It's been a hard year. My wife Leslie was diagnosed with cancer. I started a new job managing a food pantry just as a SNAP benefits crisis doubled our demand overnight. The world feels like it's pulling apart at the seams—politically, socially, in ways both global and deeply personal. But here's what I keep coming back to: even in the hardest moments, I kept encountering people and institutions doing remarkable things. Not world-changing, headline-grabbing things necessarily, but the steady, patient work of making life a little more bearable, a little more dignified, a little more hopeful. This is my list of twenty reasons from 2025 to believe that the arc still bends toward something better—not because progress is inevitable, but because people keep choosing to bend it. (And if you're feeling inspired, several of these organizations would love your support.)
1. Citizenship Resources at Brooklyn Public Library
Every branch of the Brooklyn Library has a New Americans Corner with free citizenship prep classes in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole—11-week courses meeting multiple times weekly, plus drop-in study groups led by volunteer coaches. In a year when immigrant communities faced relentless political attacks, mass deportation threats, and a federal government actively hostile to their existence, the library firmly remained as a safe haven where becoming American isn't just a dream—it's an achievable goal with real support behind it. My dad has been one of those instructors for over a decade, helping hundreds of people navigate the path to citizenship, turning an impossible bureaucratic maze into something actually doable.
Starting as Food Pantry Manager mid-year meant a steep learning curve, and NTFB could have treated us as just another partner pantry checking boxes. Instead, they coached me through everything—scaling operations, maximizing our ordering efficiency, and thinking strategically about nutrition and variety. They coordinate our retail partnerships, connecting us with donation sources that make sense for our community, including the two kosher Tom Thumbs in Dallas. When hundreds of thousands lost SNAP benefits and the need exploded, NTFB didn't just supply food—they supplied the knowledge and connections making it possible for us to rise to the moment.
3. The Volunteers at the JFS Dallas Food Pantry
As mentioned above, in August I walked into an operation serving 3,000+ neighbors monthly with approximately zero idea what I was doing. These volunteers—who know the rhythms of donation sorting, the quirks of inventory management, which clients need what—could have been frustrated. Instead, they taught me everything. How to organize walk-in rushes. How to get a heavy trash can into the tricky side of the dumpster. The place on our old merchandising fridge to smack when the light doesn't kick on in the morning. The patience they showed while I learned on the fly, the expertise they shared without making me feel incompetent—that's what made it possible for me to actually do this job.
4. The Workers in the Bakery, Dairy, Meat, Deli, and Produce departments of a grand majority of supermarkets across the country
They box up day-old bread properly, set aside produce that's perfectly good but won't sell tomorrow, pack dairy donations so nothing spills in transport. They're already working full shifts, and then they're also making food rescue possible—week after week, without fanfare. They're the reason families shopping our pantry get fresh bread, produce, and milk. Excess food is the single largest category of material in American landfills, totaling over 131 billion pounds of waste per year, or nearly 25% of all municipal waste. Rescuing this food from those dumps and getting it to neighbors in need is hard work requiring thousands of people working together across our city, state, and country. Its the sort of coordination that reminds you why we came together to form communities in the first place.
5. Temple Shalom Justice Garden
Fifty-six raised beds on synagogue grounds in North Dallas, built around four pillars: education, ecology, wellness, and food justice. Every seed planted there has one purpose—feeding neighbors who need it. Nearly 500 pounds of produce donated to the JFS food pantry so far, all grown by people who spend weekends tending soil specifically so someone else can eat. These aren't backyard gardeners sharing surplus; this garden exists only to give food away. Neighbors literally growing food for neighbors, deciding the best use of this land is making sure people have access to fresh vegetables. Planting in spring knowing you'll harvest for someone else in summer—that's tikkun olam made literal.
6. The Legacy Senior Community Knit and Crochet Club
Every Monday, seventeen residents at The Legacy Willow Bend in Plano meet for an hour to knit and crochet. Since founding in 2010, they've created over 50,000 handmade items—hats, scarves, blankets, washcloths—all donated to organizations across North Texas. This year, they brought us more than 600 hand-knit winter hats right at the start of cold season. Six hundred hats. Each one representing hours of work by someone's hands, each pompom carefully attached, each stitch made by seniors who could be doing literally anything else with their time but chose to spend it making sure strangers stay warm. When our clients shop for winter gear, they're getting something made with intention and care by people who will never meet them but wanted them to be warm anyway. That kind of quiet, persistent generosity—meeting every Monday for years, creating beauty for people you'll never see—that's what community actually looks like.
7. The Jewish Community of Dallas
Right after High Holidays brought a massive food drive, the SNAP crisis hit and pantry walk-ins doubled overnight. Those same synagogues, schools, and organizations immediately organized another drive. They didn't say "we already did our part"—they saw the need and showed up again. But what really gets me is watching parents bring kids to drop off donations, explaining what a food pantry does, teaching the Hebrew—tikkun olam, tzedakah—and what it means to feed the hungry. Kids loading cans into carts, seeing bridge boxes assembled, understanding that when neighbors struggle, you help. The community didn't just donate food—they're raising the next generation to understand this is what we do, this is who we are.
