Every day the Good Good Good team collects the best good news in the world and shares it with our community. Here are the highlights for this week!
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The Best Positive News We’re Celebrating This Week —
Humanitarian groups delivered 84 metric tons of aid to Nepal in the wake of deadly flash floods
Since August 26, tens of thousands of people in Nepal have been reeling from deadly flash floods triggered by a glacier collapse.
Along with local on-the-ground fundraisers, locals have been supported by a number of international aid organizations, including UNICEF and European Union Humanitarian Aid, which just coordinated a flight carrying 84 metric tons of critical humanitarian supplies that landed in Kathmandu on the morning of September 4.
The aid on board included acute watery diarrhea kits and diagnostic equipment; water tanks, hygiene kits, and water treatment supplies; tents; winter clothing kits for infants and children; and learning materials.
Why is this good news? As a UNICEF representative said, “Thousands of children have seen their lives turned upside down in a matter of minutes. Many have lost their homes, their classrooms, and their sense of normalcy. This shipment will help us deliver urgently needed support and reach children and families with services that protect their health, wellbeing, and future.”
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Climate change is messing with sports. Here are 10 ways athletes and fans can take action
In 2026, Africa will install a record 17 gigawatts of solar capacity, up 45% over last year
Exports of solar panels from China to Africa surged from June 2025 to June 2026, and estimates project a total 17 gigawatts of solar will be installed in total in 2026 — around 100,000 panels every day. It represents a 45% increase year-on-year.
Notably, the installs are happening across the continent, with 36 out of 54 African countries expected to install a record amount of solar this year and 19 countries have seen a 100% year-on-year increase.
The installations in 2026 alone will also generate terawatt hours annually, making up 2.3% of the continent’s total electricity generation exceeding its historic 2.2% average annual demand growth.
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After tourists put them at risk, over 3,000 sea turtle hatchlings are now swimming free thanks to local volunteers
On August 30, Tortugas Fundación Yepez A.C., a Mexican nonprofit dedicated to sea turtle conservation, released between 3,200 and 3,500 sea turtles into the Gulf of Mexico.
The release was a “culmination of sleepless nights, hard work, patrols, [and] all-nighters” by volunteers who helped protect and rescue the hatchlings from tourists, who were putting nesting sea turtles and their eggs at risk by approaching, touching, and even climbing turtles.
The nonprofit ramped up its patrols after a pregnant green sea turtle had been found dead on a beach, setting up protected sites and moving nests from high-risk areas to small enclosures where they could hatch in peace.
Why is this good news? Six of the world’s seven sea turtle species are endangered, making conservation efforts a team effort involving government officials, marine rehabilitation centers, volunteers, and everyday beachgoers — sometimes going beyond education to lifesaving interventions like this.
An Olivia Rodrigo-backed nonprofit gives sexual assault survivors $1.5K with no strings attached. Here's how it helps
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Inspired by Dolly Parton, a British couple who won the lottery gave half of their winnings to charity
When Frances Connolly won England’s National Lottery in 2019, her first instinct was to use the £115 million jackpot — roughly $155 million — to take care of her family.
But after that, she and her husband created a charity trust to give the rest away to charity, inspired by the late Dolly Parton’s philanthropy. The PFC Trust has since shared roughly half of the lottery winnings with a wide range of nonprofit organizations in the United Kingdom.
The group distributes grants to support scholarship funds, emergency food deliveries, projects aimed at combatting loneliness, adding more defibrillators to local sports clubs, and much more.
The world’s first high-rise held up only by a stone exoskeleton is now complete in London
Eliminating carbon-intensive concrete and steel beams, an architecture studio and engineer just completed construction on the world’s first high-rise building held up by a thousand tonnes of volcanic rock.
It’s the latest step in the studio’s ongoing efforts to make stone a viable, low-carbon alternative to steel and concrete.
It claims that load-bearing stone is the second-most sustainable building material, after carbon-sequestering timber and can cut a building structure’s carbon footprint by as much as 95% if sourced domestically.
Why is this good news? Together, concrete and steel make up 16% of humanity’s carbon emissions. In an effort to decarbonize all aspects of human life on earth, this is a major area where innovation is needed to continue reducing construction-related emissions and prevent continued global heating.
Zoo welcomes ‘pups’ with shocking lineage: ‘It’s incredible to think these little animals are so closely related to elephants’
In nine African countries, average incomes have more than doubled since 1990
For the world’s poorest people, most of whom live on the African continent, a country’s economic growth has an outsized impact.
While some African countries have seen their economies decline, nine are achieving economic growth, with people’s average incomes more than doubling since 1990.
This growth has dramatically improved living standards, with the share of people living in extreme poverty and child mortality rates declining in all nine countries.
Volunteers are planting 3,000 new trees across the country to honor each life lost on 9/11
Since 2002, the nonprofit 9/11 Day has led an annual effort to honor the lives lost in the September 11, 2001 attacks through acts of public service, with tens of millions of Americans joining in every year.
A new initiative this year, a collaboration with One Tree Planted, is called Together We Grow, a year-long campaign to plant 3,000 new trees nationwide in honor of the 2,977 victims of 9/11.
On September 9, the initiative kicked off with the planting of a 15-foot willow oak tree in New York City’s Battery Park at the Labyrinth of Contemplation, a space created to honor the victims of the attacks.
Why is this good news? The president of One Tree Planted said it best: “A tree is a simple but powerful symbol of that remembrance. It gives us a chance to honor the past while doing something good for the future. Together We Grow is about coming together, caring for a place we share, and creating something living that can continue to grow for generations.”
