It was right after Thanksgiving that registered nurse Jennifer Smith got an early morning phone call from John Burley, one of her favorite patients. He was distraught about his beloved dog, Boomer.

"I came into work the Monday after Thanksgiving to the phone ringing at 7 a.m.," Smith told CNN. "John was calling from his hospital room saying, 'Boomer is in the pound!' Boomer is in the pound!' Boomer is John's world."

Smith, who has been a nurse for 12 years, said she could tell he was concerned and also scared about what would happen to Boomer.

"He took a breath and asked me, 'Will you take care of Boomer?' And I said, 'Of course, John. I will find Boomer and take care of him for you,'" Smith told CNN.

Smith had met Burley at the Grand Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Rome, New York, through its adult day healthcare program, which is for patients requiring supervision, and which allows them to socialize with others while receiving medical care.

The 60-year-old still had his own apartment where he lived alone with his little mutt. Burley had adopted the 12-year-old dog in Arkansas when he was a puppy and later moved to New York. Most of his family still lives in Arkansas, so when he was hospitalized for pneumonia and lung problems, he had no one to take care of his dog. No one — except Smith.

Smith says that she formed a friendship with Burley in the adult daycare program and he would often talk about Boomer, showing off pictures of his furry companion. "I couldn't separate the two of them. I just couldn't."

Grand Healthcare

Burley didn't know which shelter Boomer was in. Smith immediately looked up nearby animal shelters and when she called the Rome Humane Society, she discovered he'd been taken there.

"I was a little panicked because I didn't know how long he had been in the shelter or if he had already been adopted to another family. It's Christmas time and people get animals," she said. "I told John I have a 13-year-old dog myself who I've had since a puppy, so I fully understand the panic. It made my heart sad for him and Boomer."

She took an early lunch the next day and drove to the shelter where she found 18-pound Boomer in a large cage in the back. Smith said, "OK, where are the adoption papers? I'm going to take him home."

Although he wasn't quite ready to be released from the shelter, Smith immediately called Burley to let him know she'd found Boomer, he was OK and she would be bringing him home soon. A short while later, Boomer was set up at Smith's home and making friends with her dog.

"It was one less worry that John has, and he needs to focus on getting better and taking care of himself and know Boomer is in good hands," Smith said.

Burley is now temporarily living in the rehabilitation wing of the center. It's uncertain where he'll live after he is released. But while he is there, Smith is able to bring Boomer to work with her. She takes him up to Burley's room a couple times a day. "It helps John with the healing process and gives him peace of mind," Smith said.

Grand Healthcare

The other residents love Boomer, too. Smith says that Burley is proud to show off Boomer as he rides on his lap in the wheelchair. They smile and pet him.

"There are just so many worries in the world right now. If I can take one worry away from John, that's the least I can do," she said. "I can't cure diseases. I'm not a miracle worker ... I made a promise to John to take care of Boomer. I will take care of him as long as he needs me to. John knows that. Right now the focus is on John getting better and taking it one day at a time."

Smith's kindness hasn't gone unnoticed. Burley, who struggles a bit with speech, had an important thing to say: "I love Jennifer."

"John seeing Boomer, that's the only Christmas present I need right now," said Smith who, not surprisingly, said she pursued a career in nursing so she could help people.

When several nursing students went to a restaurant on Wednesday in their pajamas after their last day of nursing school, they were there to celebrate, talk about their goals and challenges.

"It's kind of a scary time. The staffing ratio is very dangerous," Melea Cranmer said.

Cranmer was with four other nurses — including Karie McCafferty, Britta Wickles, Heather Waters and Amanda Smith. The women said they had become close over the past 16 months of school.

"This lady sat down next to us shortly after with maybe her 3-year-old," Wickles said. "He was so cute. We couldn't help but turn around and talk to him and wave to him."

When the mother and her son left, the women said their server handed them their check and told them it had been paid for but on the back was a handwritten note.

It read:

"One of my closest friends is a nurse and from what I gathered, you guys are in health care as well. My friend has told me horror stories about how unfair you are being treated by a toxic system. So I wanted to thank you for everything you have sacrificed despite the conditions you are made to work. Happy Holidays and a huge Thank You!"

"The bill was over $100, and for this nice woman just to pay our entire meal, plus a 20% tip for the server, it just made our day," McCafferty said. "And she wrote us this really long note. It just feels nice to be appreciated as a health care worker because we've been facing some struggles, and it's just nice to know the community is there to support us."

