle that meets a really local need where it exists,” says Tim McDermott of the Virginia-based nonprofit Feed More, which gathers, prepares, and distributes food. (Washington Post)
• Beating a payday lender. For eight years, Maria Dichter, 73, has had to borrow $500 every month from a payday lender. On Social Security, she can make the monthly $54 interest and fee, but has to take out a new loan each time. She and her ailing husband have had to scrimp on food, limiting themselves to eggs and Special K cereal, to make the interest payments—until last month, when the WNYC/ProPublica podcast Trump Inc. reported on her struggle in a story about the payday lending industry and the Trump administration. A listener paid off the loan in late June, and lawmakers are seeking to make sure the industry doesn’t lend to people without the means to repay. Listen to her story here: (Trump Inc.)
• How to be happy. A recent study suggests that living near a cafe or a library may help build trust, decrease loneliness, and create a stronger sense of community. Whether in big cities, small towns, or rural areas, people near such amenities, or parks, gyms, restaurants, or theaters, are more likely to say people in their community are “very willing” to help their neighbors, according to the study. “Communities that blend a healthy mix of amenities, such as schools, community centers, and grocery stores, improve our social well-being in ways that our arguments over politics never will,” say study authors Daniel Cox and Ryan Streeter. (The Atlantic)
• Saving the Earth. Thanks to everyone who wrote in with ideas on how to make a difference fighting climate change. Even if we don’t have millions of dollars in guitars to sell, like Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, reader Jessica Lavish suggests starting with individual efforts, from reusable bags at the grocery store to backing planet-friendly politicians. Many of the thousands of people who shared this story on social media applauded Gilmour, with Sonja Rhae writing: “Pink Floyd still runs strong in this house and we support your cause. I do what I can on my end because we need to lead by example and you are [a] leader of the most gracious sort.” (Mother Jones)

Many thanks to Recharge readers for spotting that a flower misidentified by the Interior Department in a photo in last week’s Recharge is actually known as dame’s rocket, not a phlox. The difference: A phlox has five petals; dame’s rocket has four.

I’ll leave you with this image from the Fisher Towers Recreation Site in Utah, courtesy of the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Have a great week ahead!

Under a bright full moon, Fisher Towers rise above the valley like majestic castle spires. Pic by Steven Luther (https://t.co/7u0uZGuWtK) #Utah pic.twitter.com/rzjSr8rXOy

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) June 23, 2019

David Gilmour with his granddaughterCourtesy Polly Samson

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, stirred by the message of 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, wanted to do something to improve the world.

But what could he do?

Last week, Gilmour auctioned off his guitars, including the black Fender Stratocaster that helped create Dark Side of the Moon and Shine On You Crazy Diamond. He said goodbye to the 12-string Martin behind Wish You Were Here. In all, he raised $21.5 million—that’s right, $21.5 million.

He gave the proceeds from the most valuable auction of musical instruments in history to a nonprofit that fights climate change.

“The global climate crisis is the greatest challenge that humanity will ever face,” Gilmour tweeted. “We need a civilised world that goes on for all our grandchildren and beyond in which these guitars can be played and songs can be sung.” And then, in a video, he strummed a placid instrumental.

Gilmour donated to a charity called ClientEarth, which takes legal steps to combat climate change.

His grand gesture, applauded worldwide, may have a broader impact, persuading others to swap their mementos for cash to help solve our climate emergency. Readers, what ideas do you have for those of us who don’t have $21.5 million in guitars to help fight climate change? Email me at recharge@motherjones.com. Each of us has something to offer, writes psychologist and Maitripa College professor Dan Rubin.

Here are more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

• Conscientious Cracker Barrel. A Tennessee restaurant turned away the police detective who had called for executions of LBGTQ people when he tried to schedule a church meeting there. The Cracker Barrel shut down the detective and his evangelical group’s event plan, citing its zero-tolerance policy for hate. “We serve everyone who walks through our doors with genuine hospitality, not hate, and require all guests to do the same.” (Knoxville News Sentinel)
• Freedom to read. Arizona’s prison system lifted its ban on a critically acclaimed book on African American men and prisons after a nationwide uproar and an ACLU challenge. “We won!” tweeted author Paul Butler, a former prosecutor and Georgetown law professor whose book, Chokehold: Policing Black Men, had been pulled from Arizona prisons. “This is a victory for the inmate who wanted to read my book, and for literacy and justice,” Butler wrote. “The struggle continues for the 2 million plus souls locked up in the US.” (Arizona Republic)
• His mother knew. Charlie van der Horst’s mom was a Holocaust survivor. When his parents moved to the United States in 1950, they discovered their new nation was also rife with prejudice and hate, he once said. They became active in the civil rights movement, and their son, a noted researcher of AIDS and Ebola, didn’t fear jail time as he fought for the rights of North Carolina residents without health insurance. Van der Horst, 67, died in the Hudson River while swimming in a New York marathon earlier this month. “I think he used his powers for good,” said Dr. David Wohl, who came to the University of North Carolina to work with van der Horst in 1994 and is now a professor of medicine in the university’s Division of Infectious Diseases. Thanks to Jonathan M. Katz for the link. (News & Observer)
• And hey-oh, Ohio: I’ll leave you this week with a waterfall from the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, via the Interior Department Twitter feed. Have a great week ahead!

