Good Things Thursday - 05.18.23
Good news is like dandelions: little, beautiful things.
Another week, another round of community goodness, folks! Enjoy!
Heart of Dinner | Ballet Over 50 | People Over Party | Solar Bread
Heart of Dinner
Heart of Dinner serves love on a plate. The nonprofit, which works to combat food insecurity and isolation, delivers meals to older Asian Americans in under-resourced communities in New York City. Initially formed as a supper club in 2015, the organization evolved into the current model when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
“For me, Heart of Dinner is symbolic of hope because it was born out of despair,” Yin Chang, who co-founded the heartfelt food delivery service with Moonlynn Tsai, told Glamour in 2021. “It was born out of a very dark time, from very, very dark news, of dealing with racism, and what it’s like when it’s targeted toward you and people who look like your grandparents.”
Check them out here.
This free ballet class is giving women over 50 their confidence back
The Oklahoma City Ballet offers beginner and intermediate-level classes geared at dancers over 50, with students called the Golden Swans. Taught by ballet pro Macaira Pinto, the twice-weekly (and completely free) classes see anywhere between four and 24 participants working through pliés, tendus and relevés.
Pinto, 46, tells TODAY.com her classes are all about getting her students to grant themselves grace, literal and metaphoric. She uses the grand battement, a ballet dance move which sees a dancer lift her leg high into the air, as an example. It's not about perfection — if students have realized a grand battement is 45 degrees for them, rather than the 180 it usually entails, that’s excellent.
Read more here.
A GOP Nebraska lawmaker chose his voters over his party with abortion vote
“In the days since state Sen. Merv Riepe cast the lone vote that blocked a near-total abortion ban in his conservative state, he’s faced protests at his office, the cold shoulder from irate colleagues and calls for his resignation. A stranger left an angry note inside his home mailbox.
Yet the 80-year-old Republican has also raked in accolades, becoming an unlikely hero for those fighting to protect abortion access in Nebraska and around the country in the year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Abortion advocates wept in the Capitol after Riepe’s April 27 vote. A downtown Omaha novelty store is now selling blue T-shirts and tank tops that say “Hot Merv Summer” in bold white type.”
Read more here.
This Lebanese Bakery Runs by the Power of the Sun
Partners With Sun, a startup in Lebanon, is helping one bakery churn out loaves of bread using solar power — and saving both the business and its customers money in the process. Al-Wissam bakery in the village of Remhala, just south of Beirut, has mirrors on its roof that capture and magnify the heat of the sun, helping to power a commercial convection oven that can reach temperatures above 500 degrees Fahrenheit.
“This oven will save bakery owners about 80% of their monthly usage of diesel, and therefore it would reduce the price of the bread bundle that reaches the consumer,” Hitaf Ghazal, the co-founder and operations manager of Partners With Sun, told Euronews, adding, “Practically, each bakery would save at least around 10 tonnes of diesel a month.”
Read more here.
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