The Way of Kindness

Speedy Swaps In a quiet neighborhood, a unique kind of library is revving up excitement among local kids. Inspired by traditional little free libraries, this new community hub isn’t for books—it’s for Hot Wheels! Built with care and creativity, the miniature car exchange allows kids to take a Hot Wheels and leave one in return, keeping the fun rolling. The project is driven by the local car club, Valley Rods Unlimited and was a viewer suggested story idea. The Piemaker For a man with deep memories of the depression and the extreme drought of the 1930’s, going without is nothing new. So at 98-years old, a Hastings man uses those memories as motivation to keep his apron on… baking pies and giving them away to anyone in need: family, friends, hospice workers, cancer patients, and other causes. Lincoln Bike Kitchen All it takes is a little elbow grease to get a set of wheels from the Lincoln Bike Kitchen. “The Kitchen” is a place where you can build a bike or get your own bike fixed for free… provided you volunteer as well. In this story, we meet the core team keeping the gears running at this fledgling nonprofit. A Place to be Ourselves Second-grade teacher and mom, Adeline Johnson, has a disabled teen daughter who, like all teens, wanted a place to hang out with friends. When Adeline discovered daycares in her community do not typically take children over the age of 12, the busy mom got a little busier when she decided to create a community nonprofit in her very limited spare time. She created Our Place, an innovative non-profit where teens with disabilities can come after school to further their academic studies and learn social and life skills. It’s the first nonprofit of its kind in Nebraska. A Promise Kept Tragedy struck when an infant girl, White Buffalo Girl, died during the Ponca Tribe’s forced removal from their Nebraska homeland. Grief-stricken, her parents turned to the nearby community of Neligh for help. The townspeople not only supported the mourning family, they honored the parents’ request to lay their daughter to rest in Neligh and to tend her grave with care. That promise has endured across generations, and in a gesture of heartfelt gratitude, members of the Ponca and Omaha Tribes later returned to Neligh to honor the community for its unwavering kindness.