Purple phlox & forest green add to the summer beauty of Brandywine Falls at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Pic @CVNPNPS by Anthony Boarman (https://t.co/7u0uZGuWtK) #Ohio #FindYourPark pic.twitter.com/4ESTtd1hxQ

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) June 19, 2019

Correction: The blooming flower in the Interior Department’s tweet is actually known as dame’s rocket, not a phlox. The difference: A phlox has five petals; dame’s rocket has four.

Tens of thousands of people march through the streets of Hong Kong in protest to an extradition bill on June 16, 2019.Kin Cheung/AP

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

Who wanted to legalize the seizing of people off the streets and their forced removal to mainland China?

Not the people of Hong Kong, who have rallied to make it resoundingly clear that they want to preserve their democracy and human rights, which have greater protections than those of people in mainland China.

In astounding demonstrations, people in Hong Kong forced the former British colony’s unpopular leader, Carrie Lam, to delay indefinitely an extradition law that would have permitted the forced relocation of its people to mainland China. Lam apologized to her constituents Saturday and again on Sunday, when organizers said nearly 2 million people swelled the streets to call for the permanent shelving of that proposed law—and for the resignation of the pro-Beijing Lam.

“One week ago, our future was dark. But now I can see so many people here supporting our protest,” Casper Ng, a 22-year-old student at the Hong Kong Design Institute, told the Los Angeles Times on Sunday. “So I think our future will be bright. But we need to keep fighting for our democracy and freedom.”

The protests, during which police used rubber bullets and tear gas against protesters, shook the Asian financial center, which switched from British to Chinese leadership in 1997 with a promise to maintain democracy and autonomy from Beijing.

The protests also heartened people opposed to authoritarian leadership worldwide.

“They want to send a message to Beijing,” Willy Lam, an adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told the New York Times. “If Beijing wants to do something that really infringes upon Hong Kong’s basic value, Hong Kong people will turn out in force, again and again, to pour out their discontent.”

Here are some more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

• Not about me. Leanne Carrasco could have had a graduation party. She didn’t want one. Instead, she brought 90 pizzas to homeless women and children at a Houston shelter. “If I’m able to get to the people, that will last more than one day,” says Carrasco, a frequent volunteer who also distributed hygiene kits at the Star of Hope center. She says she wants to become a nurse and give back to her community. (KTRK)
• Speaking of pizza. A Canadian pizza shop is asking customers to pay it forward, a slice at a time. “If somebody comes and asks for food, we cannot deny them, because they are hungry,” says Vikas Sanger, owner of Winnipeg’s SFC Pizzeria. “But I just opened a new restaurant, so I cannot afford to [give] everything free.” Instead, customers have been giving a buck for those who cannot pay, and putting up sticky notes with a blessing on the wall. Those without means can choose which blessings they want—with a free slice as well. (CBC)
• The last lawn mowed? Back in July, we profiled Rodney Smith Jr., who traveled the country mowing lawns for veterans, single moms, and elderly people. Last week, the Alabama man finished off his latest nationwide tour by mowing in Hawaii, his 50th state. Smith says his biggest accomplishment since starting his effort in was inspiring 400 young people to mow for neighbors who need a hand. “My true purpose,” Smith says, “is helping people.” Of the vets—many struggling—whose lawns he’s cut, he says: “If they served for our country, we should step up for them.” (ABC News)
• A place for peace. The library has two parking lots and two entrances, one on the US side and one on the Canadian side of the border. The frontier runs through the library, and no visas are required. In December, I wrote about how the Haskell Free Library and Opera House has become an unlikely gathering place for families divided by a US travel ban on visitors from many Muslim nations. Now the Vermont-Quebec library—and its reunions—star in an art exhibition in a Washington, DC, gallery. “Neighboring Towns” includes a video of the library’s interior, accompanied by the voiceover narration of an Iranian-born Canadian, who, with his parents, met there with his sister, who lives in the United States. (Washington Post)

I’ll leave you with this sunset from Minnesota’s Voyageurs National Park, courtesy of the Interior Department’s Twitter feed. Have a great week ahead!

