Inspiring News Stories
Excerpts of Highly Inspiring News Stories in Major Media

Below are one-paragraph excerpts of highly inspiring news stories from the major media. Links are provided to the original stories on their media websites. If any link fails to function, click here. The inspiring news story summaries most recently posted here are listed first. You can explore the same list with the most inspiring stories listed first. See also a concise list providing headlines and links to a number of highly inspiring stories. May these articles inspire us to find ever more ways to love and support each other and all around us to be the very best we can be.

MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is giving away her $46 billion fortune faster than anyone in history. In February alone, nine organizations announced gifts from Scott totaling $264.5 million. The largest donation, $133.5 million, went to Communities in Schools, a non-profit that helps keep at-risk children in schools. Another education nonprofit, Leading Educators, got $10 million to provide professional development for teachers. Scott donated to two organizations combatting addiction: $5 million to Shatterproof and $3 million to Young People in Recovery. Two groups focusing on reproductive rights, the Guttmacher Institute and the Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity, received $15 million and $25 million respectively. The National Council on Aging got $8 million, while mental health nonprofit the Jed Foundation got $15 million. Additionally, the National 4-H Council, an agriculturally focused youth organization, received $50 million. Since divorcing Bezos in 2019, the 51-year-old Scott has emerged as one of the most secretive and prolific philanthropists in the world. Including February's gifts, she has given away a total of $8.8 billion in less than two years to more than 780 organizations–more than four times what her ex-husband has donated so far in his lifetime. Scott's gifts come in the form of unrestricted grants, meaning that nonprofits can spend the money however they want rather than on particular programs.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

Henry Dryer sits slumped over the tray attached to his wheelchair. He doesn't speak, and rarely moves, until a nursing home worker puts his headphones on. Then Dryer's feet start to shuffle, his folded arms rock back and forth, and he sings out loud in perfect sync with his favorite songs. "I feel a band of love, dreams," said Dryer, 92, who has dementia. "It gives me the feeling of love, romance!" Henry is one of seven patients profiled in the documentary "Alive Inside," a heartwarming look at the power of music to help those in nursing homes. "There are a million and a half people in nursing homes in this country," director Michael Rossato-Bennett told ABC News. "When I saw what happened to Henry, whenever you see a human being awaken like that, it touches something deep inside you." Rossato-Bennett said he took on the documentary project to promote Music & Memory, a nonprofit organization that brings iPods with personalized music to dementia patients in nursing home care. "When I end up in a nursing home, I'll want to have my music with me," said Dan Cohen, executive director of Music & Memory. "There aren't many things in nursing homes that are personally meaningful activities. Here's the one easy thing that has a significant impact." Cohen said the personalized playlists, chosen by loved ones, make patients light up. "They're more alert, more attentive, more cooperative, more engaged," he said. "Even if they can't recognize loved ones and they've stopped speaking, they hear music and they come alive."

Note: Don't miss this profoundly touching and inspiring documentary available here. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

After 10 years of marriage, Ree, 42, and her husband were ready to call it quits. Then a friend suggested that they try the illegal drug MDMA, popularly known as Ecstasy or Molly. For Ree ... the answer was an "immediate no." Six months later, after reading "How to Change Your Mind," the best-selling book by Michael Pollan that details his transformative experience with psychedelics, Ree reconsidered. And that's how they found themselves in a secluded area of Utah at a large, rented house with a beautiful view of the mountains to trip on MDMA with five other couples. During their first trip on MDMA, Ree said she and her husband tearfully discussed things they had trouble speaking about for the last decade: How his emotional withdrawal had affected her self-esteem, and how sorry she was that she had continually pushed him to open up without understanding the pain he held inside. "My husband started sharing with me for the first time all these thoughts and emotions," Ree said. "It was him without the walls," she added. They also cuddled in bed for hours, skin to skin, describing all the things they loved about one another. "For a person who has always had body image issues, to allow him to touch me – touch my stomach, the part of me I don't love, was incredibly healing," she said. They continued using MDMA about twice a year to help them have difficult conversations. They both started seeing therapists. Now, about three years after they first tried MDMA ... they no longer need the drug to speak openly with one another.

