No presents for this kid - just donations

Brett Singer — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:00:00 GMT

More nice news – an 11-year-old in Greensboro, North Carolina told her friends not to bring presents to her birthday party. Instead, she asked them to bring canned goods that she will donate to a local food pantry.

This isn't the first time Audrey Mangum decided to forgo gifts in favor of more charitable pursuits. This has been going on for four years. Previous birthdays included items such as teddy bears and toys to be donated to less fortunate families.

Some kids, of course, brought presents, and Audrey was happy about that, proving that she's nice, but not nuts. "That is pretty cool," said Mangum. "They didn't even have to do that."

Cool kid! I have a friend whose daughter did something similar one year, and everyone was pretty charmed by the gesture. Frankly, I think it would be nice if more kids did this sort of thing, but I think the idea needs to come from the child. That is, if you say, "Hey, Toy Boy. How about this year you don't get presents and your friends just bring cans for the food pantry?" you may not get a great reaction. Then again, maybe not every kid is going to think of this on their own, or they might be embarrassed to bring it up for fear of being teased (not to mention not getting any cool gifts.) Has anyone ever done this with their children?

Image/Source: digtriad.com

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Pit bull attacks one-year-old girl

Brett Singer — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:29:00 GMT

A pit bull in Greensboro, NC attacked a one-year-old girl. How does something like this happen? The dog is a pet, and the child went to touch the pooch's puppies; when she did, the dog bit her.

The dog is now in an animal shelter for at least 10 days, or "longer if they can't determine if the dog has current vaccinations for rabies." I thought you had to keep records of that sort of thing, but maybe not.

The two comments on the site where I found this story are a bit over the top but do make a good point: "The big question is--where were the parents?" To paraphrase, leaving a little girl, especially a one-year-old, alone with a new mama pit bull and her litter is probably not a great idea.

If you look at the "Related Links" for this story on digitrad.com, it seems like there's an awful lot of pit bull attacks going on in North Carolina. One dog was put to sleep two years ago after attacking two kids, and this story where a pit bull killed another family's pet a month ago. In that case, the owner asked the now-really-unfortunate question, "What if this was a child?"

The little girl – a baby, really – is recovering at a local hospital. Hopefully she'll be OK.

For a video report, click here.

image: digitrad.com

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