This Holocaust survivor donates $1 million to support American soldiers who saved him

Bernard Darty is in his eighties, but he's never forgotten the gift of freedom and who gave it to him.

A native of Paris, Darty was just seven during the Nazi occupation of France. When French police led a roundup of Jews in 1942, his parents fled their apartment for a relative's house on the outskirts of Paris. With the police on their heels, his father hid in a grocery store. After Bernard was safe at the home, his mother and brother set out to find his father and get him to safety, but his mother was detained. She perished in Auschwitz. 

So Bernard and his brother spent the next two years in hiding, shuffled from house to house on the outskirts of Paris. Food and safe shelter were scarce commodities, scarcer by the day. 

Then came the Normandy invasion in June 1944. Darty remembers the American soldiers giving out sweets, smiling, kindly saviors for him and the other war-weary children of France. He knew these men had saved them. He has never forgotten that. 

Now a retired European businessman, he and his wife leave their home in France each year to winter in South Florida. He has decided to give back to the people who gave him the chance to enjoy his life - the American soldier. He told Fox News, "And so this year I’m saying “thank you” to the American soldiers of the 1940s by donating $1 million to organizations serving wounded American veterans today. My donation to the Wounded Warrior Project and the Services for Armed Forces program of the American Red Cross is my way of giving back, thanking previous generations of warriors for helping me. I hope this inspires others to give back as well."

A wonderful thank you, indeed. 

Anonymous donor tracked down decades later - and a scholarship is founded in her name

Hilde Back knows the power of spreading kindness. As youngsters, she and her brothers had fled Nazi Germany for Sweden. Their parents perished in the camps. Hilde has never forgotten the warm welcome the children received as strangers in Sweden and the opportunities they were given to create a new life there.

She was teaching preschool several decades later when she heard about a program her school's administrator was starting. It would fund primary and secondary education for gifted children in Nairobi. Hilde jumped at the chance to give this opportunity to a stranger in a land she'd never visited. All she learned about the child was this: His name was Chris. He was 5 or 6 years old. His older sister wrote a few letters to Hilde, then those petered out. She kept up her contributions anyway.

Fast forward to 2002. The Swedish Ambassador in Nairobi contacted 80-year-old Hilde. The child she sponsored all those years ago wanted to meet his patron to say thank you. Chris Mburu had earned degrees from the University of Nairobi and Harvard Law School and worked for the United Nations as a Human Rights Advisor. The two met, and not surprisingly, they got along well.

Hilde and Chris have met a number of times since. A documentary about Hilde and Chris' story called A Small Act aired on HBO in 2010, and won awards at various film festivals.

In tribute to Hilde's kindness and to continue its spread, Mburu started a scholarship in her name. Hilde has flown to Kenya to visit Chris and to personally see the effect this fund has on the students it supports. To date, 673 scholarships have been awarded to sponsor education for children in Kenya. All because Hilde decided to pass it on.

This young lady sews for the cure

When Jordan Phillips of Athens, Ohio was 11 years old, her mother Nicole was diagnosed with breast cancer. Jordan was understandably scared and sad. She pitched in around the house and helped out with her brothers, but she wanted to do more. She had an idea.

She pulled out her sewing machine. Yes, this young lady has been sewing since she was five years old, and she had lots of leftover fabric pieces. She fashioned these scraps into cozies for coffee mugs and sewed several hundred of them the first year. The money she raised from their sale went into a fund now called Cozys for the Cure LLC. In the first two years, the fund topped $18,000.

Word spread. Komen Foundation officials invited Jordan to speak to a meeting of their corporate partners. One of those attending her presentation passed the word to another in the corporate world, and before she knew it, Jordan had a deal. Now all of 13 years old, her cozies are sold in over 1500 WalMart stores. For each cozy sold, 35 cents goes to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.  

Ellen Willmott, interim president and CEO of Susan G. Komen, told reporters, "This tremendous story reminds me that when love, commitment to a cause, and creativity come together, magic happens,” 

The WalMart clerk's simple kindness went viral

Last week, Spring Herbison Bowlin was on the checkout line at the Clarkson, Mississippi WalMart. The customer ahead of her was an elderly man. When the clerk rang up his order, he looked back at Bowlin and apologized, then dug in his pockets for change. Holding the handfuls of change, he counted and recounted, then got flustered. He looked back at Bowlin and apologized again. His hands shook.

The cashier took hold of his hands and reassured him. Dumping all the change on the counter, she told him, "This is not a problem, honey. We will do this together." And they did. Bowlin snapped a photo of this small kindness.

When it was her turn to checkout, she thanked the clerk for helping the elderly gentleman and being so patient with him. The clerk brushed away her praise. "'You shouldn't have to thank me, baby. What's wrong with our world is we've forgotten how to love one another." 

Back home, Bowlin posted this small interaction on Facebook. The post went viral. Apparently, tens of thousands of us crave this sort of decency.  