Note: Read more about the healing potentials of mind-altering drugs. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

Henry Dryer, 92, is one of seven patients profiled in the documentary Alive Inside, a look at the power of music to help those with Alzheimer's. A clip of Dryer, who suffers from dementia, appears in an extraordinarily moving rough cut of the documentary that went up online this week. In the clip, which has been viewed 3 million times already, Dryer is largely mute and slumped over. He does not recognize his own daughter. But when a caregiver places a pair [of] headphones on him, he undergoes an astonishing transformation. His face, formerly slack and inert, lights up. His eyes beam, and he sways in his chair, keening along to the music of his youth. The effect lasts even after the headphones are removed. "I'm crazy about music," Dryer says. "I guess Cab Calloway was my number one band guy." Music "gives me the feeling of love", Dryer says. Author and neurologist Oliver Sacks, who has written extensively about the effects of music on the human brain, watches Dryer. "In some sense, Henry is restored to himself. He remembers who he is. He has reaquired his identity for a while through the power of music," Sacks says in the Alive Inside clip. "There are a million and a half people in nursing homes in this country," Alive Inside director Michael Rossato-Bennett told ABC News. "When I saw what happened to Henry, whenever you see a human being awaken like that, it touches something deep inside you."

Note: Don't miss this profoundly touching and inspiring documentary available here. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

New data from a scientific "accident" has suggested that life may actually flash before our eyes as we die. A team of scientists set out to measure the brainwaves of an 87-year-old patient who had developed epilepsy. But during the neurological recording, he suffered a fatal heart attack - offering an unexpected recording of a dying brain. It revealed that in the 30 seconds before and after, the man's brainwaves followed the same patterns as dreaming or recalling memories. Brain activity of this sort could suggest that a final "recall of life" may occur in a person's last moments, the team wrote in their study, published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. Dr Ajmal Zemmar, a co-author of the study, said that what the team, then based in Vancouver, Canada, accidentally got, was the first-ever recording of a dying brain. "I never felt comfortable to report one case," Dr Zemmar said. And for years after the initial recording in 2016, he looked for similar cases to help strengthen the analysis but was unsuccessful. But a 2013 study - carried out on healthy rats - may offer a clue. In that analysis, US researchers reported high levels of brainwaves at the point of the death until 30 seconds after the rats' hearts stopped beating - just like the findings found in Dr Zemmar's epileptic patient. The similarities between studies are "astonishing", Dr Zemmar said. They now hope the publication of this one human case may open the door to other studies on the final moments of life.

Note: Read one of the most moving, miraculous accounts ever of a near-death experience. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

Berra Yazar-Klosinski [is the] chief scientific officer at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). I ... committed to working with her on the phase 3 program that would assess the efficacy and safety of MDMA–known recreationally as Molly or Ecstasy–for severe PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder. Although more than half a dozen phase 2 studies have demonstrated the effectiveness and safety of MDMA for PTSD, early trials often fail to accurately predict the outcome of the larger, multisite phase 3 trials that follow. In the case of MDMA, we have been lucky. At 15 study sites across three countries, working with more than 70 different therapists and with study participants with childhood trauma, depression and a treatment-resistant subtype of PTSD, we have obtained incredibly promising results. Phase 3 study participants receiving MDMA-assisted therapy showed a greater reduction in PTSD symptoms and functional impairment than participants receiving placebo plus therapy. In addition, their symptoms of depression plummeted. By the end of the study more than 67 percent of the participants in the MDMA group no longer met criteria for PTSD. An additional 21 percent had a clinically meaningful response–in other words, a lessening of anxiety, depression, vigilant mental states, and emotional flatness. MDMA-assisted therapy did not increase measures of suicidal thinking or behavior. MDMA also did not demonstrate any measurable misuse potential.

