CINCINNATI — Arin Gentry has loved reading since she was a little kid.

But it wasn’t until she was an adult that she realized what was missing from the books she read when she was little: Positive stories about Black people written by Black authors.

“I really can’t tell you many books that I read when I was coming up that were written by Black authors,” said Gentry, 26, an academic adviser at the University of Cincinnati. “The stories that we would read would be about civil rights or slavery. And that’s important to know. But it also gets, ‘OK – I get it,’ you know?”

So in the summer of 2020, when Gentry was pregnant with her son, she started a Black literature book drive.

“The goal was to make sure that young people who look like me – but also young people who don’t look like me – are able to have access to books that represent Black people in a positive manner,” she said. “Being able to provide that for young people, it means a lot to me.”

Lucy May | WCPO

Gentry put out the call on social media, asking for donations of new books or money to purchase new books. She ended up with 1,000 books to donate to kids in the community and said she knew she had to keep it going. Her second book drive early this year was twice as successful.

RELATED: Her book drive makes sure Black kids read happy stories, too

“All together, about 3,000 books I’ve donated,” she said. “And again, all of these books are brand new books written by Black authors that share Black stories in a positive manner.”

Because of that work, the Literacy Network of Greater Cincinnati this month named Gentry a “Reading Hero.”

“We think it’s so important to have those cheerleaders in our own lives that help us become strong readers,” said Michelle Otten Guenther, the Literacy Network’s president. “When children struggle with reading early on, they kind of get stuck and they tell themselves, oh, I’m not a good reader. And then that spills over to other areas or other subjects.”

‘Her excitement is contagious’

Gentry has gone “above and beyond,” Guenther said, to encourage young people to read by making sure they have books that inspire them and relate to their lives.

“I really do believe that what Arin is doing is an act of compassion and kindness for our community,” she said. “That’s something that we always talk about – how books can teach us empathy because they teach us about people who are different from us. They teach us about people with different experiences.”

But Gentry, she said, is taking that a step further.

Courtesy of Literacy Network of Greater Cincinnati

“She’s actually making sure that those books are getting out there,” Guenther said. “Her excitement is contagious.”

To expand on her work, Gentry started the As Told By Foundation, a nonprofit organization working to close the literacy gap by providing youth with books that feature positive Black characters and stories.

“I read to my son every day, so I know how important it is,” she said. “But I also realize that everyone does not have the same type of access and privilege as I may have or as my son may have.”

Her goal, she said, is not simply to encourage kids to read but also to give them the books that will empower them.

“I love being able to do work in my community for those who may have had similar experiences as me growing up,” she said. “I want to do my part to make the world a better place.”

Not only for her son, she said, but for every young person in the community.

Courtesy of Arin Gentry

Arin Gentry plans to launch another Black literature book drive in early 2022. For information about how you can contribute books or donate money, go to her As Told By Foundation website.

Acts of Kindness stories appear weekly on WCPO 9 News and WCPO.com. If you know about an act of kindness that you think should be highlighted, email lucy.may@wcpo.com.

CINCINNATI — Terry Walls knows how important it is for kids in Lower Price Hill to have a place to spend time in creative and constructive ways -- that’s what he needed growing up in the neighborhood.

That’s why nearly every day for more than a decade, Walls has volunteered his time, energy and know-how at the Joe Williams Family Center on Glenway Avenue.

“I like the center and all that, and the people. It’s great people,” said Walls, 55, as he took a break from tidying up outside the building. “I like doing stuff for the kids to help ‘em out so they got a place to go.”

Walls sweeps leaves, pulls weeds and clears snow outside when needed. He makes a fresh pot of coffee for the center’s staff each morning and takes care of maintenance problems inside. He also stops by every other Sunday to take the recycling cans to the curb.

“He’s just so hardworking and so helpful,” said Jessica Polzin, youth development coordinator at Santa Maria Community Services, which runs the center. “Gosh, I don’t know what we’d do without him here.”

Lucy May | WCPO

He has painted some of the center’s walls, helped hang a chalk board in the kitchen and has helped out with trim work, too, Polzin said.

“There was a time when the sink overflowed, and actually through this art room into the office in back,” she said. “And he helped us pull up the carpet tiles and dry it all out and repair everything.”

And Walls does it all using crutches to help him walk.

An automobile crash in the 1980s made Walls a paraplegic, he said, and he hasn’t been able to feel his legs since.

“It took me a while to learn to walk with these,” he said of the crutches. “And once I got to walking well, and learning how to walk with them, I started doing everything.”

‘Thankful to God’

Walls doesn’t get paid for the work he does at the center.

Polzin said his contributions are priceless.

“Volunteers, especially for this site, are super important because we have so much youth programming and family work that if families are in crisis, it could take all of our attention for days and a lot of youth programming trying to minimize the chaos and make a fun environment for them,” she said. “We don’t always have time to do all of the nitty gritty stuff around here.”