You're going to love watching the sunset from your boat at Voyageurs National Park. Pic by Aaron Billberg (https://t.co/7u0uZGuWtK) #Minnesota #FindYourPark #GreatOutdoorsMonth pic.twitter.com/Z2ma9NDyt7

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) June 13, 2019

Jennifer Whelchel and Ralph at Universal OrlandoCourtesy Lenore Koppelman

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

It was a supreme meltdown—almost involuntary. A worker at Universal Orlando Resort, Jennifer Whelchel, didn’t scold, belittle, or dither. She knew just what to do when she saw a 9-year-old autistic boy “sobbing, screaming, rocking, hyperventilating, and truly struggling to breathe,” as the boy’s mom, Lenore Koppelman, put it.

“She got down on the floor WITH HIM,” Koppelman wrote on Facebook. “She rested next to him while he cried his heart out, and she helped him breathe again. She spoke to him so calmly, and while he screamed and sobbed, she gently kept encouraging him to let it all out.”

When Whelchel saw the boy, she thought of her 8-year-old nephew, who is also autistic, she told the Washington Post. She understood instinctively what had happened: The boy was waiting all day to ride the Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man but it was malfunctioning—and closed—when he finally got there.

Without formal training in responding to autistic children, Whelchel had done exactly the right thing. After 10 minutes, she offered Ralph water and asked if he wanted to get up. Ralph spontaneously gave her a high-five.

Koppelman said she wrote the Facebook post to give cheer to other parents with autistic kids. The community responded with support, sharing their own stories of public meltdowns.

“I have an awesomely Autistic 5 year old little boy and this made me sob like a baby,” wrote one commenter.

“To often when we see small children or people with special needs having what we see as ‘Spoiled Tantrums’ we are all so quick to cast judgements upon them and their caregivers. We expect them to act NORMAL,” wrote another.

Here are some more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

• Saving a neighbor. Two teenage Oklahoma brothers saw fire coming from the home of their 90-year-old neighbor across the street. Seth and Nick Byrd ran over to get Catherine Ritchie out while two friends got help. “This young boy was right there,” Ritchie said of 14-year-old Nick. “He picked me up, and I said, ‘I can walk,’ and he said, ‘We’re getting out of here.'” One of Ritchie’s 10 children, Missy Ritchie Nicholas, summed up her family’s gratitude this way: “Kids who are told about all the things they aren’t old enough to do saved the life of the most precious and beloved woman we know,” she wrote in a blog post. (KTUL)
• Taking the lead. Finland has just pledged to go carbon neutral by 2035 and will underwrite its own Green New Deal to get there. The announcement by the incoming government followed a campaign in which 80 percent of Finns say urgent climate action is necessary and 70 percent say the government must do more. The plan would expand and improve the rail network, rapidly increase wind and solar power production, and cut fossil fuels and peat, which power about 40 percent of the nation’s energy. The head of the nation’s Green League party calls it “probably the most ambitious in the world” on climate issues. (The Guardian)
• Dream not deferred. Just because the Trump administration won’t follow through on America’s plan to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill doesn’t mean you can’t. New York designer Dano Wall created a 3D stamp that can be used to superimpose a portrait of the civil rights leader over that of slaveholder Andrew Jackson, who was also responsible for the slaughter of Native Americans. Wall has sold out of his stamps and is producing more. “Putting Harriet Tubman on the front of the $20 bill,” Wall said, “would have constituted a monumental symbolic change, disrupting the pattern of white men who appear on our bills, and, by putting her on the most popular note currently in circulation, indicates exactly what kind of a life we choose to celebrate.” Canada just won an international award for its $10 bill, which features civil rights leader Viola Desmond. (Washington Post)
• Opening the (Sesame) mailbox. Readers responded passionately to last week’s Recharge on the black psychiatrist who was crucial to shaping Sesame Street’s development as a tool against racism. Carole Gealow of Minnesota wrote: “My 2 daughters are in their 50s now. Both grew up watching Sesame Street in their younger years. Both are accepting of all peoples regardless of age, color, cultural background, disabilities etc. Once I asked the youngest who her favorite [Sesame Street] person was. She said Gordon. I asked which one was he. She said the one with the mustache.” Added Beate Krohse, who grew up watching the show in Hanover, Germany: “Kids aren’t racists. Only adults can’t accept things they don’t know or fear of.”

I’ll leave you with this image of an endangered Karner blue butterfly, about the size of a quarter, from the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Twitter feed. Have a great week ahead!

Karner blue butterflies are #endangered pollinators about the size of a quarter. Necedah #WildlifeRefuge in Wisconsin is a great place to spot them, thanks to an abundance of wild lupine – the species only host plant! pic.twitter.com/elGSGucKzz

— USFWS Midwest Region (@USFWSMidwest) May 28, 2019

Sesame StreetAlbum/Entertainment Pictures/Zuma

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

Sesame Street is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The rush of stories and social posts about the iconic children’s TV show has inspired numerous stories about Muppets and cast members.

