Big Time Rush answers letter to Santa for girl bullied at school

Well, this has got to be the feel good moment of the day.

Amber and Ryan Suffern are twins, and like many twins they have a close understanding about how each other feels.

Amber suffers from ADHD, depression and mood disorder.  As if it wasn't enough to cope with those issues, kids at her school would bully and abuse her.  One day Amber shared with her mother, Karen Suffern, "sometimes I just feel like I wanna die so they'll leave me alone."

At school Ryan would protect his sister as much as he could but he felt something bigger might be needed to address the problem.  Santa Claus.

Asked by his mother to write an early letter to Santa, Ryan Suffern wrote:

"Dear Santa … I wanted a [remote control] car and helicopter, but I don't want that any mor. Kid at school are still picking on Amber and its not fair because she doesnt do anything to them … I prayed that they will stop but god is bisy and needs your help. Is it against the rules to give gift early?"

"Can you ask Big Time Rush to come to Amber's birthday party? It will make her so happy. If you can't get them to come, but just get her everything she asks for. Thanks, Santa,"

The Santa letter went viral after their mother shared it on her Facebook for friends to see. Well, more than just friends saw it. The letter went viral quickly.

Good Morning America saw the letter and co-anchor Josh Elliot to talk to the family. What Amber didn't know during the interview was that her favorite band, Big Time Rush, was waiting in the wings to surprise her as an early birthday present, just what Ryan wished for. The family will also be VIP guests of the band at a concert this weekend in New York City.

The letter also opened a dialogue between Suffern to open a dialogue with her children's school, and begin to make things better for Amber.  

Check out the video documenting the feel good story on Good Morning America's Yahoo page.

Let's hear it for Big Time Rush for stepping in and making an 8 year old girl's birthday so great.

Happy Friday everyone!

Harrassed bus monitor "vacation fund" goes viral

Over $165,000 $318,000 has been raised for the upstate New York bus monitor who was reduced to tears by a group of horrid schoolboys on the last day of school.

Video of the appalling harassment went viral yesterday, and one person had the bright idea to start an Indiegogo fundraiser for the woman, Karen Klein, so she could take a vacation.

As of 10:50 a.m. it's $168,490 1:07 p.m., it's $216,438 5:10 p.m. it's $318,902 and counting! Upgrading to a butler room at Sandals will not be a problem.

Klein, who lives near Rochester, has been deluged with media requests since the video went viral—she's booked to talk with Anderson Cooper on CNN and appear on Fox & Friends—and this morning she was interviewed by Good Morning America. "I was just was trying to ignore them,” Klein tells GMA. "Usually I sit right in back, and I should have that day, but I sat one seat ahead so there was one boy in back of me and one boy in front of me. They just kept it up. They thought it was funny.” Making a senior citizen cry by threatening to defecate in her mouth and stab her? Hilarious. One of the insults was even more sickening than we initially thought. In the video below, you can hear one of the boys say, "You don’t have a family because they all killed themselves because they didn’t want to be near you." The local ABC affiliate reports that Klein's oldest son killed himself ten years ago.

Kline said she doesn’t want to see those boys expelled but would like to see them banned from riding the school bus for at least a year and not allowed to participate in team sports.

She adds that she's blown away by the public's response.

At a press conference Thursday, school officials said they are still investigating the incident, but promised strong disciplinary action.

See update on ABC News here.

Left-over hotel shampoo and soap saves lives

A number of Strip resorts have partnered with the nonprofit group Clean the World to collect partially used hotel room toiletries and recycle them for use by people in need in the United States and abroad.

Recycled soaps and shampoos have been sent to Las Vegas homes for pregnant teens, homeless shelters in New York City, Houston and Chicago and impoverished villages overseas. They have helped hundreds of thousands of Haitians struggling in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake and, more recently, scores of Filipinos left homeless by typhoons and flooding.

The program works like this: Housekeepers gather used soaps, shampoos and body washes and drop them off at central collection bins set up at each property. Once the bins are filled, a Clean the World driver picks them up and delivers them to a recycling center on South Valley View Boulevard.

At the recycling plant, staff and volunteers take potato peelers to the tiny bars of soap and scrape them to remove dirt, hair and other debris. The bars are doused with a bleach-and-water mixture, then cooked at 280 degrees for two minutes to kill any bacteria. They are sent through the equivalent of a giant meat grinder to chop them up into small granules, then pass through a press and cutter. The result is sanitized soap.

Las Vegas is Clean the World’s Western distribution hub, an unsurprising fact given the city is the hotel capital of the world and home to about 150,000 hotel rooms.

“We take so much for granted here in America,” said Bob McAbee, the group’s Las Vegas facility manager. “Many people have $1 and have to choose whether to eat or bathe. It’s a tough choice to make. We want to eliminate that choice.”

Five million people, mostly women and children, die every year because of improper hygiene, according to Clean the World. Simple hand washing with soap can reduce that number by millions since it helps prevent diarrheal diseases and acute respiratory infection, two of the top killers.

Since it was founded in 2009, Clean the World has distributed almost 11 million bars of soap to people in more than 45 countries. The effort also has kept 1.2 million pounds of trash out of landfills.

More at Las Vegas Sun

What's goin on... Take 2

Jonathon rocks.

I hope Jonah Mowry sees this.

Community.

Forward.

Reality check: Love After War

Photo by Nikki Kahn (TWP)

Dan: “You know, I am missing my legs. Is that an issue?”

Rebecca: “I never dated a guy because he had nice knees. But I do like nice arms.”

Read about the rest of the romance at Washington Post.

Markets Up, Oil Down

U.S. stocks are expected to rally Monday morning in response to the news of Osama bin Laden’s death, with markets in Japan and South Korea already jolting upward overnight.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up between 0.5 and 1 percent since President Barack Obama announced the news in a late night speech. Nasdaq and S&P 500 index futures are also up, buoyed by the news.

Values of the dollar and euro have been up by less than one percent throughout much of the day, while crude oil prices for June delivery have fallen in the range of about $2 per barrel.

In Japan, the Nikkei Stock Average rose 1.6 percent to 10,004.20, edging it over 10,000 for the first time in six weeks. South Korea’s Kospi was up 1.7 percent on the day. Markets throughout much the rest of Asia were closed for holidays, and Japan’s market will be closed until Friday.
(via Politico)

Zach Wahls from Iowa on ELLEN

How do you not beam watching this guy? His moms obviously did an amazing job raising a bright, articulate and clear-headed young man. THIS is the America I look to for our future. Watching this really makes me happy.