Every Thursday, I produce a feature story to replace Hot Talk
entitled "Hurrah for Arizona." I created this series some three years
ago and it's become one of the institutions of Good Morning Arizona.
Some people question what there is to shout Hurrah about, considering
the killings in Colorado and all the death and carange in our streets and
a general feeling that our society is going to hell in a handbasket.
I share many of those concerns, but I also know there are more
good people out there doing good things than there are bad people doing
bad things.
Let me give you some ideas from my recent Hurrah segments:
--There's a woman in South Phoenix named Carolyn T. Lowrey who a decade
ago created a safe after-school faciity called "Kid's Place." She's located
in the heart of a drug and gang infested area, but sees as many as 100
kids a day coming by to do their homework, play video games, have someone
to talk to, just hang out. She says there might not be so many kids joining
street gangs if they had a gang at home to join.
--A woman named Mary Lou Rawls realized one of the big problems women
had in getting back into the workplace--coming off welfare or leaving an
abusive husband or going on azfter a divorce--was the lack of decent clothing.
So she started a program called Clothesminded, that takes in donated clothes
and then gives them to needy women. Not only has this program allowed many
women to go back to work, we at 3 TV have been inundated with calls from
people who want to donate clothing to the program.
--There's a native of Guadalupe who's now a medical doctor who opened,
on his own dollar and with nothing but his mom's help, a free clinic for
people of Guadalupe called the Las Fuentes Clinic. Dr. John Molina
has inspired other doctors and medical students to also donate their time;
he's gotten a few grants to help buy supplies. He says when he was growing
up, he realized how desperately his neighbors needed health care and how
so few could afford any. He vowed to come home and open a clinic.
And he did.
--Stardust Building Supplies is a triple whammy: it provides a place
for homebuilders and remodelers to donate their left over material or what
they've just ripped out; it provides a place for anyone to buy used materials
for as little as 80 percent of retail, and all the proceeds go to benefit
Habitat for Humanity and Christmas in April. This salvage warehouse in
west Phoenix is keeping tons of building supplies out of landfills and
is reselling them to donate hundreds of thousands to these two project.
Plus they give non-profit groups whatever they need.
There's so many stories like this; they celebrate the best of the human
spirit. And some days, we need to be reminded that the human spirit
does have a "best" part.
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