Few, however, noted the role of Dr. Chester Pierce, a psychiatrist and Harvard Medical School professor who was instrumental to the show’s early development and vision.

In 1969, Pierce signed up to be a senior adviser to Sesame Street creators Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett. The founding president of the Black Psychiatrists of America, Pierce blamed television for furthering racist tropes, but also saw the medium as an opportunity to break those stereotypes, according to Undark Magazine.

Sesame Street was originally conceived as a show that would bring remedial education into the homes of disadvantaged kids. But Pierce recognized the show’s potential and pushed for it to include a multi-ethnic “neighborhood” with people of color as role models. Amid the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and the riots spurred by racial inequity, this vision seemed especially crucial.

Radical for its time, Sesame Street presented an integrated society where everyone was treated with respect. People of color, such as Gordon, the show’s teacher, and his wife, Susan, were authority figures. That reinforcing message was as important as learning the alphabet and numbers.

“Early childhood specialists have a staggering responsibility in producing planetary citizens whose geographic and intellectual provinces are as limitless as their all-embracing humanity,” Pierce said in 1972.

Pierce fought racism his entire life, including as a Harvard undergraduate, when he became the first black student to play in a major college football game at an all-white university south of the Mason-Dixon Line, at the University of Virginia.

Pierce died in 2016, but his spirit of inclusion lives on in the most successful children’s show of all time.

Readers, did Sesame Street help you think differently about race and community as a kid? Do you think its lessons stuck with you as an adult? Let us know at recharge@motherjones.com.

Here are some more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

• A singular kindness. She was at a Starbucks ordering a tall coffee with a pump of mocha. Then she saw a flyer asking for a kidney from a donor with her blood type: O-positive. Before she left, Catherine Pearlman decided she would sign up. Last month, she and her recipient, Eli Valdez, checked into Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Afterward, they wore matching “STRAIGHT OUTTA KIDNEY SURGERY” T-shirts, designed by Eli’s wife, Monica. Pearlman emphasized that while she helped Eli, she also said she did it to be true to her own ideals. “I can’t improve the lives of all who suffer. However, I can help one man have a better life,” Pearlman wrote in an op-ed. “I hope this one act moves others to find a way in their own lives, in whatever way makes sense, to perform their own acts of kindness.” (Los Angeles Times)
• Family transcends border. For much of their lives, Sarai Ruiz and her mom have tried to keep their family together. When Sarai was four, her dad was deported to Mexico. She and her mom, both US citizens, moved from Wisconsin to Laredo, Texas, then across the border to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, while Sarai attended high school in Texas. When Sarai graduated in May, her dad was not allowed to attend, so she walked, in cap and gown, to meet him at the border bridge after her ceremony. “I knew my father would never see me walk to get my diploma, but today I’d thought I’d surprise him by crossing the bridge so he could see me with my cap and gown,” she wrote on Facebook. After the hug, captured on a Facebook video that went viral, her dad said: “Nobody could ever separate us, only God.” (CNN)
• Changing the language. When Meaza Ashenafi began fighting sexual harassment in Ethiopia, the term didn’t even exist in Amharic, the nation’s primary language. Ashenafi, a lawyer, decided to create the term. She began prosecuting those accused of it and building the nation she wanted to live in. When a new government took power in April and offered her the role of chief justice, Ashenafi warned her superiors she would push for more change. “I told them, ‘If they want business as usual, I’m not the right person for this job.’” (Christian Science Monitor)

Floyd Martin on his last mail run in Marietta, Georgia.Jennifer Brett/Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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When Floyd Martin set out for his final postal run in Marietta, Georgia, he didn’t expect mailboxes decorated in his honor. Or children and families and family pets waiting to say goodbye to him. Or, at the end of his route, a block party with hundreds of people from the community celebrating his retirement.

Martin, 61, had delivered mail to the Marietta neighborhood for nearly 35 years. He often went above and beyond, carrying newspapers to the steps for elderly residents, stopping in for a moment to talk to new moms juggling diapers and laundry, and handing out treats to the dogs and lollipops to the kids.

Standing at the surprise celebration, Martin said he was filled with joy and gratitude, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

“My parents died. My fur babies died. I lost most of my friends,” Martin told the assembled neighbors. “You were there when I needed you, even if you didn’t know it. Thank you for caring about me.”

Martin decided to retire after enduring the heat of last summer. His dream has always been to go on vacation to Hawaii. After his story went viral on Twitter, hundreds of people helped chip in for some of the costs. Delta even offered him a free ticket.

Families urged him not to leave their community behind, to return for an annual food festival and other events.

Not to worry.

“I’ll be back,” Martin told them. “Y’all are my life.”