Walls was a youth participant at the center back when it was the Boys Club, he said, and then a Boys & Girls Club.

Jay Warren | WCPO

Polzin said he’s been helping as an adult since long before she started working at Santa Maria 10 years ago.

“He’s super protective of all of us females in here, making sure that we feel safe and there’s not anyone bothering us, which is super sweet as well,” she said. “If he’s not here, we get concerned that something is wrong. We check up on him just like he would all of us.”

And even on days when Walls is feeling tired, Polzin said, he is always asking what he can do to help.

“There’s not a time where he shows any type of selfishness,” she said. “He is always giving back in any way that he can.”

Walls said he’s happy he can do it.

“I’m thankful to God that I’m alive,” he said. “And I’m thankful for what I can do and donate back to this community.”

Lucy May | WCPO

Acts of Kindness stories appear weekly on WCPO 9 News and WCPO.com. If you know about an act of kindness that you think should be highlighted, email lucy.may@wcpo.com.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A generous customer left a $10,000 tip for the staff of a Florida restaurant last week and the workers hope to pay it forward.

The Wahoo Seafood Grill in Gainesville says the guest asked the 10-person restaurant staff to come to the dining area, where he thanked them for showing up and working hard.

The workers were shocked when the patron told them that he was giving them each $1,000, according to the restaurant.

The owner of the establishment, Shawn Shepherd, says he’s not usually an emotional guy, but the act of kindness really touched him, and he was blown away by the man’s generosity.

“The last year and a half hasn’t been easy on this industry. We’re hurting and we’re exhausted, but this incredible act of kindness has restored our faith in humanity,” said Shepherd in a statement on Facebook.

The restaurant says its workers plan to pay the kindness forward in their own ways.

“Even the smallest acts of kindness can have a giant ripple effect,” wrote the restaurant.

Wahoo Seafood Grill says it’s sharing the news of the big tip with the hopes that others feel inspired to do something nice for someone else.

“Be the reason someone believes in the goodness of people,” they wrote.

Related video above: Resourceful ways to store groceries so they last longer

When Tim and Deb Hennessy decided to go on a grocery run during last month's deadly winter storm in Texas, they had no idea the generosity they were in for.

Tim Hennessy told CNN he immediately regretted the trip when he saw the line of people outside, waiting to get into the Leander H-E-B Plus. But the couple wanted to be prepared in case conditions worsened.

The Hennessys shopped for about 15 minutes before the store lost power and the lights went out. He described hearing a collective groan.

Customers continued shopping for items they needed until a store manager asked them to head to the front, Hennessy said. He and his wife joined what he estimated to be a couple hundred people in a slow-moving checkout line.

"I honestly expected halfway in there that they're gonna say, 'Hey folks, leave your carts, we'll put the stuff away. Sorry for the inconvenience, but we have no way of registering this stuff,'" he told CNN.

Instead, Hennessy said the cashier waved them through the checkout lane, saying there wasn't time to bag anything.

He assumed the store would take his contact information for payment later. Yet, when he and his wife inquired about paying, he said the cashier just motioned them towards the door wishing them safe travels home.

"(I saw) all these people going out with carts, no bags ... and it kind of hit us. Wow! They're letting everybody leave without asking who they are, how much money do you have, nothing," Hennessy said.

Hennessy turned to his wife and saw her eyes tearing up.

"What a gesture in a moment with all these people. It's been a tough year for a lot of people with the COVID stuff. And then you got this storm where people's power's out. It was just a nice gesture for a company," he said.

That's when Deb Hennessy took a photo of customers with full carts waiting to exit the store.

Touched by the unexpected act of generosity they experienced, many customers decided to pay it forward as they left the store. Out in the parking lot, customers helped each other maneuver stuck carts and load unbagged groceries into strangers' cars.

"This older woman looked like she was in a (panic) and she couldn't get her car moving with the ice," Hennessy said. "She looked a little bit distraught, so I knocked on her window and three or four of us guys actually pushed her and got her moving."

Another gentleman had diapers falling out of his cart and his car was across the parking lot; Hennessy was able to help him get to his car.

On the ride home, the couple reflected on their experience.

"We just talked about, 'Wow, what did we just witness?' We both said, 'Isn't this funny how we almost regretted going there initially' ... (and) 'Oh this is gonna take an hour or longer to check out. Do we (need) the stuff we got, did we really have to get it today?'"

That night, Hennessy shared his experience on Facebook, hoping to spread some encouragement to his online circle of friends. He posted the photo Deb took along with his account of the shopping trip.

When he woke up the next morning, Hennessy was shocked to see his post had gone viral.

"I literally wrote my feelings that night for a couple hundred of my friends who may comment on it and say, 'Hey man, neat story,'" he told CNN.

Hennessy titled his post "The Heart of America," he said, because he and his wife felt it captured the humanity they experienced from a large grocery chain that had no obligation to give away products, even in a statewide emergency.

