Every day the Good Good Good team collects the best good news in the world and shares it with our community. Here are the highlights for this week!
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The Best Positive News We’re Celebrating This Week —
Today, hundreds of dentists around the U.S. are providing free dental care to people in need
Every year on December 23, Comfort Dental’s 180 locations offer free dental care to anyone in need in their community. With locations in 10 states, Comfort Dental offices saw over 3,500 patients in 2023, totaling in over $1.4 million in dental services — all given away for free.
The tradition started in 1984 and now includes more than 300 dentists and 1,300 team members giving away their services for free on the “eve of Christmas Eve.”
Over the past 39 years, Care Day has provided over $22.8 million in dental services at no cost.
Why is this good news? Cost is the most common reason cited by U.S. adults for avoiding dental care, and it’s estimated that about 74 million Americans have no dental coverage — about 23% of the population. While this day of giving back may seem small compared to this massive issue — it matters, and it’s thousands more people receiving dental care than had before.
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In a trend that started with the COVID-19 pandemic, an “unprecedented” decline in teen drug use continues
The number of teens using alcohol, marijuana, or nicotine hit a record low in the U.S. — continuing a dramatic decline that initially began at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Additionally, the use of illicit drugs declined as well as non-heroin narcotics, like Vicodin, OxyContin, and Percocet hit an all-time low.
This positive trend has stunned experts, who anticipated that once pandemic restrictions were lifted, the numbers would trend upward again. Conversely, they’ve declined even further.
The survey results were collected from more than 24,000 students at over 270 public and private schools.
The world’s largest volunteer network is connecting people with more than 39,000 ways to volunteer their time this holiday season
An independent nonprofit, Points of Light is also the world’s largest volunteer network — and it’s making it easier than ever to connect people with opportunities to give back in their communities.
Engaging “more than 3.8 million volunteers across 38 countries,” this year alone, the organization has collected over 39,000 volunteer opportunities during the holiday season in its network.
It even helps people search for opportunities by “issue areas” like food insecurity, disaster response, homelessness, and more; by skillset, from firefighting to public speaking; and with family members in mind, like opportunities that are good for kids, too.
Why is this good news? Heartwarmingly, Google searches for “places to volunteer on Christmas Day” doubled this December. With so many people looking for ways to volunteer their time and skill set, Point of Light helps remove a major barrier to actually taking action — finding the right opportunity.
A small business owner in Scotland stays open on Christmas for anyone feeling lonely to have a place to go
Jordan Trainer owns Plantique, a plant and vintage shop in Glasgow, Scotland. The 25-year-old has spent almost the entire month of December sharing his space as a pop-up for other small businesses to offer their products during the holiday shopping season.
And he’s not done giving back to his community yet: Trainer announced he would open the shop for a few hours on Christmas Day for anyone spending the holiday alone to enjoy some company.
Providing snacks and drinks, it’s the second year Trainer has opened his doors on Christmas in an effort to help make the day “a bit more special” for those spending it alone.
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More good news of the week —
To help relieve the financial load for families, Tokyo announced it will provide free daycare for all preschool-aged children. It expands free daycare benefits, currently provided to second-born and subsequent children, to include first-born children in an effort to also help address its declining birth rate.
After years of advocacy, a child abuse bill backed by Paris Hilton passed in Congress and is expected to be signed into law. The Stop Institutionalized Child Abuse bill will provide more federal oversight of facilities and residential treatment programs for “troubled” minors, one of which is where Hilton had her own traumatizing experience.
New, customized CRISPR treatments could provide hope for children with incredibly rare genetic disorders. CRISPR is more often researched and used for conditions that impact large numbers of people, but the technology offers a lot of hope for disorders that impact just a handful of people, too.
A knitting collective is providing life-saving winter wear to homeless LGBTQ+ youth across the country. After Austin Rivers took knitting up as a hobby during the pandemic, the New Yorker soon launched a knitting collective for vulnerable community members.
Taking the “adopt-a-family” approach, Trans Santa safely and anonymously provides holiday gifts to transgender youth in need. Providing both gifts and affirmation, Trans Santa connects “Santas” everywhere with trans and non-binary youth who are houseless, in foster care, or otherwise without vital support.
After a flight was delayed over an hour, an Army veteran got his saxophone out of the overhead bin to play Christmas songs. Initially looking to help a family with young children getting restless while they sat on the tarmac, Wayne Hoey got approval from the cockpit to share “a few tunes,” fielding requests from fellow passengers.
With cards, gift wrap, and decor, a Black-women-owned business is making the holidays more inclusive for all. Holiday wrapping paper comes in a range of styles and patterns, but it can be hard to find diversity among the depictions of Santas, elves, angels, and more — a trio of Black women decided to change that.
A bestselling author gave holiday bonuses to hundreds of independent bookstore workers. James Patterson has been awarding the bonuses to booksellers since 2015, and this year gave $500 bonuses to 600 workers.
Thanks to a “generous” gift, a New Hampshire ski area is offering free lift tickets and trail access all season. The donation from the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation will help improve access to the ski area, so more winter sports enthusiasts can enjoy the slopes.
People donated enough toys for all the dogs at a Washington shelter to pick a new Christmas gift. The donations rolled in after a volunteer at the shelter posted a wish list ahead of the holidays — this week, the dogs got to pick out their new toy.
Braving sub-zero temperatures, hundreds of students formed a human chain to donate thousands of pounds of food to a food bank. The 25th year the school donated food to the Salvation Army food bank, this year the students delivered 4,000 to 5,000 pounds of food in -30 degrees Celsius temperatures.