Thanks to reader Liva Judic for the story suggestion.

Here are some more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

• A community rallies. When a Virginia restaurant refused to serve White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, it received arson threats and postcards smeared with excrement. A year later, the 26-seat Red Hen restaurant is thriving, and co-owner Stephanie Wilkinson is grateful to the community and customers who stood by her. “For every hateful message, there was one of gratitude,” Wilkinson said. “What’s more, for every wish that our business die a painful death, there was a dollar bill or a generous check or an order for a gift certificate.” Her takeaway? “Our haters may have believed that there were more of ‘them’ than of ‘us,’ but it turns out we have more than enough to keep us cooking. And to everyone who might be fearful about taking a stand, I say don’t be.” (Washington Post)
• The big swerve. After his wife died, Dr. Peter Glatz gave up his longtime dental practice and decided follow his passion for cooking. He staged for a Chicago restaurateur and now, at 65, is working 12-hour shifts as a line chef at one of America’s top new restaurants, Nonesuch, in Oklahoma City. It was a big move, but one he needed, Glatz said. “Retiring and playing golf all day has zero appeal to me,” he says. “I don’t know if it’s a restless spirit, but I’m just someone who needs to keep creating and feeding people.” Thanks to Vicki Boykis for the story suggestion. (Bon Appétit)
• Ghostwriter no more. Susan Sontag is known as a feminist icon, a fierce intellectual, and a champion of the oppressed, but she had to subsume one of her early successes. Only now, thanks to a new biography, does the world know the extent of her sacrifice. Married at 17, just 10 days after attending one of sociologist Philip Rieff’s lectures, the young Sontag essentially wrote Rieff’s masterwork, Freud: The Mind of the Moralist, but never received credit. Biographer Benjamin Moser, based on new material and interviews, argues that while Rieff and Sontag lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, “Susan was spending every afternoon rewriting the whole thing from scratch.” In 1958, her friend Jacob Taubes chastised her for relinquishing rights to the Freud biography to her husband, whom she was divorcing. Why did the assertive Sontag surrender? As part of a deal to maintain custody of their son. “It was a blood sacrifice,” said Moser, author of the upcoming Sontag: Her Life and Work. (The Guardian)
• Laundromats, Part II. After last week’s newsletter story about an effort to bring libraries to laundromats, two readers on Twitter noted geographical and economic differences in their experiences—and reminded us that laundromats can be places for community. “I spent many, many hours in Anchorage laundromats as a newlywed,” wrote Sheila Hagar. “I hitchhiked there with pillowcases of clothing. The owner, Les, became a treasured source of community information and wisdom for my husband and I. Doing laundry became going home.” Another reader, Heather Bryant, said her local laundromat in Alaska was paired with a general store and a restaurant; it also featured a community bulletin board. “Going to the laundromat, which is also where many shower, is part of the routine, not ‘soul crushing.’” Thanks, as always, for your notes and suggestions for Recharge.

A librarian from Chicago Public Library reads to storytime attendees at Bubbleland laundromat.Courtesy of Chicago Public Library

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

As a kid, when my family had a few particularly rough years, we had to make weekly, sometimes soul-crushing visits to the laundromat. Sitting on the hard plastic seats, we’d thumb through old copies of Grit magazine, an illustrated Bible, or the first volume of an encyclopedia, the one you could buy for a penny.

The laundromat was a few steps down in a strip mall from a pay phone—the closest thing our family had to a regular number.

In those days, my little brother and sister and I would have greeted librarian Elizabeth McChesney with joy. McChesney began visiting Chicago laundromats in 1989, with books in tow. She found kids who were unlikely to attend storytime at a branch library but were eager to hear her read as the washers whirred. Her efforts helped inspire a nationwide initiative to bring libraries to laundromats.

Today, thanks to the work of McChesney and a broad-based coalition of nonprofits, thousands of families are benefiting from storytimes and bookshares in laudromats across the country. Adam Echelman, executive director of Libraries Without Borders, a nonprofit that aims to bring knowledge and information to those most in need worldwide, says, “You’re able to hold programs at a time and place that really meets people where they are. You have a captive audience, families return weekly, and it’s open all the time.”

Echelman’s group is part of a coalition working to form laundry literary groups nationwide. “Another thing is that most people don’t go to a laundromat outside of their neighborhood, so you’re working really locally,” he adds.

“Families are now changing their behavior, showing up to do their laundry when the library is going to be there,” McChesney, now director of Chicago Public Library’s children’s services and family engagement, told American Libraries magazine last month. “One little boy just recently said: ‘Let’s do laundry every day, Mom!’”

Thanks to Recharge reader Laurie Putnam for this story suggestion.