The nurses hope that the woman who paid their tab knows how much her generosity means.

"We were very humbled by it and it brought us to tears," Wickles said. "We really just want to thank her for just the holiday spirit that she brought to us after everything going on the world."

An incredible moment caught on camera in Friday night’s game against two New Mexico high school football teams — the Wildcats and the Warriors.

Iziah Martinez is a student with Down syndrome who has been with the Wildcats' program for four years.

In the last play of the game, Martinez scored his first touchdown and both teams rushed over to celebrate Iziah’s victory.

Watch the incredible moment in the video above.

INDIANAPOLIS — Sometimes, there is a vase just calling your name.

Volunteer Jen Schiff grabs a donated vase off a shelf of hundreds inside a Broad Ripple shop.

Schiff is not a professional florist, but she's been volunteering her time over the past few years with an organization called Random Acts of Flowers Indianapolis.

As she picks the perfect stems out of buckets and buckets of blooms, she tells me, "There are so many pretty flowers here, it's pretty easy to make a nice arrangement."

Schiff is one of the 400 volunteers who help get flowers in the hands of patients across Indianapolis. The organization celebrates five years in operation in Indianapolis this month.

Lindsay Potter is the program director who helps take donated flowers from partners like local florists, wholesalers, and grocery stores.

They collect the flowers that still have life in them but are no longer used after events or on shelves. Those flowers are sorted and stored at their Broad Ripple facility. Volunteers come to make the arrangements.

"That's probably the most fun part," says Potter. "The energy of our volunteers."

After the arrangements are complete, volunteers add a note for the recipient, and the flowers are loaded in the truck to be delivered to health care facilities across the community.

The flowers are surprise delivered to people seeking medical care or in nursing home facilities.

"The surprise when you knock on the door and they are expecting one thing, and you have this beautiful surprise for them, and it's a gesture from the entire community to say, ya know, you are not alone in this," says Potter. "Sometimes there are tears, you know, sometimes there's a little bit of confusion at first, but being able to make those human connections is something we don't necessarily get a whole lot of these days."

Potter says the pandemic has been incredibly isolating for people in health care facilities receiving care, and the flowers are just one gesture to show them someone cares.

The organization was founded originally by a gentleman in a hospital who noticed many patients never got visitors or deliveries, so this gentleman started donating flowers himself, and it grew to several cities.

The concept works and meets a need to recycle floral waste helpfully and make people smile.

And when they say floral waste, they mean gorgeous flowers that have days left of blooms.

"All of our volunteers, especially the first couple times they come in, are just shocked by the quality of the flowers," says Potter.

It is a team effort to get this "Random Act of Flowers" delivered to people in our community.

"We have people who do everything for us from picking up flowers from a grocery store, washing vases, doing vase drives, but also people working with the flowers, and we have people who are florists who have been working for their entire lives and we have people who have no experience whatsoever," says Potter.

As volunteer Schiff makes the arrangements, she puts a lot of thought into who may receive them.

"When you these together, you sometimes think about, I wonder whose going to receive this," says Schiff. "And who doesn't like to get flowers."

Random Acts of Flowers has delivered more than 90,000 floral arrangements to people in our community in just five years. And they are still going strong and always looking for more volunteers to sign up for a shift and help.

If you would like to learn more about how to help, visit RAFindy.org.

Lauren Casey at WRTV first reported this story.

The head custodian at a Georgia elementary school can now drive to work instead of having to walk.

And it's all thanks to his co-workers.

Staff at Unity Grove Elementary School in Locust Grove, Georgia, recently came together to help beloved head custodian Chris Jackson, known at the school as "Mr. Chris."

"There has never been a day where he has not come in with a smile on his face. The kids here adore him. They love Mr. Chris. And he just works so hard," Jodi Combs, a special education teacher, said.

In a video the school posted to its Facebook page last month, two staff members identified by the school as Ms. Combs and Ms. MacDonald, walk with Jackson out to the parking lot before handing him a set of car keys.

"It's yours," he's told.

Speechless, Jackson eventually pulls down his mask, smiles and says "Thank you! Thank you all! I thank you all."

WXIA reports the staff knew Jackson had some money to put toward a car, so the staff got together to raise the rest and surprise him.

