In 2013, the Brotherhood of Fire Facebook page reminded people of his selfless act of courage, writing beneath a picture of Buscemi.

​"Do you recognise this man? Do you know his name? Lots of people know he's an actor, and that his name is Steve Buscemi. What very few people realise is that he was once one of New York's Bravest.

"In 1976 Steve Buscemi took the FDNY civil service test when he was just 18 years old. In 1980 Steve Buscemi became a New York City Firefighters. For four years, Buscemi served on one of FDNY's busiest, Engine Co. 55 in Manhattan's Little Italy. He later left the fire service to become a successful actor, writer and director. 

"After 9/11/2001... Brother Buscemi returned to FDNY Engine 55. 

"On September 12, 2001 and for several days following Brother Steve worked 12-hour shifts alongside other firefighters digging and sifting through the rubble from the World Trade Center looking for survivors. 

"Very few photographs and no interviews exist because he declined them. He wasn't there for the publicity."

Buscemi also been an advocate for firefighters' welfare, telling CBS News: "Firefighters are great at helping others, they're great at helping each other. But they're not always—they don't always know that they, themselves, are in need.

"Their first reaction would be: ‘Oh, the next guy has it worse, you know?'"

During the 11 September attacks 343 firefighters gave their lives protecting and rescuing others.

Buscemi still serves on the Board of Advisors for Friends of Firefighters, an organisation dedicated to New York firefighters and their relatives.

www.facebook.com/FireBrotherhood/photos/do-you-recognize-this-man-do-you-know-his-namelots-of-people-know-hes-an-actor-a/624804580886536/

​HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

I run this site in my spare time and thoroughly enjoy giving you all positive news!  If you've enjoyed the site we'd love for you to help me share the good news far and wide, share us on Reddit, your Facebook or your Twitter and spread a little positivity around.

ENJOY FEEL GOOD, INSPIRING STORIES AND VIDEOS ?

Our new page here is just what you need, with just good news, feel good stories unrelated to COVID.

​HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

I run this site in my spare time and thoroughly enjoy giving you all positive news!  If you've enjoyed the site we'd love for you to help me share the good news far and wide, share us on Reddit, your Facebook or your Twitter and spread a little positivity around.

For the thousands of Canadians at risk of blindness, eight-year-old Sam is a beacon of hope.

He is the first Canadian to be treated with gene replacement therapy for a rare form of blindness which had left Sam unable to see sky on a cloudy day, and unable to make out shapes in the dark.

“Sometimes you have to walk in the night and I couldn’t see things and you bump into things,” Sam told CTV News.

He had to have lights on always, and had trouble seeing his shoes or objects on the floor. And the condition was progressive, meaning things would get worse as he grew older -- a daunting prospect when there was no treatment available.

But now he can see cloudy skies, shoes and more. The best part of his improved vision, says Sam, are the stars at night.

“I never saw stars before,” he said. “And I also never saw airplanes flying at night.”

He was diagnosed after birth with a genetic disorder called retinitis pigmentosa, a form of genetic retinal degeneration resulting from mutations in the RPE65 gene.

“You lose perception of light,” Dr. Elise Heon, of Sick Kids Hospital, explained to CTV News. “You end up in darkness and [it’s] slowly progressive, it's relentless, your visual field shrinks and shrinks and shrinks and shrinks.”

Back in 2019, Sam and his family travelled to the U.S to get the new gene therapy because it wasn’t available in Canada yet.

His mother, Sarah Banon, noticed changes quickly.

“About a week later, I noticed he could get dressed by [himself],” she said. “He could get his shoes on by himself, independently.”

His improvements have continued in the year since he first received the gene therapy.

“He is so much more confident,” his mother told CTV News. “Like getting dressed by himself, matching clothes, doesn’t have to have things enlarged. Being able to [see], even when it’s dark outside, no lights on and it is a cloudy day. He would have to, at school, keep the lights on.

“Now he is able to function as a normal child.”

With the approval of this gene therapy in Canada, doctors are hoping to be able to use it on more patients who qualify -- and the earlier the better.

Dr. Peter Kertes, a vitreo-retinal surgeon and Ophthalmologist-in-Chief at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, told CTV News that the approval of the therapy is “fantastic.”

“This is a huge breakthrough,” he said. “Most of the advances that we have in medicine are incremental. Every once in a while, once in a generation, something revolutionary like this comes along that really changes the course of therapy.”

