Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on 08.21.18,
Addie Rodriguez was supposed to take the field with her dad during a high school football game, where he, along with other dads, would lift her onto his shoulders for a routine. But Addie’s dad was halfway across the country, unable to make the event.
Her father is Abel Rodriguez, a veteran airman who, after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, was training at Travis Air Force Base in California, 1,700 miles from his family in San Antonio.
“Mom missed the memo it was parent day, and the reason her mom missed the memo was her dad left Wednesday,” said Alexis Perry-Rodriguez, Addie’s mom. She continued, “It was really heartbreaking to see your daughter standing out there being the only one without their father, knowing why he’s away. It’s not just an absentee parent. He’s serving our country.”
But as Addie sat there in front of the game’s crowd, with no one to join her on the field, someone ran toward her. That person was Central Catholic High School senior Matthew Garcia, who went to her after realizing she was the only cheerleader without a partner.
Garcia told local news station FOX 29, “I ran down from the bleachers right here, and I just hopped the fence, and I went over, and I kneeled down, I talked to her and I said, ‘Are you OK?’”
He then lifted Addie onto his shoulders just like the dads did with their daughters so she could participate in the routine. Many onlookers quickly realized they were witnessing an extraordinary act of kindness, and social media was abuzz. It may have been a small gesture for Garcia, but as Addie tells it, that little bit of assistance meant the world to her. They posed for a picture after the routine was done, and it’s clear this would be one encounter she wouldn’t soon forget.
Images from YouTube video. | Addie Rodriguez and Mathew Garcia.
“I just felt like somebody saved my life,” Addie said, adding, “I thought that’s so nice, especially since my dad’s serving for us.
The incident unfolded when Gary Thynes was in a local park with his own dog. He noticed a pit bull acting frantically, clearly in distress but hesitant to approach. Thynes, sensing something was wrong, decided to engage rather than walk away.
“I’m really glad that he did what he did,” Thynes told local station WTAE-TV. “He definitely got my attention…He’d come just close enough for me to be out of arm’s reach. Then he would bark, turn around, run a few steps, turn around, bark again. It felt like he was trying to get my attention. I got this overwhelming feeling that he wanted me to follow him.”
Thynes trusted that feeling. He handed his own dog off to a friend and followed the pit bull away from the street and toward a secluded tent encampment. What he found there was terrifying.
The dog led him to a red couch where a man was lying unresponsive. “I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing or not,” Thynes recalled. As he assessed the situation, he realized the emergency was twofold. “Then I turned around and noticed a pair of legs sticking out of a tent. I tried to shake them. It was a woman who wouldn’t respond to me either.”
A couple sleeping in their tent Canva
Thynes immediately called 911. Pittsburgh Public Safety later confirmed to CNN that medics arrived promptly and transported both the man and the woman to the hospital for treatment.
But the story didn’t end with the ambulance ride. Thynes, who shared on Facebook that he is “16 months sober from heroin addiction,” felt a deep responsibility toward the dog who had orchestrated the rescue. When animal control arrived, they informed him the dog would be taken to a shelter “far outside the city.” Worried that the owners would struggle to retrieve their pet due to distance and fees, Thynes made a generous offer.
He volunteered to foster the dog himself.
“[I]t is an honor for me to take care of this guy,” Thynes wrote on Facebook, “until his humans are well enough to reunite with a dog that loves them very much.”
For now, the hero dog is safe, fed, and getting plenty of attention from his temporary guardian. As Thynes told WTAE, “He’s a persistent little puppy… He’s amazing. And he definitely saved some lives.”
This article originally appeared earlier this year.
After successfully building three other clinics, as mentioned on Upworthy and Scoop Upworthy, NBA all-star Michael Jordan teamed up once again with Novant Health to build a fourth clinic for the uninsured in North Carolina. The health clinic is the second one built in Wilmington and opened on February 19, 2025.
Jordan is considered by many to be the greatest basketball player to compete in the National Basketball Association. With a career at the top spanning from 1984 through 2003, Jordan became a six-time NBA champion and four-time gold medalist in the Olympics. Jordan would be inducted in the NBA Hall of Fame in 2009.
How these clinics are changing lives for the uninsured
This creation of this health clinic was based on the benefits shown from the previous clinics in the state. After the success of the first clinic, Jordan gifted $10 million to Novant Health to expand and create others. Each location was chosen based on the barriers the community was facing in obtaining health care, including transportation. Many patients had their first primary care visit with a physician thanks to Jordan’s clinics providing these services for people who cannot afford health insurance.
This new clinic will have a standard primary care team of physicians, but also a community health worker to assist the patients and grant access to community resources. The 7,3000-square-foot clinic and its 12 patient rooms will be open on weekdays.
Novant Health and Michael Jordan have once again teamed up for enhanced access to comprehensive primary care services. The Novant Health Michael Jordan Family Medical Clinic – East Wilmington marks the second clinic in his hometown of Wilmington and extends the vision to make… pic.twitter.com/UZdWRJBlZI
Unfortunately, many people still lack access to affordable health care and health insurance. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 27.1 million Americans were uninsured in the first quarter of 2024. Keep in mind that being insured doesn’t necessarily mean that a person’s health needs were met or had received full coverage. A 2024 YouGov poll showed that 49% of Americans were dissatisfied with the state of the U.S. health care system.