"We heard that Chris had fallen on some hard times and we pulled together to help with his immediate needs," Combs told the news outlet.

"This is a beautiful feeling," Jackson said.

"Unity Grove is a special place, and we are so grateful for the people who are in our lives," the school wrote in a Facebook post about the video.

Watch Jackson's reaction in the video above.

Oklahoma State University basketball player Dee Mitchell was surprised with a scholarship while he was working his shift at Walmart, and the heartwarming moment was caught on camera.

The walk-on joined the team back in 2019. He's been paying his way through school while working at a Stillwater Walmart. On Sunday, head coach Mike Boynton had a big surprise for him.

“I thought today was a good opportunity to let him know that he's going to be on scholarship,” Boynton said in a video the university posted on social media. "Nobody has exemplified what I want our program to mean more than you have.”

The team surprised Mitchell with a scholarship. He's been working 40 hours a week on top of his class schedule and basketball practice.

"I didn't know what was going on, it's real surprising, breathtaking. I thought I was in a movie or something,” Mitchell said.

OSU posted a video of the surprise on Twitter. Mitchell's scholarship covers the rest of his time at the university.

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NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - Judith Doughty cried tears of joy and disbelief as she was reunited with her dog, Skylar, who went missing three years ago.

Skylar is a 6-year-old Maltese. Doughty said she got him when he was a puppy, but one day he disappeared after going outside to use the bathroom.

She said he was with another dog but didn’t return. Her family searched for him and was devastated when they couldn’t find him.

Three years went by with no sign of Skylar, until last week, when Sherae Battle was driving to the hospital with her kids in Newport News.

“My kids were like, 'Mom, Mom, Mom, hold on. It’s a dog.' I'm like, 'Where?' He was just walking in the street, and I'm like, ‘Oh, my gracious,' so I did a U-turn in the middle of the street,” Battle said.

She said the dog went to a nearby wooded area to drink from a pond. She said she was worried he would fall in, and her kids used Goldfish crackers to lure him to them.

They brought him to the car and kept him for two days until the Peninsula Regional Animal Shelter opened back up.

“I immediately scanned for the microchip, which is standard procedure for us when strays come in,” said Susan Jacobs, an animal services technician at the shelter.

She called the number on the chip, and it was owner Judith Doughty’s daughter, Ginger Vassar, who answered.

“I could hardly speak to her because she was screaming in excitement,” Jacobs said.

Vassar arranged to bring her mom to the shelter, but they didn’t tell Doughty why.

“The lady told me to have a seat,” said Doughty. “They said, 'We've got a surprise for you.'”

Skylar came strolling out, and Doughty was elated to have her precious pooch back in her arms.

“He started licking me; I started crying,” Doughty said. “It was a miracle to me. I still can’t believe I got him back after three years.”

Skylar was found about 15 miles from where he went missing.

"I'm so happy she was able to get her dog back. That's all that matters. I'm so happy," said Sherae Battle, the woman who brought the dog to the shelter.

Jacobs said Skylar was in good condition and appeared to have been taken care of. She said it's rare to see a dog reunited with his owner three years after going missing.

“It doesn't happen that often, but it has happened before. We're always so happy when it does happen -- thank goodness for microchipping. It's just awesome,” Jacobs said.

“Glad we got him to his right owner. I'm so happy that she got her dog back,” Battle said.

“I was sad when he was gone, but I didn’t give up. I prayed and prayed, and the Lord answered my prayers. Anyone else who sees this, I hope they try to look for their dogs,” Doughty said.

Watch the surprise video below:

This story originally reported by Margaret Kavanagh on WTKR.com.

Some good news for those following the story of Ethan the dog.

The little survivor has been through a lot in his short life. He was first abandoned earlier this year in the Kentucky Humane Society's parking lot in Louisville, emaciated and near death.

He's made great strides since then, but last month, his adoptive family shared that he had suffered a setback.

In mid-July, they said he had been having daily seizures. Veterinarians said it was likely caused by his starvation and trauma before he was rescued.

Less than a month later, the family posted that Ethan's seizures seem to be gone for now and he's doing "amazingly well."

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Another post over the weekend said he got to do fun stuff again that he hasn't been able to do in awhile, like going to a brewery and a dog bar.

"Once again thank you to everyone for your fantastic, unbelievable support of Ethan. He is such an amazing creature. I feel very blessed to be in his life!! You all are the best!! Thank you!!" his family wrote on Ethan's Facebook page.