Note: Read more about the healing potentials of mind-altering drugs. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

Congress on Thursday gave final approval to legislation guaranteeing that people who experience sexual harassment at work can seek recourse in the courts, a milestone for the #MeToo movement that prompted a national reckoning on the way sexual misconduct claims are handled. The measure, which is expected to be signed by President Joe Biden, bars employment contracts from forcing people to settle sexual assault or harassment cases through arbitration rather than in court, a process that often benefits employers and keeps misconduct allegations from becoming public. Significantly, the bill is retroactive, nullifying that language in contracts nationwide and opening the door for people who had been bound by it to take legal action. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has spearheaded the effort, called it "one of the most significant workplace reforms in American history." "No longer will survivors of sexual assault or harassment in the workplace come forward and be told that they are legally forbidden to sue their employer because somewhere in buried their employment contracts was this forced arbitration clause," she said. Gillibrand, who has focused on combating sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the military, originally introduced the legislation in 2017. The legislation had uncommonly broad, bipartisan support. That allowed the bill to be passed in the Senate by unanimous consent – a procedure almost never used for significant legislation, especially one affecting tens of millions of Americans.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

For the past decade, 15-year-old Finnish students have consistently been at or near the top of all the nations tested in reading, mathematics, and science. And just as consistently, the variance in quality among Finnish schools is the least of all nations tested, meaning that Finnish students can get a good education in virtually any school in the nation. That's equality of educational opportunity, a good public school in every neighborhood. What makes the Finnish school system so amazing is that Finnish students never take a standardized test until their last year of high school, when they take a matriculation examination for college admission. There is a national curriculum – broad guidelines to assure that all students have a full education – but it is not prescriptive. Teachers have extensive responsibility for designing curriculum and pedagogy in their school. Teachers are prepared for all eventualities, including students with disabilities, students with language difficulties, and students with other kinds of learning issues. The schools I visited reminded me of our best private progressive schools. They are rich in the arts, in play, and in activity. Finland has one other significant advantage over the United States. The child-poverty rate in Finland is under 4 percent. Here it is 22 percent and rising. It's a well-known fact that family income is the most reliable predictor of academic performance. Finland has a strong social welfare system; we don't. It is not a "Socialist" nation, by the way. It is egalitarian and capitalist.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

Finland's school system has consistently come at the top for the international rankings for education systems. So how do they do it? It's simple – by going against the evaluation-driven, centralized model that much of the Western world uses. Finnish children don't start school until they are 7. Compared with other systems, they rarely take exams or do homework until they are well into their teens. The children are not measured at all for the first six years of their education. There is only one mandatory standardized test in Finland, taken when children are 16. All children, clever or not, are taught in the same classrooms. Finland spends around 30 percent less per student than the United States. 30 percent of children receive extra help during their first nine years of school. 66 percent of students go to college. The difference between weakest and strongest students is the smallest in the World. Science classes are capped at 16 students so that they may perform practical experiments every class. 93 percent of Finns graduate from high school. 17.5 percent higher than the US. Elementary school students get 75 minutes of recess a day in Finnish [schools] versus an average of 27 minutes in the US. Teachers only spend 4 hours a day in the classroom, and take 2 hours a week for "professional development". Teachers are effectively given the same status as doctors and lawyers. In an international standardized measurement in 2001, Finnish children came top or very close to the top for science, reading and mathematics.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

Did you ever feel your own shoulders relax when you saw a friend receive a shoulder massage? For those of you who said "yes," congratulations, your brain is using its power to create a "placebo effect." For those who said "no," you're not alone, but thankfully, the brain is trainable. Since the 1800s, the word placebo has been used to refer to a fake treatment, meaning one that does not contain any active, physical substance. Today, placebos play a crucial role in medical studies in which some participants are given the treatment containing the active ingredients of the medicine, and others are given a placebo. These types of studies help tell researchers which medicines are effective, and how effective they are. Surprisingly, however, in some areas of medicine, placebos themselves provide patients with clinical improvement. Research suggests that the placebo effect is caused by positive expectations, the provider-patient relationship and the rituals around receiving medical care. Depression, pain, fatigue, allergies, irritable bowel syndrome, Parkinson's disease and even osteoarthritis of the knee are just a few of the conditions that respond positively to placebos. In addition to the ever-increasing body of evidence surrounding their effectiveness, placebos offer multiple benefits. They have no side effects. They are cheap. They are not addictive. They provide hope when there might not be a specific chemically active treatment available. They mobilize a person's own ability to heal through multiple pathways.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