8. Random Community Members doing the right thing
The hotel employee who brought travel-sized body wash bottles rather than watch them get thrown away. The guy at Walmart who saw me buying 40 turkeys for Thanksgiving distribution and paid for 20 more. The soup kitchen that helped us handle an 8-foot pallet of black bean burgers erroneously delivered to our pantry. These aren't donors with names on buildings or volunteers with scheduled shifts—just people who saw a moment to help and acted. No committee meetings, no formal partnerships, just "hey, I have this thing you could use" or "let me help." Running a food pantry means constantly improvising, constantly stretching resources, and these random moments of generosity make the impossible math work.
9. Primrose Schools
There is a video that I have watched about 500 times since June. The content is unremarkable—our son stands for an interminable amount of time, takes two wobbly steps (not his first, but still early in his experimentation with ambulation), and collapses. What makes the video incredible is his two teachers, losing their minds with excitement at our late-blooming walker building his skills. That's the energy surrounding him every day—teachers who celebrate every milestone like their own kid. That warmth isn't manufactured; it's people who genuinely love what they do. Then his Primrose organized a food and toy drive for the JFS pantry, and four other Dallas locations joined in. Parents showing up with groceries and toys, using it as a teaching moment with their own kids. Watching the place that cares for Sol also care for the broader community—that's the kind of full-circle support that makes you believe people are fundamentally good.
10. My Friend Rabbi Jason Fenster
In a year when conversations about Israel and Palestine felt impossible—when you're expected to pick a side without nuance or stay silent—my best friend Jason shared this sermon on Kol Nidre, the evening leading in to the Jewish new year. Twenty-seven minutes of him saying everything I feel in my heart but struggle to articulate. Being a Zionist who deeply loves Israel AND believes Palestinians deserve safety, dignity, and prosperity. Acknowledging his family in the settlements AND his commitment to peace and sharing the land. Checking the news every morning terrified it might be one of his cousins killed AND desperate for hostage releases AND heartbroken seeing children starving in Gaza. "Both can be true," he tells his kids. "It doesn't mean it's easy, but we can do hard things." There's something profoundly comforting hearing a religious leader—whose job is guiding people through moral complexity—actually DO that work publicly, refusing to flatten one of the world's most complicated conflicts into easy answers. And that this leader is my best friend, thinking through these same impossible questions, holding the same contradictions, wrestling with the same heartbreak—that makes it even more meaningful. Jason reminded me that brave, honest dialogue isn't just possible—it's essential if we're ever going to find peace.
11. Rochester Imagination Library
My friend Matt Present started this chapter after seeing the childhood literacy crisis up close in his pediatric practice—kids arriving at kindergarten without ever owning a book. Since launching in 2021, they've sent their 100,000th free book to Rochester kids, with over 4,000 children enrolled receiving age-appropriate books in their mailboxes monthly. They secured $49,000 in grants and expanded to East Rochester. Watching my hometown tackle this crisis one book at a time, proving that when doctors, librarians, and communities work together, we can turn the tide on illiteracy—that's hope worth celebrating. Also, wow do I have impressive friends.
12. The Oak Island Sea Turtle Protection Program
We went to Oak Island for my step-mother's birthday and saw these volunteers in action—190 people who've done this for thirty-six years, patrolling beaches before dawn for turtle tracks, then staying out all night during hatching season to protect babies on their ocean journey. What struck me was their generosity with the experience. They gave kids badges for "helping," turning beachgoers into junior conservationists, patiently explaining why it matters. These folks are out in the middle of the night, in early morning humidity, setting up runways with green landscape edging to guide hatchlings past predators and lights. They've logged thousands of volunteer hours, proving community-powered conservation works. Watching them protect every single tiny turtle's path to the sea, one nest at a time, with that dedication and joy—that's what hope looks like.
13. Shauna and the Paxman Cold Capping System
Hair loss is consistently ranked as one of chemotherapy's most feared side effects—not because hair matters more than life, but because losing it makes the disease visible to everyone. It takes away the ability to choose when to share your diagnosis, to control your own narrative, to feel like yourself when everything else feels foreign. Cold capping means sitting with a freezing gel cap for 30 minutes before chemo, throughout the entire 7-8 hour infusion, and 90 minutes after—hours of uncomfortable cold on top of an already grueling day. The first minutes are excruciating, and that's where Shauna stepped in. She gave my wife Leslie foot rubs to distract from the painful cold, launched into fun conversations to keep her mind off the freezing cap tightening around her skull. She fit the cap perfectly, taught us the routine, checked in constantly, troubleshot problems. And it worked. Leslie kept most of her hair. She could go to the grocery store without strangers knowing. She could look in the mirror and recognize herself. Cold capping gave her back a piece of her humanity during the most dehumanizing experience of her life, and Shauna—with her foot rubs and warmth—made sure that technology delivered on its promise.
