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Sometimes the news cycle can be pretty negative and depressing. But there are stories that come along to warm our hearts, reaffirm our faith in humanity and make us smile.
Here are just 10 of the good news stories from around B.C. that happened in 2024.It was a reunion decades in the making and a kickoff to the new year the Quill family will never forget.Sisters Nita and Brandy Quill met for the first time at a SkyTrain station in Vancouver last week, more than 30 years after they were separated during a period of colonial violence against Indigenous families known as the ’60s Scoop. The pair found each other on Facebook in the years after their mother’s death.“It’s surreal. Nothing like this has ever happened in our lives before,” Brandy said, embracing her long-lost sister at Burrard Station downtown. “This is to me a miracle. I’m just trying to take it in. It will probably take a long time to process it. It’s a dream come true.”A Vancouver-based visual effects company celebrated a big award win at the beginning of the year for its part in one of 2023’s biggest shows, though it’s for work you probably didn’t notice.When most people think of visual effects (VFX), monsters, spacecraft or explosions might be the first thing to come to mind. Not so for Distillery FX, who shared an ‘Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Season Or a Movie’ Emmy award for their efforts to seamlessly create the post-apocalyptic world in two episodes of HBO’s The Last of Us.About 50 people at Distillery spent close to a year working on the critically acclaimed Episode 3, Long Long Time, and Episode 7, Left Behind.Filming for The Last of Us, season two, moved to Vancouver from Alberta in 2024.Also in January, a Vancouver Island woman’s actions proved the old saying “a good deed is its own reward.”Talia Ball was heading home from Thrifty Foods in Courtenay when she stumbled on an envelope stuffed with cash frozen in the snow. “I just saw like a $100 bill in the snow, so I thought like maybe somebody just dropped one — and it was like a big stack of cash,” she told Global News.“It had the word ‘kids’ written on it, so that’s when I knew it was someone’s family money.”Using the power of social media, Ball was able to find the rightful owner, who was overcome with gratitude.In February, a B.C. teacher received some love from his students for his birthday and the moment went viral on TikTok.
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Joshua Filiatrault, called Mr. Fili by his students, teaches physical education and English at Johnston Heights Secondary School in Surrey, B.C.What started as an alarming sight –two students pretending to be fighting each other — quickly shifted into a birthday surprise for Filiatrault as he was showered with confetti and the seniors serenaded him with “Happy Birthday”. Filiatrault went viral on TikTok in a video posted by PRLS (@prlsgrad2024) and it has more than 10 million views.In early March, passengers on board a flight from Vancouver to London England were unhurt or rattled when their plane was struck by lightning.Video shared with Global News captured the moment an Air Canada plane was struck by lightning.The large blue flash can be seen at the back of the plane during the moment of contact.Air Canada confirmed to Global News that the Boeing 777 aircraft flew to its destination and landed safely.In April, we met six-year-old Aanakh Bhullar who got to live out a dream come true. He loves to dance just like his idol Diljit Dosanjh.The Punjabi superstar played BC Place in April and Aanakh was ecstatic when he learned his dad had bought tickets.When the Bhullar family scored floor tickets, Aanakh inched closer to his dream of dancing onstage, but his parents were skeptical.“We wanted to prepare him for that not happening,” his mom Seema said. “Just didn’t want to get his hopes up.”But then suddenly it happened.In May, a B.C. couple visiting Egypt told their story about how they jumped into action to help two young men in an auto-rickshaw.Bassem Ghabrous and his wife moved to Canada seven years ago so she could complete her PhD at the University of British Columbia.
However, they recently returned to Egypt to visit family and Ghabrous’ mom.Just this past weekend the couple was in Cairo and driving home around 11 p.m. when they turned a corner and saw a rickshaw going up the ramp.That’s when Ghabrous said he noticed a fire at the back of the vehicle.“It was on fire, and they couldn’t, they’re just going fast and probably it just started,” Ghabrous said.Ghabrous sprung into action, running towards the small vehicle with a fire extinguisher from his trunk.In June a B.C. woman in her 70s met her two siblings for the first time, solving a multi-decade mystery.Lorraine Williams discovered she had an older sister and brother when she did a genealogy test on MyHeritage.com. More than 70 years after they were born, the trio only discovered each other existed last year.Williams, from Chilliwack, and Josephine Morey from the United Kingdom both submitted their DNA to MyHeritage and got a match.“My tummy flipped over,” Williams said. “And I was just so, so excited. I can’t put it into words. Just awesome.”In August, a tragic story out of Fort St. John, B.C., involving a pregnant neglected mare becomes a tale of resilience.Spirit was brought into the BC SPCA after she was found on the side of a logging road. The pregnant mare had lesions all over her body and was covered in hives and welts.The BC SPCA searched for and found Spirit’s owner who decided to surrender her to the BC SPCA. Several weeks after being taken in, Spirit gave birth to a healthy foal on July 28.The filly has been named Journey in honour of the difficult path Spirit navigated while carrying her.Two B.C. athletes captured the pride and hearts of the province when they brought home gold in the Paris Olympics.British Columbia native Ethan Katzberg won the men’s hammer throw title at the Stade de France.His first throw of 84.12 metres held throughout the six-round competition – he won by a distance of 4.15 metres. This gap is the largest margin of victory in the men’s Olympic hammer throw competition since 1920.Katzberg is the first Canadian in Olympic history to win the men’s hammer throw title. The Nanaimo, B.C. native adds the Olympic crown to the world championship he won last summer in Eugene, Ore. Two days later, Richmond, B.C., native Camryn Rogers won gold while also becoming the country’s first-ever medalist in the women’s event.Rogers was seen as a favourite going into the event and threw 76.97 metres, her farthest, on her fourth attempt. No one else surpassed that number, clinching the gold.Rogers is the top-ranked hammer thrower in the world and entered the Games having won silver at the 2022 world championships and gold at last year’s worlds. She is the first and only Canadian woman to medal at worlds in the hammer throw.