President Biden became the first sitting president to give extensive comments supporting the right to repair and acknowledging the anticompetitive practices of electronics manufacturers that have spent the last decade creating repair monopolies and making it difficult for consumers to fix the things they own. At a cabinet meeting Monday, Biden gave an update on the executive order he issued last year that directed the Federal Trade Commission to create right to repair rules that would enforce against anticompetitive practices. "Too many areas, if you own a product, from a smartphone to a tractor, you don't have the freedom to choose how or where to repair that item you purchased," Biden added. "It's broke. Well, what do I do about it if it's broke, you had to go to the dealer and you had to pay the dealer's cost, the dealer's price. If you tried to fix it yourself, some manufacturers actually would void the warranty." Biden was referring here to practices by John Deere and Apple, as well as by video game console manufacturers, who as Motherboard reported violate the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act with "Warranty Void if Removed" stickers. Biden ... also took credit for recent moves from Amazon and Microsoft that will, in theory, make it easier for people to gain access to repair parts and manuals for their devices. "It's going to make it easy for millions of Americans to repair their electronics instead of paying an arm and a leg to repair or just throwing a device out."

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

Mark Cuban has opened up a new online pharmacy to help make generic drugs more affordable. The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company (MCCPDC) officially launched last week, claiming to offer the "lowest prices on 100 lifesaving prescriptions, according to a press release. The company is able to offer lower prices because it's a registered pharmaceutical wholesaler, meaning MCCPDC can "bypass middlemen and outrageous markups," per the press release. "The pharmacy's prices reflect actual manufacturer prices plus a flat 15% margin and pharmacist fee," the press release states. The company also "refuses to pay spread prices" to pharmacy benefits managers, which manage prescription drug benefits on behalf of health insurers. One of the medications available is Imatinib, a leukemia treatment that has a retail price of $9,657 a month and costs around $120 a month with a common voucher, per the press release. However, the MCCPDC offers a steep discount, making the drug available for $47 per month. Two other notable prescriptions available at a significantly reduced price are Mesalamine, used for ulcerative colitis treatment, as well as gout treatment drug Colchicine. "Not everyone sets the goal of being the lowest cost producer and provider," the billionaire [said]. "My goal is to make a profit while maximizing impact." "We will do whatever it takes to get affordable pharmaceuticals to patients," CEO Alex Oshmyansky said.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

Good news doesn't get any more in-your-face than this. One thousand fin whales, one of the world's biggest animals, were seen last week swimming in the same seas in which they were driven to near-extinction last century due to whaling. It's like humans never happened. This vast assembly was spread over a five-mile-wide area between the South Orkney islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. A single whale is stupendous; imagine 1,000 of them, their misty forest of spouts, as tall as pine trees, the plosive sound of their blows, their hot breath condensing in the icy air. Their sharp dorsal fins and steel-grey bodies slide through the waves like a whale ballet, choreographed at the extreme south of our planet. The sight has left whale scientists slack-jawed and frankly green-eyed in envy of Conor Ryan, who observed it from the polar cruiser, National Geographic Endurance. Ryan, an experienced zoologist and photographer, says this may be "one of the largest aggregations of fin whales ever documented". His estimate of 1,000 animals is a conservative one, he says. Fin whales are surprisingly slender, serpentine creatures when you see them underwater, and so long that they seem to take for ever to swim past. Like blue, humpback and minke whales, they're baleen whales, distinguished by food-filtering keratinous plates in lieu of teeth. Unlike toothed whales, such as sperm whales and killer whales, they are not usually seen as social animals.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles on marine mammals.