Related video from February: Lines wrap around Texas grocery stores as high demand during deadly storm persists

To show their gratitude for what he describes as a miracle, Hennessy says he called the H-E-B corporate number and asked for charities the company might like him to donate to. He and his wife donated what they would have spent on groceries to a local food pantry and a faith-based retreat center, he said.

"We wrote a check for both of them right away."

Replying to an email from CNN, H-E-B declined to comment on Hennessy's account of what happened at its Leander store. However, H-E-B's official Twitter account did confirm a version of his story.

H-E-B detailed for CNN their efforts to support Texas communities recovering from the winter storm — including a $1 million donation to Feeding Texas and a campaign in which H-E-B customers can donate online or in stores to support Texas food banks.

Days after his initial post went viral, Hennessy wrote on Facebook that he hopes the spirit of generosity continues to spread.

"We will rightfully fade from the scene as quickly as we came in with this story," Hennessy wrote, "but hopefully with this genuine act of kindness by H-E-B and thousands just like this across this country that happens each and every single day, America is reminded why God put us all here."

Positive news matters.

A year ago, I wrote about our new series called Acts of Kindness, which shares positive news with our community.

Today, our newsroom is more committed to sharing positive news than ever.

That’s partly why this New York Times article caught my attention this week. The article looks at “bad news bias” -- an over-indexing of negative stories in news coverage.

The numbers themselves are bad news, in my view.

A Dartmouth College professor studied negative news and found that about 87% of national news coverage last year was negative. I know we were in a global pandemic, but to me that is unacceptable and not at all accurate of our world.

Local and regional news in the U.S. was less negative.

Also, this sentence in the article stood out: “If we’re constantly telling a negative story, we are not giving our audience the most accurate portrait of reality.”

For several years, I have been saying something similar to our journalists and people in our community: “No neighborhood or area is all good or all bad. And if all we tell is the negative we are not accurately reflecting our world.”

We want our journalism to give you an accurate representation of our community, and we also know everyone needs a smile in this dark world we live in.

So you can find Acts of Kindness in our newscasts and on our website every day. Kristyn Hartman’s Positively Cincinnati series continues every Wednesday. And we challenge our reporters every day to find stories about good things happening in our community.

We are beginning to use an internal computer program to track positive news in our newscasts and on our website. Measuring attributes like this is a way for us to make sure we are delivering you the right mix of news -- one that tells a true story of our community without “bad news bias.”

We can control only our own coverage. Unfortunately many other media organizations still over-index on negative news.

But we will do our best to be different and give you the best news coverage we can.

If you have good news stories, please send them to newsdesk@wcpo.com.

And as always, please feel free to contact me and tell me how we’re doing.

Mike Canan is the Senior Director of Local Media Content at WCPO 9. Contact him at mike.canan@wcpo.com. Follow him on Twitter or Instagram at @Mike_Canan.

We are living in historic, strange and, let’s face it, depressing times.

The coronavirus has impacted every person in our community in some way. Local businesses are shut down. Many of us are working or living in isolation. Opening Day, our region’s unofficial holiday, didn’t happen Thursday.

I don’t know about you, but I need to see something positive mixed in with stories about the virus’s spread, people dying and so many others out of work.

That’s why last week we launched Acts of Kindness.

When I am out speaking in the community, I tell people every corner of our community is neither all bad or all good. Our job as journalists is to paint that picture accurately.

That remains true when it comes to the impact of COVID-19. There’s a lot of darkness out there. But there are also everyday people doing heroic things to help their neighbors.

We have a responsibility to tell you those stories -- in addition to the stories about the virus’s impact.

This initiative builds on Kristyn Hartman’s weekly feature, Positively Cincinnati.

Kristyn has been one of our chief storytellers on Acts of Kindness.

She told us about La Soupe’s efforts to bring more meals to people in need. And then how a local restaurant donated its kitchen to help even more.

She told us about a 5-year-old leaving inspirational sidewalk chalk messages.

Raven Richard told the story of a teen who started a program to take deliveries to people who would be at-risk if they were to contract the virus. She also followed up on a story by Josh Bazan about the need for University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music students to borrow keyboards. Raven’s story detailed how the students received an outpouring of keyboard donations.

Ally Kraemer reported on a Brown County woman collecting pet food to help people be able to keep their pets.

Jake Ryle reported on restaurants raising money and helping medical personnel and employees who have lost their jobs.

We have all of these stories -- and more-- collected here on our Acts of Kindness page.

So if you feel like the news is all bad these days or you just need a pick-me-up, go to this page and hopefully you will find something to smile about.

We all need a few more smiles right now.

Mike Canan is the Senior Director of Local Media Content at WCPO 9. Contact him at mike.canan@wcpo.com. Follow him on Twitter or Instagram at @Mike_Canan.