When 9/11 happened 25 years ago, half of Americans responded by giving to charity. What does that say about us?
Every year, a neighboring church and mosque join forces for a blood drive in remembrance of 9/11
Since 2010, two neighboring faith centers in Memphis, Tennessee — Heartsong Church and Memphis Islamic Center — have built an interfaith friendship and worked together on countless endeavors.
Together, they’ve co-sponsored coat drives, food drives, and more. And every year, close to the anniversary of September 11, the two houses of worship hold a blood drive, with each alternating as hosts.
In 2026, the blood drive will be held on Sunday, September 13. Since the first blood drive in 2011, more than 600 pints of blood have been donated.
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More good news of the week —
A teen invented an award-winning device that can catch elephant poachers in real time. The device uses a $250 low-resolution thermal camera that can plug into an iPhone and, once attached to a drone, give real-time insights with 90% accuracy.
The United Nations voted to adopt a new world map that shows Africa’s true scale. Only the United States voted “no” on the Togo-sponsored resolution, which called to phase out the traditional map that depicts the African continent as similar in size to Greenland.
A federal court upheld a ruling requiring shrimpers to use “turtle-safe” nets that prevent sea turtles from drowning. A turtle exclusionary device, or TED, is a specially designed fishing net built on a slanted metal grid with an opening that allows large animals like sea turtles to escape as it catches smaller targets like shrimp.
New York City announced its first Remembrance Ruck honoring veterans and members of the military. Participants will carry the names of a fallen service member from the post-9/11 period in a weighted ruck pack on a 2.5-mile trek.
A Duke University program is training rural faith leaders to educate residents and provide relief during heat waves. The “Cooling Communities Network” offers trainings, resources, and peer support, as well as helping faith leaders identify opportunities to take action beyond education, like opening as a cooling center.
New Jersey legalized plug-in balcony solar, letting renters cut power bills without rooftop panels, permits, or utility approval. Qualifying systems won’t need an interconnection agreement or advance approval, and the utility can’t charge an extra fee, require additional controls, or demand equipment beyond what’s already built into the system.
To address recycling challenges, Denmark turned a retired wind turbine blade into a bike shelter. The result highlights both the strength of the material and its potential value in ordinary public infrastructure.
Researchers are giving warblers tiny backpacks to learn more about bird migration. The devices are light enough to be carried by the small migratory songbirds, which often weigh less than a spoonful of sugar.
For the first time in the country’s history, an Australian woman was buried in a coffin made from mushrooms. The casket, grown from mycelium and hemp fibres, takes just 45 days to break down and enriches the soil in the process.
A new restoration project in England is aiming to take the greed out of land acquisition. The vast glacial bowl of 7,500-acre Emblehope Moor has been purchased by a nature restoration company to bring golden eagles, curlews, black grouse, and beavers back to the moor.
More than 600,000 people signed a petition opposing the construction of a data center next to the Nashville Zoo. City officials have since introduced restrictions on large data centers and authorized steps that could allow it to acquire the property where the data center is planned.
In honor of those lost on 9/11, volunteers are performing one million acts of kindness or service by Friday. The initiative, called UNIITE for Good, is spearheaded by the nonprofit 9/11 Day, which was started in 2002 by families who lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks.
Under a new law, people in Texas now have the right to repair their electronics. The Texas Right to Repair Act passed unanimously and took effect on September 1, making Texas the ninth U.S. state to guarantee the right to repair their devices.
A rescued California condor chick is getting specialized care at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. He is being raised through a specialized puppet-rearing program designed to prepare young condors, which are critically endangered, for life in the wild.
Researchers found a way to slash emissions from cement, one of the most carbon-intensive industries in the world. Cement is the most consumed manufactured material on the planet, and its production releases more than a billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, accounting for about 8% of global emissions.
An “unparalleled” study found that psilocybin can protect against nerve damage from chemotherapy. Peripheral neuropathy, a painful side effect of chemo, can cause tingling and numbness in the hands and feet and has so far been unpreventable.
As young people connect with their cultural roots and relatives, African languages are seeing a revival. Africa is home to over 1 billion people speaking roughly a third of the world’s languages, with between 1,500 and 3,000 across 54 countries.
A memorial honoring 184 of the people killed on 9/11 has now been officially designated by the National Park Service. The 9/11 Pentagon Memorial has now been formally recognized as an NPS affiliated area for its national significance.
Travel icon Rick Steves bought a historic movie theater to save it from closing for good. Steves said that while he might not make his money back, “I'm going to get the intangible joy of knowing I’m making our community a little more — the fabric of our community is going to be a little stronger.”
A trail camera in Idaho’s backcountry captured footage of bears, elk, and mountain lion cubs using the same spring. The footage reveals the region’s rich biodiversity and offers further proof of the role of trail cameras in conservation efforts.
Almost 200 years after they were hunted to extinction, bison are now preventing wildfires and regenerating northern Mexico. In a major conservation effort, 47 American bison were introduced in the Cuatrociénegas region in 2025 and are already rejuvenating the local ecosystem.
In response to a Trump administration effort, New Mexico banned uranium mining on 13 million acres of state land. The state land commissioner said that the long-lasting environmental and public health impacts of uranium contamination outweigh any potential revenues to state coffers uranium mining could provide.
Dollywood and a bald eagle sanctuary have protected the birds for 35 years. Bald eagles from Dollywood’s Eagle Mountain Sanctuary will have a new permanent home at the American Eagle Foundation’s conservation campus in Kodak, Tenn.
