It has been a year of heartwarming and feel-good stories around B.C. and we wanted to highlight some from 2015.
January – Sicamous residents feed truck drivers after Highway 1 closes for 2 days:
In January, hundreds of truck drivers were stranded for days near Sicamous when the Trans Canada was shut down for avalanche control.
More than 55 centimetres of snow fell in the area in only 48 hours.
Truck drivers were losing money and people had nothing else to do but wait until the road was reopened.
But it warmed the hearts of those truck drivers when Sicamous residents, many of whom had no power themselves, came out to offer the truck drivers food while they were waiting.
People made steak dinners for the stranded motorists and the Husky gas station gave out free food.
The truck drivers were very grateful for the kindness of those strangers who came to their aid.
WATCH: Revelstoke becomes ‘Revelstuck’ thanks to snow fall:
March – Willow, the Siberian husky found in Maple Ridge, gets a new home:
Remember Willow?
She was found wandering and starving in Maple Ridge in February.
When she was rescued she weighed only 15 kilograms and should have weighed around 24 kilograms.
When she first came to the BC SPCA, staff think she had been eating gravel to try and stay alive.
In March, Willow went to her forever home and is doing much better. Willow’s former owner has been identified as a Coquitlam resident and university student in his 20s. Charges of animal cruelty have been recommended.
WATCH: Willow, the emaciated husky, goes home with her new family:
July 23 – Beached orca kept alive for 8 hours in rescue near Hartley Bay
A dedicated team of people worked tirelessly for about eight hours to keep a beached orca alive in July.
The orca was spotted in the northern Squally Channel near the village of Hartley Bay.
The female had breached herself trying to hunt seals on the rock and became stuck during the tide.
A group known as the Guardians from Hartley Bay, along with the group Whale Point and members of the World Wildlife Federation and the Gitga’at Nation were quickly on the scene.
They used blankets and poured salt water over the whale until the tide started to rise. It then took about 45 minutes for the whale to maneuver herself into the water.
When she was finally able to swim away, there were a lot of cheers and yelling from the group that stayed all day to help.
WATCH: How a young orca became beached on the north coast, and what was done to save the whale:
July 26 – Strangers gas up a group’s truck in Chilliwack, tell them to pay it forward:
A day out hiking turned into a pay-it-forward lesson for a group of friends in Chilliwack in July.
The group was going hiking and realized when they got to the parking lot that they didn’t have enough fuel to get home.
So they decided to leave a note under the windshield wiper, along with $30, in the hopes someone would leave them some gas.
When they returned to their truck, they got the best surprise of the day.
Not only had someone gassed up their truck, but they had left the $30 behind and a note saying ‘pay it forward.’
WATCH: A group of B.C. hikers had a lesson in paying it forward.
July 27 – North Vancouver dog wows locals and the Internet for his scooter-riding talent:
Move over, water-skiing squirrels and skateboarding bulldogs, there’s a new top dog in town.
Lilly is an American Eskimo dog that attracts crowds wherever she goes by riding her motorized tricycle.
WATCH: North Vancouver scooter dog wows crowds:
September – AC/DC superfans get to experience a concert closer to home:
Matthew Nagra had the rare chance to rock out to AC/DC since he was in the womb.
Nagra is one of the band’s superfans.
Then again, so is his father.
Nagra has been to over fifteen shows and the father have son flown to England and California just for a chance to get in AC/DC music videos.
But in September, the duo got the chance to see their favourite band in their hometown of Vancouver.
WATCH: Ted Field spoke to the father and son in September:
November – Global News story helps police recover bike stolen from Vancouver man battling cancer:
Personal trainer Adrian Berry is fighting for his life. The 53-year-old is battling Stage 4 cancer and part of his therapy includes riding his bicycle, but in November it was stolen.
Berry was hopeful the $3,500 bike would turn up. Thankfully, two day later, a Good Samaritan saw someone with the bike – and a police officer was nearby.
“A citizen was on the side of the road, and he started jumping up and down, waving me over,” said Cst. Jason Doucette.
Doucette returned the bike to an ecstatic Berry that morning.
WATCH: Stolen bike returned to Vancouver man battling cancer:
November – Act of kindness from B.C. man almost 50 years ago still shared worldwide:
What started as an act of kindness between a B.C. man and a hitchhiker in the Bahamas almost 50 years ago has now been shared around the world.
Cedric Steele, who now lives on Vancouver Island, was working as a realtor in Vancouver in 1968 and decided to vacation that year in the Bahamas.
When he was driving he picked up a young man hitchhiking on the side of the road and he gave him $50. He told him to help someone else out one day.
The young man, Iain Reddish, has been doing that ever since and it appears the story made its way around the world.
A Croatian who Iain helped in Amsterdam told him he had heard the story before from his cousin in Namibia.
The two hope to finally meet up again in Europe next year and Steele said he’s going to give Reddish a €50 note so he can keep passing on the acts of kindness.
WATCH: A Vancouver Island man says he’s truly astounded to discover how far his random act of kindness has spread.
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