Here are some more Recharge stories to get you through the week:

• “My heart dropped.” That was Aaron Mitchum’s reaction after billionaire Robert F. Smith told Mitchum and other 2019 graduates of Morehouse College, an all-male historically black college, he would pay off their student debt. Mitchum estimated it would have taken 25 years to pay off his debt otherwise, adding “it was like a burden had been taken off.” That burden is much higher on black students like Mitchum, according to a 2018 study. It found black students were 85 percent more likely to take on debt than white students—and took much longer paying off the debt. Will rich donors follow Smith’s example? In 2017, Nicki Minaj agreed to help high-performing students cover their education costs, and the following year Michael Bloomberg donated $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University so no student would need to take out loans. (Mother Jones)
• A leader in saving women. Rwanda is becoming a model in the global fight to curtail cervical cancer. After nearly a decade, a vaccination campaign against human papillomavirus (HPV) is close to achieving the nation’s ambitious goal to vaccinate all young girls against the most common cause of cancer for Rwandan women. After the devastation of the 1990s genocide that killed more than 800,000 people, Rwanda’s government has focused on improving the health of its citizens, with 45,000 volunteer community health workers nationwide. In February, Rwanda’s Health Ministry reported a 93 percent vaccination rate for young girls against HPV, of which two types are responsible for 70 percent of the nation’s cervical cancer. Officials say the aggressive vaccination campaign will lead to a decline in deaths over the years. (Mosaic)
• Lost and found. Baron Feilzer hadn’t seen his brother Tyson for seven years. He knew his brother was down and out, and Baron had been searching for him. Then, last month, a relative forwarded Baron a photo of Tyson in an article from the San Francisco Chronicle. According to the story, Tyson, now 40 years old and addicted to meth and heroin, dreamed about getting off the streets. Baron immediately raised money to help Tyson and booked him a spot in a rehab center. Baron flew from Ohio to San Francisco, hired an interventionist, and enlisted Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan to help him search for his long lost brother. They found him in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood, with heroin needles underfoot. “Want to go for a ride?” Baron asked his brother. Tyson’s answer would determine his future. It was one word: “Yeah.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

WXII-12

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

On the day of her college graduation in 1949, Elizabeth Barker Johnson had to teach and missed her ceremony. Though she eventually received her diploma in the mail, she often wished for a proper graduation.

Seventy years later, Johnson finally got the chance.

Last Friday, at 99, she joined more than 1,100 graduates at Winston-Salem State University and walked across a commencement stage in full graduation regalia: robe, cap, tassel and all. She received an honorary degree in special education.

“I can’t explain how excited I really was,” Johnson, who taught in Virginia and North Carolina schools for more than three decades, told WXII 12 News. 

A World War II vet who drove trucks and worked in a military post office in Europe, Johnson returned to the United States and was one of the first people on campus to enroll through the GI Bill. Her passion to help others propelled her through studies and a teaching career.

“To begin with I felt like dropping out, but then there were so many children who were not getting the help they needed,” Johnson said. “I felt like teaching school, I could reach more people who would listen to me than if I tried to choose a job among adults.”

Johnson’s daughter, Cynthia Scott, said her mom imparted valuable lessons in life, including: “Treat everybody the same.”

On Friday, when Johnson rose to grab her walker, walk across the stage, and turn her tassel, she was greeted by a roar from row after row of college graduates. Not only was Johnson having her moment—she was also getting a standing ovation.

Here are some other Recharge stories to get you through the week.

• Keeping the day job. What keeps the prime minister of Bhutan de-stressed and energized? Returning on weekends to his old job tending to patients as a surgeon. “Some people play golf, some do archery, and I like to operate,” Dr. Lotay Tshering said one Saturday morning at his hospital. One job helps the other, says Tshering, who rose to power last November in the nation nestled in the Himalayas. On weekends, he sees health care issues firsthand. During the week, he tries to improve health care policy, a centerpiece of his government. Of medicine, he says, “I will continue doing this until I die and I miss not being able to be here every day. Whenever I drive to work on weekdays, I wish I could turn left towards the hospital.” (The Guardian)
• An alternative to nursing homes. Vermont residents are opening up their homes to elderly strangers and helping them with medications and other needs. In a new program called Adult Family Care, the elderly residents pay room and board, with Medicaid covering additional expenses. Early reviews of the program, which is less costly than nursing homes, have been generally positive. David Calderwood, who suffers from lung cancer, boards in Crystal Abel’s home, and lives in the bedroom where Abel’s adult daughter grew up. “It’s like my own family,” Calderwood said. Abel says she now earns more caring for Calderwood and another boarder than from her previous jobs. Still, she says, she’s formed strong bonds with the seniors she cares for. “Even if we didn’t have the money, we would find a way to make it work. I can’t imagine our lives without them.” (NPR)
• A coal-free week. Thanks to its growing reliance on solar and wind power, Britain just hit a major milestone: It generated all its electricity without using coal during the first seven days of May. The nation, which has pledged to wean itself completely off coal by 2020, now uses the fossil fuel as a backup in periods of high demand. The coal-free week comes two years after Britain was able to go coal-free for a day. (The Guardian)

New citizen Jaques Campher outside the federal courthouse in Columbus, OhioCourtesy of Jaques Campher and the Washington Post

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

His Fourth of July tie had served Marc Johnson well. While cleaning out his closet, he decided to put it on eBay and sold it quickly. In a follow-up message, the buyer told him why he wanted the patriotic tie—for his US citizenship ceremony.