Clinic are factoring more and more into health planning in the US. Photo credit: Canva
So what can a person do to improve their health care? Individually, if a person obtains health insurance through their employer, they can investigate speaking to their HR representative or union head and work with them to go through different plans for you and your coworkers to find the best option. Discuss gaps in various coverage and see if your employer is open to finding a different employee health plan to address those gaps. If you don’t have a health care plan through your work, you can see what options are available to you through the Affordable Care Act.
If you aren’t finding the health care you are looking for and want to enact larger change, you may want to get politically involved. Investigate to see if there are groups in your area advocating for the change you want to see in the American health care system. They can point you towards proposals, elections, and candidates that fit your views and that you can help get elected or enacted.
Doing so will help not only yourself, but help others gain access to the health care you wish to receive, much like Michael Jordan’s generous gesture. It’s a slam dunk for the whole team.
This article originally appeared earlier this year.
Acts of kindness can brighten someone’s day, but sometimes they don’t go as expected. It’s disheartening when good deeds are punished. On Reddit, former pizza joint employee u/Huge_Buddy_2216 shared how his manager criticized him for buying dinner for a homeless man. However, the story took a surprising turn when a customer found a clever way to help.
The employee shared that he was working at a well-known US pizza delivery chain store in the early 2000s. He wrote, “For anyone who has ever worked in the US food service industry, you’re probably familiar with what a failing dumpster fire of a restaurant looks like. On many nights, it was just me and one driver taking care of the whole restaurant.”
He further shared his grievances as he mentioned that he did not have any breaks during his shift. He said in the post, “Breaks were out of the question because the restaurant would be completely unattended, the recent franchise buyers were complete and total idiots who would show up unannounced to yell at me, and the overwhelming majority of our customers ordered once and then never again. We had pizza deliveries taking 90+ minutes, people bringing them back to the store … it was a nightmare.”
Representative Image: Making pizzas for hungry people. Pexels I Photo by Jvxhn Visuals
After talking about his workplace’s toxic environment, the employee goes on to narrate how one day a homeless man walked into the store to enquire whether the shop had any leftover pizzas. He wrote, “Well, 11 pm rolls around as I’m kind of standing by the phones watching the clock tick down, and a homeless man walks in. He introduced himself as Ricky and asked if we had any leftover pizzas that nobody picked up.”
A simple start
The employee mentioned that he apologetically informed Ricky that there were no leftovers. But, since he was in a good mood, he asked him what he wanted. The user described the incident saying, “He says he likes the meat lovers’ pizza. Since he isn’t a sociopath like some of our customers, I say I’ll be happy to make him one. Ricky at this point is so thankful that he sits down in one of our chairs and starts bouncing up and down like a little kid.”
Representative Image Source: Pexels I Photo by Polina Tankilevitch
The former employee had also paid for the pizza on behalf of the homeless man which cost him 12 dollars, equivalent to the wages of an hour and a half at the shop. He calls the transaction a “Good deal.” Soon, things took an ugly turn as the manager arrived. “As the pizza comes out of the oven, in comes the area manager – the brother of the franchise owner. He begins shouting as usual and accuses me of stealing from the store,” he wrote.
The user talks about Henry, who is a regular customer at the shop and witnessed the commotion. He narrates, “The area manager shouts a bit more, calls me a liar, says the count better be right that night, and leaves.” Soon both Ricky and Henry get their respective pizzas and leave the store with the duo spotted having a chat outside the shop.
The employee then explained how Henry devised a clever plan to help feed Ricky. “The next night, Henry calls me for an order. This was unusual because he was generally a once-a-week guy. I also found it unusual that he ordered a meat lovers’ pizza instead of his usual supreme. I took it, made it, and 20 minutes later Henry called again apologetically to cancel it. I say OK. In a bizarre coincidence, Ricky rolled in right around that time asking for a pizza. I just so had one that was going to go uneaten sitting under the heater.”
Representative Image: Is there anything better than pepperoni? Pexels I Photo by Pixabay
The so-called “coincidence” soon started to take place every night as the user narrated, “Henry would call, order a meat lovers’ pizza, and I’d make it. Henry would then call again and cancel and Ricky would coincidentally roll in. Every night, same time. You could time it to the second. This went on for months.” Unfortunately, the clever scheme finally came to an end after one of his colleagues snitched on him and reported the full story to the manager. In the end, the user shared that the restaurant went under about a year later.
The heartwarming post went viral and gained around 8.5k upvotes with over 200 comments. u/Ashshaun commented, “Good people doing good for the sake of being good. I love it. Besides if a business can’t cover the loss of 1 pizza a day (when most pizza places will give their employees free food anyway) they don’t deserve to be in business.” Another Reddit user expressed, “This. I’ve had to deal with homeless people more than a few times when I worked retail. You want a meal? I got you. I just wish I could have helped more. They usually have some nasty problems.”