Three British women, one of whom has incurable cancer, have shattered the world record for rowing across the Atlantic. Kat Cordiner, who has secondary ovarian cancer, and teammates Abby Johnston and Charlotte Irving, arrived in Antigua on Sunday evening. The women completed the 3,000-mile crossing from La Gomera in the Canary Islands to English Harbour in 42 days ... knocking an astonishing seven days off the female trio record in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. Rowing the world's second largest ocean is acknowledged as the ultimate endurance race. More people have summitted Mount Everest than have successfully rowed the Atlantic and fewer than 20% of ocean rowers are women. It is thought Ms Cordiner is the first person to tackle this challenge as a cancer patient. The women are raising money for Cancer Research UK, Macmillan Cancer Support and The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. Race organisers said they had shown the impossible was possible. Ms Cordiner, 42, Ms Irving, 31, and Ms Johnston, 32, were on a 25ft boat – called Dolly Parton – rowing two hours on and two hours off. During their epic trip they experienced scorching heat, enormous night-time waves, sleep deprivation, blisters and callouses on their hands, and sharks trailing their small boat. Ms Cordiner said: "The doctors have told me I don't have decades, I have years, so I really want to make the most of them. I don't want to muck around doing stuff that doesn't matter – I want to do things that are challenging and fun."

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

Ubiquitous Energy claims that its technology, UE Power, is the only patented and transparent photovoltaic glass coating that uses solar power to generate energy while remaining visibly indistinguishable from traditional windows. The transparent solar panels can produce up to about 50% of the power of rooftop solar per given surface area, so it's designed to complement solar panels, not replace them. Ubiquitous Energy ... was started by a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michigan State University scientists and engineers looking for new ways to integrate solar power technology into everyday products and surfaces. The company has begun a US site selection process for its first high-volume manufacturing line. Ubiquitous Energy says that "broad adoption of UE Power within architectural glass has the opportunity to offset up to an estimated 10% of global emissions, greatly reducing the 40% of global carbon emissions that come from buildings and improving their energy efficiency at the same time." Jay Lund, chairman and chief executive officer of Andersen Corporation, said: "Ubiquitous Energy's transparent photovoltaic technology is revolutionary and represents a new horizon for the fenestration industry."

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

After more than a year of lockdowns, with limited access to nature, Magdalena Begh was delighted when her six-year-old daughter came home from forest school and informed her she had found three rat skeletons. Since Alia and her sister Hana, nine, started going to the Urban Outdoors Adventures in Nature after-school club in north London in June, they have used clay, learned about insects and made campfires, marmalade and bows and arrows. They are part of a wave of children across the UK who have joined forest schools since the start of the pandemic. Of more than 200 forest schools surveyed by the Forest School Association (FSA), about two-thirds said demand for their services had increased since March 2020. Among the reasons cited were increased awareness of the benefits of the outdoors, especially in relation to stress and anxiety, Covid safety, and dissatisfaction with the school syllabus after months of pandemic homeschooling. Forest schools, which centre around unstructured play, exploration and intrinsic motivation, arrived in the UK in 1993. Inspired by the outdoors culture – or friluftsliv – of Scandinavia, sessions are usually held either entirely or mostly outdoors and are intended to supplement, rather than replace, traditional education. State schools are increasingly putting on forest school sessions for pupils within the school day because they are considered to be beneficial to mental and physical health, behaviour and academic attainment – as well as being relatively "Covid-proof".

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

You may have heard of celebrities or multibillion-dollar companies donating money to cover students' lunch debt. But Keoni Ching from Vancouver, Washington, is just your normal 8-year-old who wanted to help his schoolmates. With his handmade key chains that go for $5 each, Keoni raised $4,015 to erase the lunch debt of students from his school and six others. It all started because Keoni wanted to do something special for "Kindness Week" at his school, Benjamin Franklin Elementary. With his mother, April, and father, Barry, by his side, Keoni thought about projects that would truly reflect kindness. Keoni said he decided to make key chains because, "I love key chains. They look good on my backpack." Once word of Keoni's key chains and his heartwarming cause got out, people from all over the country started sending in their requests for one of the custom key chains. "We have sent key chains to Alaska, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Arizona, all over the country," April Ching told CNN. "There was one lady who said she wanted $100 worth of key chains so that she could just hand them out to people. There were several people who bought one key chain and gave (Keoni) a hundred bucks. It was absolutely amazing how much support the community showed for his whole project." With the help of not only his parents, but also his grandparents, Keoni made and sold more than 300 key chains. Keoni delivered the $4,015 check to Franklin Elementary last week.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