Johnson was floored. “I was like…I can’t charge him for this,” he told the Washington Post. “I thought about it for a second and just decided to send him the tie gratis…I wanted him to have the tie with my congratulations on becoming a citizen.”

Later, Johnson got the photograph: A smiling Jaques Campher, a South African native, wearing the tie after his ceremony in Columbus, Ohio. Next to Campher is his American wife, Lindsay Krasinski, and their daughter, Alice.

Campher told the Post that he sent the photo to thank Johnson for the gift of the tie, which he said he will treasure for years. Krasinski said her husband was so moved by the gesture “he got weepy when he told me about it.”

Campher gave Johnson permission to put the photo on social media, where thousands of people have liked it. Johnson said the overwhelmingly positive response may be because the turnover of the tie “reminds us people can be kind to each other, and this is who we are.” The gesture of a gift from one American to a newcomer reflects something else about the nation, he added. “With very few exceptions, everybody in this country is an immigrant in one way or another, by ancestry if nothing else.”

Here are some other Recharge stories to get you through the week.

• Standing together as one. After a fire closed the Islamic Society of Mid-Manhattan mosque in New York, a synagogue a block away offered its space for Friday prayers. Nearly 600 people showed up, and Central Synagogue Rabbi Stephanie Kolin could hardly contain her joy. “This is one of the most beautiful moments I’ve seen in my entire life,” Kolin said. Following her statements of solidarity, the Muslim congregation blessed the synagogue and the rabbi. (NowThis News)
• Stemming a shortage. Francois Agwala was a teacher and a principal in his native Congo. Raquel Molina Fernández was an instructor for a decade in Spain. They’re among scores of foreign-born teachers in Maine who are taking part in a new program that will help prepare and certify them to teach in the state. The reasons are clear, says Portland’s superintendent, Xavier Botana. Students of color make up almost half of the public school district’s population, and more than a quarter are multilingual. But the teaching staff is 97 percent white and overwhelmingly speak English at home. Districts need teachers regardless—and fewer US-born workers are choosing the profession. The Maine program, based on similar efforts in Chicago and Portland, Oregon, also combats “brain waste”—when skills of immigrants aren’t transferred to new nations because of language or certification issues. Molina Fernández, who moved to the United States last year from Spain, says the program will help new Maine residents contribute to their communities. It shows “that there’s support for our skills and our preparation.” (Christian Science Monitor)
• Everybody wins. A Philadelphia nonprofit, Philabundance, and eastern Pennsylvania farmers have teamed up to produce cheese for the area’s hungry. The new initiative—the nonprofit also distributes surplus fruit and other goods from supermarkets to the poor—turns milk that would expire into something that lasts much longer. “Instead of going bad in 21 days, you have 6 months to a year,” said Kait Bowdler of Philabundance. What’s the group eyeing next? Turning skim milk left over in the butter-making process into spoonable or drinkable yogurt. (Philadelphia Citizen)

Rodney Robinson on the floor of the Virginia House of Delegates.Steve Helber/AP

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

Rodney Robinson picked up part of his philosophy on education from his mother, who ran an in-home day care.

“She always taught us that every child deserves the proper amount of love that he or she needs,” the Virginia educator told CBS News. “That was my first lesson in equity.”

That’s what Robinson has done in 19 years as a teacher in Richmond, Virginia, first in traditional schools and now at a school in the city’s juvenile detention center.

On Monday, Robinson was honored at the White House as America’s Teacher of the Year. Robinson, who won Richmond Public Schools Teacher of the Year in November 2017, was one of four finalists for the national award.

Robinson will spend the next year traveling the country with two messages: Impoverished students need more resources, and students of color need more teachers who look like them. Robinson himself only had one black teacher through high school. At the detention center, he plasters the walls of his classroom with leaders of color to inspire his students.  

At his school, Robinson specializes in outlining second chances for those who have made bad life decisions. “Our job is to give them hope,” Robinson told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

President Trump, who skipped the official ceremony led by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, later invited Robinson to an Oval Office chat in which he extolled the teacher’s efforts to help juvenile offenders find a new path for their lives.

