Best of 2012: Feel Good Stories

What better way to look back at 2012 than taking a look at the stories that just warm your heart? In no particular order, here are some of our feel good stories from this year.

• Texas School Aids Seaford Community Post-Sandy: A Texas teen decided to help her cousin's hometown of Seaford following Hurricane Sandy by spearheading a relief drive for the hard-hit community with her high school drill team. The charitable effort, which sprung from Seaford Middle School eighth grader Kenna MacLean having a weekly Sunday phone conversation with Morgan Ericson of Plano, Texas, raised more than $3,000 in relief supplies and gift cards that were donated and distributed throughout the Seaford area.
• Couple Celebrates 70 Years Of Wedded Bliss: Leo Shargel, 95, and his wife Lillian, 91, celebrated an amazing milestone in their lives together back in July: their 70th wedding anniversary. The couple married within three months of meeting one another on a blind date on April 5, 1942.
• Mineola Junior Fire Department Serves Thanksgiving in Rockaways: The members of the Mineola Junior Fire Department and TV star Brad Garrett gave up their Thanksgiving Day this year to serve food in the Rockaways to victims of Hurricane Sandy which caused widespread damage leaving people in the cold with no place to go.
• Best Buddies Fill Stockings for Hospitalized Troops in Afghanistan: Garden City High School’s Best Buddies club filled stockings for troops in hospitals in Afghanistan earlier in December. Best Buddies President Breanne Lapinski spearheaded the event by calling for donations of candy, decks of cards, DVDs and the like. Lapinski also worked with local Girl Scout Daisy troops to make ornaments and holiday cards for our soldiers.
• Sacks for Sandy Spreads Holiday Cheer to Kids: Michele Catalano of East Meadow is a self-proclaimed Internet girl. She even met one of her closet friends, Leah Reich of Oakland, Ca. through Twitter. It was only fitting that when she kick-started a post-Hurricane Sandy relief effort that it was online and with that very same friend. Catalano and Reich created their website, Sacks for Sandy, and in just one week collected more than 700 toys for children affected by Sandy.
• Very Peri: One West Hempstead girl was born with a form of muscular dystrophy that could have easily held her back and crushed her spirits, but instead it inspires her to work hard, dream big, try new things and give back to others.
• West Hempstead Bringing Relief to Forgotten Island Park: Although still contending with power outages in their homes, many West Hempstead students, staff and their families spent three days collecting supplies and delivering them to their classmates, friends and other residents in Island Park devastated by Hurricane Sandy.