Because negative news often dominates NU.nl, positive news sometimes gets buried. That’s why we compile a weekly list of cheerful stories.
Foundation Pays for Wish Ambulances for Ten Years
The Roparun Foundation will pay for wish ambulances for the Ambulance Wish Foundation for the next ten years. These specially designed ambulances fulfill the last wishes of terminally ill people.
Roparun raises money with an annual three-day non-stop relay race. The money raised goes to 150 charities that provide care to terminally ill cancer patients. In the coming years, there will be extra attention for wish ambulances: 4 million euros will go to the Ambulance Wish Foundation.
A wish ambulance needs to be specially built and lasts only five years. “We drive all over the Netherlands and beyond,” director Kees Veldboer Jr. tells NU.nl. “Every year we have to replace one or two ambulances.” It is a relief that they no longer have to worry about that for the next ten years. “We can then focus on the wishes, instead of whether we can afford the ambulances.”
Ambulance Wish takes people who are very sick to the place where they can fulfill their last wish. Volunteers from the foundation also work in the fire department, nursing, and police. In the photo below, a patient was brought to the Nijmegen Four Days Marches because he wanted to welcome his niece at the finish line one more time.
Centenarian Homeless Woman Finally Has a Home After Three Years
A hundred-year-old woman has found shelter in Amsterdam after being homeless for three years. The elderly Ayyada Boukili has been admitted to a nursing home thanks to help from the Amsterdam-based Assadaaka Community foundation.
Boukili has lived in the Netherlands for about sixty years. Her three children have passed away, and her grandchildren cannot help her. She ended up on the streets of Tilburg. Looking for help, she went from place to place.
Assadaaka Community, which is committed to vulnerable people who have nowhere to go, received calls about an undernourished woman walking through the streets of the Brabant city.
Thanks to the foundation, she now lives with 36 other elderly people in the nursing home. “Her cheerfulness is an example for the other people we take in,” the director of the foundation tells NU.nl. “They see how someone of that age in this situation still has a lot of humor.”
The foundation hopes to continue to be able to take care of people like Boukili for a long time. “We are only a small organization, but we do our best.” Mrs. Boukili is very happy with that commitment. She is even so enthusiastic that she wants to volunteer at Assadaaka Community.
Stork Makes Comeback in Denmark
Denmark has the largest number of storks in years. Thirteen storks with 33 stork chicks have been counted in the countryside. That is the largest number since 1980 and is fifteen more than the previous year.
The bird’s natural habitat was getting smaller and smaller due to the growing agricultural areas, writes news agency Reuters. Organization Storks Denmark has brought the bird back to the country with nature conservation efforts.
In addition, winters in Europe are getting warmer. The storks do not have to fly as far, which increases their chances of survival. They now spend the winter in Spain instead of Africa.
American Churches and Temples Increasingly Have Sensory Rooms
People who are not good with stimuli such as loud noises do not always have it easy during religious services. In the American state of New Jersey, they have a solution for that.
St. Joseph’s Church in New Jersey has a sensory room. The room contains things like weighted blankets and noise-canceling headphones. This allows people who become overstimulated to still participate in the services.
The rooms are becoming increasingly popular, Jay Perkins tells AP News. Perkins builds these types of spaces for churches and other public spaces. In 2022, he built about twelve. In 2023, the number rose to eighty.
Even More News That Made Us Smile This Week:
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