9 Good News Stories: Hero Saves 5 Lives; Land Returned To Black Family

ACROSS AMERICA — This, ladies and gentlemen, is what an authentic hero looks like:

Police in Lafayette, Indiana, say there’s no doubt Nick Bostic saved lives when he rushed into a burning home around midnight earlier this month after seeing flames coming from the house.

He had shepherded four of them safely outside when he learned a 6-year-old was still inside. He ran back indoors, frantically searching and crawling through thick, black smoke toward the 6-year-old girl’s frantic cries When he found her, he punched out the glass of a window and jumped, positioning himself to land on his side rather than on top of the girl.

"Nicholas Bostic's heroic actions saved lives," police said. "His selflessness during this incident is inspiring, and he has impressed many with his courage, tenacity, and steadfast calmness in the face of such perilous danger."

Bostic’s heroics left him seriously injured, and the family lost all of their belongings. GoFundMe campaigns aim to benefit both. » By Anna Bybee-Schier for Across Indiana Patch

A Precedent For Justice

Officials in Los Angeles County have returned ownership of Bruce’s Beach, a prime California beachfront property, to descendants of a Black couple who built a resort for African Americans a century ago (top photo). They were stripped of the land in the fashionable Manhattan Beach community in the 1920s amid harassment and attacks from white neighbors and the Ku Klux Klan. The beachfront property has been in the hands of local, county or state governments since then. “We have set the precedent in the pursuit of justice,” county supervisor Janice Hahn said. “Today, we are returning stolen land for the first time, and it will not be the last.” » By Daniel Hampton for Manhattan Beach (California) Patch

Read This

In the early days of the pandemic, Virginia mom Vanessa Hernandez learned at parent-teacher conferences that her first-grade daughter, Roxana, was falling behind in reading and needed additional hope. Tutors were in high demand when schools shuttered and priced out of Hernandez’s reach, and as the mother of six, Hernandez was already stretched thin. She found help with the Alexandria Tutoring Consortium’s Book Buddies, a cadre of former teachers volunteering for one-on-one sessions with struggling readers. Roxana, now 8, is not only reading beyond her grade level and understanding more, she’s teaching the same reading comprehension skills to her siblings. “Now she's teaching my 9-year-old daughter how to read … she's teaching my 6-year-old son," Hernandez said. » By Emily Leayman for Old Town Alexandria Patch

More Delicious Than The Prize

A Malverne, New York, family is $5,000 to the good after winning “Kitchen Crash,” a Food Network reality show. If you’re unfamiliar, chefs descend on unsuspecting neighborhoods all over America to ambush people’s homes and raid their refrigerators. Heather and Matt Zwillick competed against their neighbors in the Block Party segment that aired Wednesday. They split the prize with another couple. “I like that it highlighted our town, our village,” Heather said. “Malverne is so small that a lot of people on Long Island don’t know where it is.” » By Jerry Barmesh for Lynbrook-Malverne Patch

A Familiar Ring

A class ring that belonged to a 1977 high school graduate in Evergreen Park, Illinois, has been returned to the owner’s family. Mark Jones found it 22 years ago while looking for arrowheads in Lake Tawakonik during a Texas drought, and his coworker at a Texas car dealership, Brian Smith, has been searching for the owner since. He tracked down the family of Debra Thiesson, who lost the ring while swimming in the lake 44 years earlier. Thiesson died in 2019, but her daughter, Libby Turner, said the keepsake brought her joy. “It’s special to me because I know what it meant to her,” Turner said. “I don't have any specific thing personal to her.” » By Lorraine Swanson for Evergreen Park Patch

Swimming The ‘Unswimmable’

California’s Alcatraz Island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay isn’t unswimmable, but the 55-degree waters and strong currents athletes have to navigate to get there is daunting. Count among the undeterred the San Ramon Valley High School Water Polo team. On Aug. 13, they will join other polar bears to endure the two-mile swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco’s Aquatic Park. It’s all for a good cause, the Alcatraz Swim for Hydrocephalus Research, founded by two San Ramon Valley graduates whose sister died of a hydrocephalus, a rare neurological condition. All money raised will fund hydrocephalus research grants. » By Michael Wittner for San Francisco Patch

Saved By An Apple

A Maine woman is crediting her Apple Watch for saving her life after it detected her heart was in atrial fibrillation, leading doctors to discover a deadly, fast-growing tumor inside her body. Kim Durkee, 67, didn’t believe the reading at first, but when the numbers were too high on a third night, she went to the emergency room, where doctors discovered she had a myxoma, a fast-growing tumor that was cutting off the blood supply to her heart. » By Megan VerHelst for Across Maine Patch

Paying It Forward

Crystal Dunn said she believes in “paying it forward.” So when she won more than $100,000 in the Kentucky Lottery, she returned to the grocery store where she had purchased the ticket and bought $2,000 in gift cards to hand out to random shoppers. "I never thought I would win something like this, but this goes to show it can happen," she said. » By Anna Bybee-Schier for Louisville Patch

‘Tips For Jesus’

A customer who ordered a $13 stromboli from a pizza joint in Scranton, Pennsylvania, left a $3,000 tip as part of a social media trend called “Tips for Jesus.” The server, Mariana Lambert, said she’s still in shock and can’t quite believe her good fortune. “It really meant a lot to me because everyone’s going through stuff,” she said. “It really touched my heart.” » By Megan VerHelst for Across Pennsylvania Patch