Today’s Top Good News Story

This week, Apple is donating $10 to national parks for every qualifying purchase made with Apple Pay

To celebrate the 108th birthday of the U.S. National Park Service, Apple is donating $10 to the National Park Foundation for every purchase made with Apple Pay through its stores until August 25.

When you shop at the Apple Store, in the App Store, or on apple.com using Apple Pay, a portion of your purchase will go towards stewardship and programming for the country’s national parks.

The initiative comes alongside the rollout of a number of new national park tech features, including a “Nature Awaits” playlist on Apple Music, as well as its annual National Parks Apple Watch Activity Challenge.

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More good national park news:

• The Inflation Reduction Act gave national parks $700 million in funding to fight climate change.
• New entry permit requirements at six national parks are making them easier to visit and preventing overcrowding.​
• The National Forest Foundation has reforested over 21,000 acres of land in the last year and planted over 8 million trees to combat climate change.
• Two of the newest national parks (importantly) celebrate painful, darker times in U.S. history: the Blackwell School and Amache National Historic Site.

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More Good News

​A simple, new treatment is helping stroke survivors who suffer from an invisible disability known as spacial neglect. More than half of stroke survivors do not receive rehabilitation after the first days of advanced stroke care, but new techniques can help improve their function and freedom.

​Critical in fighting malaria in the country, Mozambique just introduced the vaccine into routine immunization. Malaria is endemic in the country, with prevalence in children under 5 years of age at 32% — this is a critical step forward to improve children’s survival using the lifesaving vaccine.

​The FCC is launching a new alert system for missing and endangered Indigenous people in the U.S. The alert will help address disparities in searching for and locating thousands of missing Indigenous persons, who are at higher risk of being victims of violence, homicide, and of going missing.

Looking for the Helpers

To prevent floral waste and brighten others’ days, two Virginia women make bouquets from discarded flowers

Both discouraged by the nationwide problem of floral waste and excited by the idea of being able to use those discarded flowers to brighten someone’s day, Rebecca Shelly and Laura Ruth started a nonprofit called Friendly City Florals.

They reuse arrangements donated from weddings, funerals, floral shops, and even local gardeners to refresh bouquets for senior care homes, hospitals, mental health agencies, schools, and more in the Harrisonburg, Virginia area.

Shelly and Ruth meet at least a few times a week at each others’ homes to collect, refresh, and deliver their repurposed bouquets, which they noted can help alleviate stress and depression.

They even drop off loose stems at one senior care home so that residents can create their own bouquets.

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More Good bits

To get to net zero emissions, Japan is using cow poo.​

It’s also planning a massive conveyor belt road to cut transport emissions.

Our phones are helping create the world’s biggest earthquake detection system.​

Good things happen when neighbors decide how to spend philanthropic dollars.​

Families travel from around the world for one affirming week of love, pride, and joy.​

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What’s good?

I love that those two women saw a problem, and immediately jumped in to help make a difference with a solution.

What’s a problem you see in the world where you could make a (“small”) difference?

Hit “reply” and let me know!

— Megan