14. The Doctors, Nurses, and Care Navigators at the Medical City Dallas location of Texas Oncology
They guided Leslie through one of life's hardest challenges with skill, compassion, and care that treats the whole person, not just the diagnosis. What I'll never forget is the care coordinator who fielded hundreds of texts from me—explaining medical terms I didn't understand, helping coordinate the dozens of specialists Leslie needed, answering panicked questions about rogue symptoms at 11pm on a Tuesday. And the chemo ward nurses who spent those 7-8 hour infusion days making sure Leslie was comfortable, checking in constantly, treating her with such warmth that a room designed for poison somehow felt like a place of healing. They celebrated her victories, supported her through tough days, cracked jokes when she needed to laugh, and helped her get to the other side—strong enough to run a 5K fundraiser and raise thousands for research. They didn't just treat cancer; they carried our whole family through it.
15. mRNA Cancer Research
Twenty-five years ago, HER2-positive breast cancer was essentially a death sentence—the most aggressive subtype with the worst outcomes. Then came Herceptin and other targeted therapies that changed everything, transforming HER2+ from despair into something survivable. That science saved Leslie. Now, the world's first personalized mRNA cancer vaccine entered trials, using the same technology that got us through COVID to specifically target HER2+ tumors and train the immune system to hunt cancer cells. It's the same continuum of scientific progress—researchers asking hard questions, running careful trials, building on what came before. The breakthrough that saved Leslie's life isn't separate from the breakthrough that might prevent someone else's recurrence a decade from now. It's one long arc of human beings believing in science, trusting the process, refusing to accept that "incurable" has to stay that way. When people ask why I believe in funding research, I think about Leslie running that 5K fundraiser—alive because scientists kept working, kept trying, kept believing the next breakthrough was possible.
16. Susan G Komen
Here's what Susan G Komen figured out that's quietly brilliant: they turned all the grief, fear, and rage of a cancer diagnosis into a machine for funding the exact research that leads to breakthroughs like #15. When Leslie was diagnosed, we didn't have to wonder "how do we help?" There was already infrastructure waiting—5Ks to run, fundraising pages to share, communities of survivors to join. They built a remarkably clean system that takes the most overwhelming moment of your life and gives you something concrete to do with all those feelings. Leslie raised over $4,000, money going directly into the pipeline that produced Herceptin twenty-five years ago and is producing mRNA cancer vaccines today. It's emotional fuel powering scientific progress—thousands running races, sharing stories, making donations, all adding up to labs staying funded and researchers continuing work. I'm grateful someone figured out how to turn "I'm terrified and I want to do something" into "here's exactly how your effort becomes a cure."
17. The Lego Corporation
Look, I just really love Lego. On chemo days when watching TV made Leslie dizzy, we'd sit together and build—focusing on instructions, sorting pieces, clicking bricks together, making something while everything else felt like it was falling apart. Those hours mattered. Decorating Sol's room with a Lego train set this year, building it piece by piece while he watched with fascination, has brought me the kind of simple joy I didn't know I needed. Sometimes the things that get us through hard moments aren't profound—they're just well-designed toys that let you create something with your hands, give you something to focus on besides fear, turn a toddler's bedroom into a place of wonder. Lego made the list because building plastic bricks with Leslie during treatment and with my son in his room are some of my favorite moments of this year.
18. The Dallas-Fort Worth Parks and Recreation System
On the weekends after chemo visits when Leslie needed to sleep and Sol needed to be a loud, exuberant toddler—which is to say, most weekends—we became explorers of the DFW parks system. We hit at least twenty different playgrounds and splash pads this year, each one a small mercy that let Leslie rest while Sol climbed, splashed, and wore himself out in the Texas sun.
Some became favorites we returned to again and again: Windhaven Meadows Park with its massive splash pad that saved us through brutal July afternoons, Campbell Green where we'd go when we needed something close and reliable, and Cottonwood's dad-powered merry go-round that exhausted me but caused endless giggles from us both.
These parks didn't cure anything or change our circumstances. But they gave us somewhere to go when we needed to keep moving, somewhere free and open where a one-year-old could be as loud as he wanted and his exhausted father could sit on a bench and just breathe. Public parks are easy to take for granted until you desperately need them. This year, we desperately needed them
19. Heather Hall
When I reached out looking for a last-minute family photographer before Leslie started chemo and cut her hair, Heather—a cancer survivor herself—offered to do our session completely free of charge. She understood, in a way most people couldn't, why those photos mattered so much. Why we needed to capture our family exactly as we were in that moment, before treatment changed everything. She gave us images we'll treasure forever—Sol at one, Leslie with her hair, all of us together before the hardest months began. That kind of generosity, that immediate understanding of what we needed and why, came from someone who'd been there herself. She didn't just take our pictures. She gave us a gift we didn't even know how badly we needed.
Credit: Heather Hall Photography
20. My Son
Okay yes, this is a shameless nepo pick, but Sol turned the cuteness quotient up to eleven while learning to walk, count, and generally be the most delightful tiny human. He hasn't solved world hunger or cured disease, but he's reminded two exhausted parents that joy is renewable, wonder is contagious, and the future is worth fighting for because he's going to live in it.
