War, climate change, the rising cost of almost everything — it's easy to get cynical with all the bad news out there.
As the year comes to a close, we look back on the silver linings, the stories that showed people coming together for love, survival or to pursue their dreams.
Here are seven good news stories from the last year.
British Columbians step up to help a nation in need
As war raged 8,000 kilometres away, British Columbians of all stripes stepped up this year to help Ukrainians coping with the invasion of their country.
There was Coquitlam, B.C., nurse Tamara Moldon, who fled Ukraine as a child and joined many others to help gather and ship medical supplies to the country.
Or Milos Pospisil, who on one trip helped evacuate Ukrainian refugee families fleeing to Poland, and in another, travelled to missile-cratered streets of Kharkiv and Kyiv to deliver life-saving medical supplies.
Another couple from Prince George, told Glacier Media in November about how they personally shuttled 21 bags packed with $200,000 worth of medical supplies— including prescriptions, bandages, sutures, anaesthetics, and antibiotics — to a hospital in Lviv, Ukraine.
“The more people that go the more luggage we can take over,” explained Terresa Stolz in November. “We actually fly it over in giant hockey bags.”
News anchor mails tie to man for wedding
It was April 15, and Aaron Dahl still hadn’t figured out what he was going to wear to his wedding.
He turned on the CBC National news and then he saw it: Vancouver anchor Ian Hanomansing was wearing the perfect tie to march his suit and his wife’s dress.
So he sent Hanomansing a direct message over Twitter.
"I figured probably CBC has something to do with the wardrobe," Dahl said. "I was hoping he could find out where he got it."
Hanomansing had a much more direct solution though.
"He responded right away; he said 'send address, I'll send the tie,'" Dahl explains.
About 10 days later, the tie came with a handwritten note from Hanomansing congratulating the couple.
The wedding went forward, in Cape Breton, without a hitch.
A week after the wedding, Dahl took to Twitter again to share his appreciation.
“Can’t think of a more Canadian move,” he wrote.
Viral empathy on a lonely birthday
When 16 of 19 parents missed David Chen’s birthday party memo, he had to do something for his son Max, who is on the autism spectrum.
One kid showed up to the party at an indoor adventure playground. Gutted, the father tweeted out what had happened.
An outpouring of support followed.
"It happened to my grandson too many years ago. The house was decorated. Gift bags. So much food. One kid and his mom came to the door and handed him a present and left. It was so heartbreaking," reads one reply to the viral post.
"Happy birthday to your child. For those of us who are different in any way, we cherish the friends who show up,” reads another reply. “He’s lucky to have you advocating for him."
Baker beats the odds
At 21, Tsawwassen’s Lauren Tjoe spent eight gruelling episodes in the kitchen of the Great Canadian Baking Show.
In a final showdown, she whipped up sponge cake, marzipan and candied fruit, and for the Show Stopper of the season, a garden party dessert centrepiece. Out came a Veggie Garden Platter pilled with carrot scones, feta-jalapeño pea pod tarts, hotteok Korean pancake tomatoes and egg plant stroopwafels.
“We’re going all out,” she told the judges as she baked.
Then the show’s judges announced she had won.
“This feels like a dream. It’s the best dream ever and I, like, really don’t want to wake up.”
11-year-old with cerebral palsy climbs the Grouse Grind
It's a trail renowned for its difficulty — over only 2.5 kilometres, the Grouse Grind climbs 800 metres as it snakes up the North Shore's steep temperate rainforest.
But that didn't stop Richie Grimes, the 11-year-old boy with cerebral palsy who conquered the climb in 11 hours (the trail takes people with full mobility roughly 2.5 hours).
It wasn't easy. Three-quarters of the way up, Grimes felt like he couldn't take another step.
“Get back up again,” his dad remembers saying. “Richie does fall over a lot, whatever he’s doing – walking, skiing, mountain biking – but we always get back up again.”
Grimes shared his story a year after he conquered the hike. Next up: off-road cycling and skiing.
Yarn bomber steps up after theft of Dude Chilling Park sign
The Dude Chilling Park sign once again went missing, but this time something had changed.
At the start of 2022, Deidre Pinnock, a seasoned yarn bomber, stepped in, spinning a crocheted replacement that caught the neighbourhood's attention.
At the time, Pinnock said a friend had brought the latest left at the local park to her attention.
"And I was like yeah, why not?" she said.
Pinnock says she's been setting up her crocheted works around the city for six years, ever since a friend died by suicide.
The act of creating and sharing public art helped her move forward.
"I think the community and the world want to see more art," she said. "A lot of my slogans are 'be kind,' or 'you're ok,' just to put people at ease."
Afghani refugee reunited with beloved cats
When Kabul fell to the Taliban in the summer of 2021, 24-year-old Mursal Monir knew she had to get out. Like her brother and sister, she was a reporter, and people like her were getting hunted down and shot in some cases.
So she made the decision to flee with 10 family members. Air and Bella, the families two beloved cats, were forced to stay behind.
"It was quite difficult for us when we decided to leave," she said at the time through her sister Nafisa, who translated.
"We had no choice but to leave the cats. We lost everything in one day."
Nafisa said her sister was sick with grief.
First arriving in Pakistan, the family finally made it to Vancouver where Nafisa had been living for eight years.
Back in Afghanistan, Kabul Small Animal Rescue was working hard to reunite pets with owners who had fled the country.
The group managed to get hundreds of cats and dogs on an airlift, and in February, that flight landed in Vancouver.
"I thought when I saw my cats I would cry a lot, but when I saw them I was shocked and froze," Mursal said not long after meeting them at the city's international airport.
"I didn't cry, nothing, just hugged my cats."
