Care Rumer Portfolio

Community Connection: Something Good Happened

One of the best communities I am a part of is the Something Good Happened Podcast. After a complaint from Mrs. Rohrbach about the news, I decided that while we couldn't make a TV news station as she suggested, we could make a YouTube channel. So I started Positive News Club (aka Happy Club) and we made 2 videos about positive news stories spring semester of sophomore year.  This was a failure, it was embarrassing and I hate the way I appeared in the videos.  But I had the idea to switch mediums and Something Good Happened the podcast was born. Something Good Happened is a positive news podcast where we break through the negative news cycle with stories of positive news and kindness. We share stories from the news and interview people doing good work.

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Something Good Happened is deeply rooted as  Middle College club, but our connections quickly expanded to people all over the world through our interviews and interactions with other people about the podcast. In fact, before our interview with Garvin Thomas from NBC Bay Area, 7% of our listens came from Germany, and we also have listeners in Sweeden, Mexico, South Korea, the UK, Canada, India, Taiwan, Nigeria, and Ghana. We recently did an interview with Karina Sillmann who lives in Germany.

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There is something incredibly touching to know that my voice is being heard across the world and it is something that brings people joy. Before the podcast, I was a generally optimistic person, but was the fuel for my activist fire was righteous indignation. Now, however, there is an underlying hopefulness and human connection in everything I do. I pay attention to the good things that happen around me and endeavour to make more of them. It is a positive feedback loop in all senses of the word. I know that we are reaching people and there is nothing better than knowing I helped make someone's day a little bit brighter and that we are giving a platform for the people doing amazing things to share their stories.