Homeless man returns $10,000 check before payee even knows it's missing

Roberta Hoskie of New Haven, Connecticut was surprised to get the call. A $10,000 check made out to her had been found on the street. and the finder was calling her to return it. She hadn't even realized it was missing! The CEO of a realty company, Hoskie was deeply appreciative and agreed to meet the caller to retrieve the check. 

That's when she met Elmer Alvarez. Currently homeless. Alvarez had indeed found the check lying on the street and called Hoskie to return it. The two spoke and learned a bit more about one another. It seems Hoskie too had once been homeless, living in a nearby shelter, so she understood what Alvarez was going through. 

Hoskie gave Alvarez a reward for returning the check, and posted about the event on Facebook Live. Support and offers of help for Alvarez poured in, both locally and from other parts of the country. She plans to keep in touch with Alvarez and 'teach him to fish.' 

As for Alvarez, he says he returned the check because it was the right thing to do. A man of faith, he believes "once you do right, right always comes back to you. Because God don’t like ugly.”

This guy answered an apparent internet scam from Liberia - and was surprised

We've all gotten them, emails from strangers in foreign lands asking for money. Ben Taylor from Ogden, Utah received this message on Facebook “Helo Sir, wel my name is Joel from Liberia, West Africa. Pls I beg u in name of GOD, I need some assistance from u, business or financial assistance dat will help empower me pls.” Ben assumed, as most of us would, that 'Joel' was scamming him. A photographer by trade, Ben has a YouTube channel in which he sometimes documents his efforts to string scammers along and expose their shenanigans. He decided to do the same with Joel and responded, "How can I help?"

Joel told him he was a journalist in need of financial help, so Ben asked him to take on an assignment in photojournalism work - use his phone to photograph his local sunset. If Joel would send the pictures, Ben would wire him some money. 

Ben was surprised to receive pictures, badly focused and blurry, but pictures all the same. Impressed that Joel was making an effort, Ben bought a $30 camera and sent it to Joel with instructions on some photography basics of focus and lighting. The images Joel sent back improved with practice. Some were exceptional. Ben concluded that Joel was not trying to scam him, but was indeed just trying to figure out a way to get ahead. 

Ben got an idea.

He collected some of Joel's best shots an created a photo book called "By D Grace of God," one of Joel's commonly used phrases. He launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds through sale of the book with an understanding that he and Joel would split profits 50/50. In the end, about 1000 copies of the book were sold in 40 countries, raising about $13,000. 

Ben wanted to help Joel and his community even more.  
He asked Joel what his community's needs were, and Joel had an idea - school supplies. So Ben wired his half of the proceeds to Joel, who took the funds to a local market. He literally cleared out their stock of backpacks, pencils, notebooks, etc. and had to hire a taxi to take it all back to his village.

Ben is amazed and delighted by the outcome of his interaction with Joel. "I thought I would waste his time by giving him these menial tasks of taking pictures around his village, but it turns out that he was willing to put in the work. … He was really just a guy that was down on his luck and looking for work. When you give someone a chance, sometimes they’re not who you thought they were. Sometimes they surprise you, and sometimes you end up being the answer to their prayers.”

When he thinks no one is looking, young man cleans up after vandals

“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.” ― John Wooden

That quote came to mind when I read this story. 

Eimhin Keenan was out for a run in Ardee, County Louth, Ireland, early Monday morning. As he passed some storefronts, he came upon some plants which had been pulled from their pots and strewn along the sidewalk and roadway. Surveillance cameras show him jogging past the damage, then turning back and sticking the plants back in their pots.  

When store owner Thomas Kearney of Kearney Interiors viewed the surveillance footage, he saw the original vandalism occur. Then an hour further into the tape, he spotted the unnamed Good Samaritan cleaning up the debris. He posted the security footage on his store's Facebook page in hopes of identifying the young man so he could be thanked and rewarded. The video went viral.

Friends and family identified Keenan, who was shocked to receive accolades for his small kindness. "I thought nothing of it," he said. 

Store owner Kearney says, "The positive moment beat the vandals' negative moment by a country mile."

Two great kids put their own Halloween candy in empty bowls

Like lots of other kids, 11-year-old Hayden Chapelle of Idaho Falls was out trick-or-treating on Halloween accompanied by his mom. They approached a house, the Robertson's home, and found a sign: “Do a trick and take a treat! And smile – you’re on camera”. The candy bowl beside the sign was empty. 

Hayden did a little dance and started to leave, but saw other kids approaching the house. He doubled back and put some of his own Halloween candy in the bowl so they wouldn't walk away empty handed.

When the Robertsons came home from trick-or-treating with their daughter, they watched the video. To their dismay, they saw one child take lots of candy and leave the empty bowl behind. Then they saw Hayden's generous gesture and decided to share that with the world. 

The same thing happened in Chula Vista, California. A trick-or-treater placed some of his stash in an empty bowl at Kim Manalo's home, and she caught it on her home surveillance video. She too decided to share the generosity of this anonymous child instead of sharing the bad behavior of the culprit who emptied her bowl. 

Manalo told Fox News the incident restored her faith in humanity, and reassured her there is still good in the world. She adds, “It's just sad that we have to find it in children.”