#WATWB January Helping A Family In Need

Welcome to the first We Are the World Blogfest #WATWB post for 2019.  On the last Friday of each month we share good news stories on social media. Our co-hosts for this month are Sylvia Stein, Inderpreet Uppal, Shilpa Garg, Damyanti Biswas and yours truly – Simon Falk.  Please do check out their posts and other bloggers who use the #WATWB.

A young family in Canberra, Australia, receive overwhelming support.  As reported by ABC News.

For Canberra resident Elizabeth Pickworth, a cancer diagnosis and a notice to move out of her rental property coincided.

New to town, she reached out to the Canberra Notice Board Group on Facebook to ask for advice about finding an affordable removalist.

She wrote that it was important to keep costs down because doctors had recently found a tumour near her heart and her treatment would mean time away from work.

While she was being paid for time off, her husband was not, and the costs associated with treatment were adding up.

The response she received was “overwhelming”.

Overwhelming  it was. People offered to bring them dinner, help with the move or do babysitting.  What good news.  There is more on the ABC News link.

Elizabeth with her husband and daughter. Image: ABC News Australia.

As Elizabeth and her family had to move home here’s an excerpt from a poem about ‘home’ courtesy of the Poetry Foundation:

Home Again, Home Again

BY MARILYN L. TAYLOR

The children are back, the children are back—

They’ve come to take refuge, exhale and unpack;

The marriage has faltered, the job has gone bad,

Come open the door for them, Mother and Dad.

The city apartment is leaky and cold,

The landlord lascivious, greedy and old—

The mattress is lumpy, the oven’s encrusted,

The freezer, the fan, and the toilet have rusted.

The entire poem can be found here

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#WATWB. 

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#WATWB August Refreshing Relief in Drought

Above:  Sir George Hubert Wilkins (from Australian Dictionary of Biography, originally, Ohio State University).

It has been said of the explorer and adventurer, George Hubert Wilkins, that, as a child in rural South Australia, he was puzzled by the then drought.  He heard that, to understand climate, one needs to explore the polar extremities of the earth. So that is what he endeavoured to do.

Sadly, many nations of our world are afflicted by natural disasters.  In my own country of Australia we are in drought. It is not new for us. But it is always a challenge. What follows are a set of some news items about how people show support in time of drought.

A convoy of helpers travel from Sydney with supplies for rural NSW.  A drought relief concert lifts the spirits some some in NSW .  Then there is….

The Burrumbuttock Hay Runners

Previous generations of my Mother’s family lived on livestock and farming lands in the Walbundrie District of NSW. Near there is the town of Burrumbuttock. There, the Burrumbuttock Hay Runners do their good thing.  Here is a sample from their website

THE BHR STORY

In 2014 Brendan ‘Bumpa’ Farrell heard about a farmer in Bourke (NSW) that was struggling in the drought. He contacted the farmer and offered to bring him a truck load of hay to help him out. From that the Burrumbuttock Hay Runners was born. Since that date in 2014 they have completed 11 successful hay runs to help drought affected farmers all over NSW & QLD.

You can also follow the Hay Runners on Facebook.

Image: from the Burrumbuttock Hay Runners website.

Our co-hosts for this month are:

Simon Falk, Andrea Michaels, Shilpa Garg, Sylvia Stein and Belinda Witzenhausen . Please go and visit their posts as well.

My poem this time is a Drought pingback from one I wrote when I was 11 years old.

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#WATWB July – The Ring Bearer

The Ring Bearer

PHOTO: Ms Daly and her partner Andrew Bevan were only engaged for three days before the ring went missing.(Facebook/Tayla Daly)  

Welcome to the We Are The World Blogfest #WATWB for July 2018. As usual, we have generous co-hosts who are leading this month:
Peter Nena,
Inderpreet Kaur Uppal,
Shilpa Garg
Roshan Radhakrishnan
Sylvia McGrath
and Belinda Witzenhausen

Please visit their sites and others in the blogfest.

Thanks to social media and a genuine person, a vital ring was found, as ABC News reports:

A Gold Coast woman who lost her engagement ring has been reunited with her diamond after a stranger from social media helped her with the hunt.

After only being engaged for three days, Tayla Daly realised the ring of her dreams had vanished from her finger.

The 25-year-old retraced her trip from work to home, but the ring was nowhere in sight.

“I was bawling my eyes out and just tried to retrace my steps — I’d only just been to the petrol station,” Ms Daly told Channel Nine.

In a last-ditch effort, Ms Daly put a call-out on social media in the hope someone picked it up.

But it was a kind stranger, Jade Austin, who messaged Ms Daly straight away to help.

“I felt really bad for her because six years ago I actually lost mine,” Ms Austin said.

Ms Austin, who is also heavily pregnant, jumped into her car to drive over 20 minutes to search the petrol station, carwash and local pawn shops.

When she arrived at the petrol station, she asked to look at the security footage to see if anyone else found the ring — but no-one had.

Ms Austin was ready to give up when she spotted the missing ring on the ground and messaged the bride-to-be with the good news.

See  ABC News for more details.

And in asking help for finding,

Not just the ring was found,

The story brought reminding,

Of a familiar sound.

The sound of sorrow in the losing,

Of remembering that pain,

It brings a twice-loved pleasure,

When the treasure is found again.

Lo and behold another treasure,

Emerged for a greater end,

For the second lasting pleasure,

Was to make another friend.

Simon C.J. Falk 26 July 2018

 

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For more information about this blogfest click here