Israeli researchers have taught goldfish to drive, according to a study that offers new insights into animals' ability to navigate – even when they're literally fish out of water. For the study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Behavioural Brain Research, the goldfish were trained to use a wheeled platform, dubbed a Fish Operated Vehicle. The FOV could be driven and have its course changed in reaction to the fish's movements inside a water tank mounted on the platform. Their task was to "drive" the robotic vehicle toward a target that could be observed through the walls of the fish tank. The vehicle was fitted with lidar, short for light detection and ranging, a remote sensing technology that uses lasers to collect data on its ground location and the fish's location within the tank. The researchers, from Ben-Gurion University, found the fish were able to move the FOV around unfamiliar environments while reaching the target "regardless of their starting point, all while avoiding dead-ends and correcting location inaccuracies." The goldfish in the tank were placed in a test arena and tasked with driving toward a target. Upon successfully hitting the target, they received a food pellet reward. After a few days of training, the fish were able to navigate past obstacles such as walls, while eluding efforts to trick them with false targets. "The study hints that navigational ability is universal rather than specific to the environment," said Shachar Givon, one of the study's authors.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

It's called "Political Blind Date." And far from being a hokey reality show for the political set, the popular Canadian series aims to break down walls around contentious issues from gun rights to climate change. At a time when political exchanges are often caustic and unyielding, a Canadian TV show is modeling a different approach. It creates space for rival politicians to share views and experiences respectfully – and viewers love it. With filming of a fifth season underway, about 50 politicians have participated, spending two days together with each other's constituents. The show has been optioned to the United Kingdom, France, Israel, and South Africa, and is being shopped in the United States. "It's a moment," says director Mark Johnston, "where people are trying to heal and listen to each other." Getting beyond the media scrum, the yelling during parliamentary question periods, the sound bites on nightly news, and the callous swipes over social media, producers set the stage for participants to engage one another with the time and respect that complex problems require. "Respect is at the heart of it. Not only are politicians, in the way they are using political rhetoric, not respecting each other; they're disrespecting their citizenry," says Mark Johnston, showrunner of "Political Blind Date." The goal is not to get the two politicians to reverse their positions, something that rarely happens. It's to slow down and study policies in all their complexity, and to hear the human concerns and perspectives that lie behind their support.

Note: Enjoy a wonderful compilation of inspiring stories from the pandemic times on this webpage. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

It was a field of dreams come true. On Monday, Gwen McLoughlin, 70, served as bat girl for the New York Yankees when they hosted the Los Angeles Angels, 60 years after she was rejected when she wrote a letter to the team as a 10-year-old asking if she could serve in the role. "It's been an amazing opportunity. A day of a lifetime," she said after the game. "I can't put it into words." In 1961, McLoughlin, then Gwen Goldman, received a response from Roy Hamey, who was general manager of the team after she wrote a letter asking to be a bat girl. "While we agree with you that girls are certainly as capable as boys, and no doubt would be an attractive addition on the playing field, I am sure you can understand that in a game dominated by men a young lady such as yourself would feel out of place in a dugout," Hamey replied. Fast forward six decades and McLoughlin's daughter Abby forwarded the letter to the team, which caught the eye of current general manager Brian Cashman, who replied with a more favorable reaction inviting her to be the honorary bat girl during the game as part of the Yankees' annual HOPE Week, which shines a light on inspiring stories and people. "Although your long-ago correspondence took place 60 years ago – six years before I was born – I feel compelled to resurrect your original request and do what I can to bring your childhood dream to life," he said. "It is my honor and my dream and I can't thank you enough for making this come true," a choked up McLoughlin said.

Note: Enjoy a wonderful compilation of inspiring stories from the pandemic times on this webpage. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.