“This is the tip of the iceberg. I think this is a vector that will prove to be very effective and holds great promise,” he said. “I think many people who are living with blindness or facing blindness, have much to look forward to. I think we're on the cusp of a revolution in this group of diseases.”

https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/health/i-never-saw-stars-before-gene-therapy-brings-back-8-year-old-canadian-boy-s-sight-1.5145830

HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

I run this site in my spare time and thoroughly enjoy giving you all positive news!  If you've enjoyed the site we'd love for you to help me share the good news far and wide, share us on Reddit, your Facebook or your Twitter and spread a little positivity around.

​​HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

I run this site in my spare time and thoroughly enjoy giving you all positive news!  If you've enjoyed the site we'd love for you to help me share the good news far and wide, share us on Reddit, your Facebook or your Twitter and spread a little positivity around.

Four years ago, one of the happiest days of Kira Conard's life carried a cloud of sadness.

At a high school graduation party, her friends were buzzing with excitement about their next steps. Many were going to college, but the aspiring therapist in Des Moines, Iowa, scarcely had the heart to tell them she couldn't go. Her family just couldn't afford it.

Raised by a single parent with three older sisters, "paying for all four of us was never an option," she told CNN affiliate KCCI. But then she got a call from a stranger offering a scholarship.

"I broke down into tears immediately," she said.

The man on the other end of the line told her that her dreams would be funded by an angel named Dale Schroeder.

Born in 1919, Schroeder worked as a carpenter for 67 years at the same business in Des Moines. When he died in 2005, he had amassed almost $3 million in savings.

Schroeder had owned two pairs of jeans, one for work and one for church, his friend Steve Nielsen, a lawyer, told KCCI. He never married and had no living descendents.

Before his death, Schroeder walked into Nielsen's office and told him he wanted to start a scholarship. He hadn't had the chance to go to college but wanted others to be able to get an education.

Nielsen described Schroeder as a "blue-collar, lunch-pail kind of guy."

Since his death in 2005, that money has been doled out to 33 Iowans.

Conard, whose dream of becoming a therapist has been financed by the fund, is the last person to receive one of Schroeder's scholarships; after putting 33 students through school, his fund is finally tapped out.

"For a man that would never meet me to give me basically a full ride to college, that's incredible. That doesn't happen," she said.

Schroeder's legacy lives on as Dale's Kids are making their mark on the world.

"All we ask is that you pay it forward," Nielsen said. "You can remember him, and you can emulate him.""Dale's Kids" met for dinner on Saturday to catch up on each other's lives and to honor the man who made their dreams possible. They sat around the old carpenter's lunch pail to share updates on their lives. Many are now doctors, teachers and therapists.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/19/us/carpenter-funds-33-college-scholarships-trnd/index.html

HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

I run this site in my spare time and thoroughly enjoy giving you all positive news!  If you've enjoyed the site we'd love for you to help me share the good news far and wide, share us on Reddit, your Facebook or your Twitter and spread a little positivity around.

Over 15,000 student households in five school districts were gifted with free internet connectivity this morning, as many children struggle with online learning due to unreliable Wi-Fi amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

"Good Morning America," revealed the surprise today to students attending five public school districts located in Allegheny Valley, Pennsylvania, Jackson, Mississippi, Baltimore, Maryland, Santa Fe, New Mexico and South Bend, Indiana. They will now have five years of free internet connection in their homes, thanks to T-Mobile's Project 10Million--a program that aims to eventually get free Wi-Fi to 10 million students' households in the US.

"It means a lot to the community--to narrow the gap, for students to have the opportunity to have internet access at home. It's amazing," said Shawn Henderson, principal of Riley High School in South Bend. "We're blessed, thank you."

Of the 50 million children learning remotely, between 15 and 16 million lack adequate internet connectivity, according to the Center for Democracy and Technology. As a result, many students have turned to fast food restaurants or school parking lots to access online classes.

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Living/15000-childrens-homes-surprised-free-wi-fi-amid/story?id=73331800

HELP US SPREAD GOOD NEWS!

I run this site in my spare time and thoroughly enjoy giving you all positive news!  If you've enjoyed the site we'd love for you to help me share the good news far and wide, share us on Reddit, your Facebook or your Twitter and spread a little positivity around.