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.

Every day, bus drivers strive to take kids to and from school safely.

One such driver has been doing that in Pittsburgh's North Allegheny School District for 25 years.

On Thursday, his students and their parents wanted to say thank you with a special surprise.

Watch the full story in the video player above.

Tom Herbert has been providing smiles to many families for over 25 years.

He was celebrated on Thursday for serving as a cheerful fan.

"He gives me a fist bump every day. He's the nicest bus driver ever. Even during COVID he found a way to make us smile," one student said.

Students said he is also always there to provide a listening ear.

"I like that if you have a problem, he'll always be there to help you with it," one student said.

And he also serves as a good friend to thousands of students in the district.

"He's so kind and I never want any other bus driver than him," one student said.

Herbert was completely surprised by the celebration to mark his 25 years.

"Overwhelmed and really appreciative. I can't say thank you enough. This is a great neighborhood. This is why I've been doing it for so many years," Herbert said.

Herbert said he loves his job as a bus driver and sending students off to school in the morning and back to their homes in the afternoon with smiles on their faces.

Aside from the students, his other favorite part is the parents.

Several parents who have had children riding on Herbert’s bus throughout the years joined the celebration.

"Everywhere we go, there's always people that say 'Oh Mr. Herbert, you were my bus driver.' So they remember me forever. So it's wonderful," Herbert said.

Herbert said he can't quit his job just yet and he has to come back for another year.

'We knew this day would come': Families share what it's like to reunite thanks to COVID-19 vaccine

Families waited a full year to see loved ones.

Updated: 10:22 AM EDT Apr 29, 2021

It was nearly a year to the day the last time these families saw one another safely. Here, they share what the first moments of being together again felt like.One of the last times Paul Klein and Fred Emigh saw Fred's mother, Mary, was at her 100th birthday party. They reunited recently, after her 101st birthday party, and captured the emotional moment on video. For Barbara and Jim Ortman, they were thrilled to be able to see their granddaughters for the first time in a year. Their daughter, Crystal Masley, is a family physician and knew how important mitigating COVID-19 risks for her parents was. So they made the difficult decision to stop in-person visits. Now, real-life reunions are possible, thanks to the COVID-19 vaccination and new CDC and local guidelines. Watch more on their stories above. We are living in unprecedented times with COVID-19 spreading across the nation and world, and the stories about how people are coping, battling, and persevering through the pandemic have become more important than ever. In each episode, “Field Notes” brings you a handful of stories about how coronavirus has impacted real people across the United States, and you can hear more about what it’s like to cover the pandemic from the local news teams that are committed to keeping you informed, no matter what.

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — A rare speckled lobster named Freckles will soon go on exhibit to the public as a welcome addition to the Virginia Living Museum's Chesapeake Bay Gallery.

Spared from a pot of boiling water, the new star of the museum now sits inside a cozy saltwater tank.

"As a person who loves all lobsters, it was very exciting," said Britt Sorensen, the museum's training and enrichment coordinator.

This lobster is, simply put, lucky.

"Lobsters are typically underrated," Sorenson said. "People usually just walk by and think that it's tasty or looks scary."

But what passersby will soon see on display is Freckles, who is adorned with golden speckles.

"This lobster is incredibly rare. It's a calico sort of orange and yellow, and it only happens in 1 in 30 million, which is ridiculous," she said.

The curiously-colored crustacean recently caught the eye of the cooks at a Red Lobster in Manassas, Virginia.

"They saw him and thought, 'This is not normal; this is new and special,'" Sorensen said.

Special enough to be spared from being served as a meal with the restaurant's famous Cheddar Bay biscuits. Red Lobster called the conservation experts instead.

"It's really great they saw that an opportunity to help this animal out and give him a home and contribute to the education of natural things," Sorensen said.

Sorensen says Freckles's speckles come from a protein deficiency, which also makes him prone to predators.

"This coloration shows more than a green, blue or brown coloration," she said.

There's no word on Freckles's age or how big he will get, but one thing Sorensen can confirm is that he's savvy and smart.

"Lobsters are incredibly intelligent - some scientists think as intelligent as an octopus," she said.

Freckles will now get used to his new home in a quarantine period before showing off his snazzy shell to the outside world.

This story was originally published by staff at WTKR.

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.