Jason Kamras, superintendent for Richmond’s public schools, said Robinson has a powerful message of equity, inclusion, and justice. “As Rodney has so powerfully demonstrated with his work, our greatness as a country comes from the millions of people of all backgrounds who strive every day to right the wrongs of the past so we can become a more perfect union.”

He’s also is in tune with his students, said Doron Battle, a former pupil at Robinson’s previous school. Battle recalls a lesson on the World War II battle of Normandy where Robinson showed scenes from Saving Private Ryan to make students feel the material.

“He had a way of bringing it all in and made things he was telling us come to life,” said Battle, now a Richmond teacher himself.

Here are some other Recharge stories to get you through the week.

• Helping out all. Falling birthrates in South Korea have made some of the nation’s elementary schools desperate for students, especially in rural areas. After being unable to find new students, one elementary school has decided to take in pupils who are older. Much older. Now, some of the nation’s rural illiterate grandmothers, deprived of education generations ago, are showing up for class. “Writing letters to my children, that’s what I dreamed of the most,” said 70-year-old Hwang Wol-geum, who said she’s having fun attending first grade with three of her grandchildren. Her son, Kyong-deok, agreed: “My mother has become a much happier person since she began going to school. Smiles hardly seem to leave her face.” (New York Times)
• Feeding a starving nation. Working with kids in poor communities in Venezuela, Roberto Patiño watched as food sources dried up. Over the past three years, the Harvard-educated social worker has set up more than 100 free dining halls to feed hungry children. His goal is to serve 10,000 kids. “Our only criterion is a child in need,” Patiño said. (Christian Science Monitor)
• Escaping a horrible past. Eddie Adams has lived in a homeless shelter and moved at least seven times before college. The principal cellist for George Washington University’s orchestra, he has borrowed books and even his instrument as he eked out a living. That was before a news report about his plight prompted a crowdfunding effort that raised more than $155,000 for him as of Tuesday. Adams immediately paid off $15,000 in student loans and went to the dentist for the first time since he was a child. “I’ve been crying all day … happy tears,” he texted his strings instructor and mentor, June Huang. (Washington Post)

Students and parents visit a make shift memorial at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.mpi04/MediaPunch/IPX/AP

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

They were just teenagers. They were experiencing the most traumatic thing they had ever endured. But they kept reporting.

At this year’s Pulitzer Prize awards, administrator Dana Canedy singled out the student journalists of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s Eagle Eye newspaper for their work chronicling the February 2018 massacre in Parkland, Florida. Students at the Eagle Eye applied for a Pulitzer, noting that its 44 student reporters and editors had to “put aside our grief and recognize our role as both survivors, journalists and loved ones of the deceased.”

“I want to break with tradition and offer my sincere admiration for an entry that did not win, but that should give us all hope for the future of journalism in this great democracy,” Canedy said at the start of the awards ceremony on April 15.

In an interview with the New York Times, Canedy added, “We’re in good hands with young people like this.”

Leni Steinhardt, one of the Eagle Eye reporters, said she was reluctant at first to write an obituary of one of her fellow students. But she decided, “I’d rather it be us telling the story than some other news reporter who doesn’t really have a connection to them like we do.”

Student editor Hannah Kapoor, who plans to remain in journalism once she starts college at Princeton this fall, called the effort “the most newsworthy work we’ve done and probably ever will do.”

Here are some other Recharge stories to get you through the week.

• He didn’t bribe his way into college. The store security guard saw the cashier crying, and asked what happened. Eva Vazquez responded, “Do you really want to know? My son got into Harvard.” The customers around her started clapping. Her son, Oswaldo, was frequently bullied in California and Mexico, but still managed to excel in classes. “I want to start off as a computer programmer,” Oswaldo said of his career plans, noting that he hopes to one day work with artificial intelligence. “Once I retire, I want to be a teacher at my high school and just give back, and try to make kids be more engaged and have fun.” (Los Angeles Times)
• A gathering fight. While the battle against climate change seems daunting, The Guardian recently highlighted an inspiring slew of efforts worldwide. Sweden’s Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra is no longer inviting guest conductors or musicians who have to fly in to perform. Costa Rica has vowed to achieve “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Wellington, New Zealand—just named the world’s greenest capital—has planted 1.5 million trees over the past 15 years. Brewer AB InBev, which makes 3,000 pints a second, aims to use renewable sources for all of its power by 2025. (The Guardian)
• A community rallies. Adrian Salgado, a 65-year-old gardener from Southern California, depended on his tools for work, as well as an old pickup that carried his Virgen de Guadalupe pendant and photos of his parents, Agripina and Antonio. When thieves stole both Salgado’s wheels and tools, a whole community came to his aid. “This could have been our Pops,” said Santa Ana Police Sgt. Michael Gonzalez. (Los Angeles Times)