Positivity From a Despicable Situation [Links]

By now, you've probably heard the story of the school bus monitor in upstate New York who was mercilessly bullied by the middle schoolers riding her bus. There are not enough negative words to describe how disgusting this behavior is, but there has been a silver lining to this cloud.

These videos were allegedly recorded by one of the students involved in taunting the 68 year old bus monitor, Karen Klein. Since they started making the rounds of the Internet earlier this week, people have responded in a big way.

The school district has said the responsible kids will face discipline, but there's been an even more amazing response - a young man who saw the videos took it upon himself to help Karen out. If nothing else, he thought she deserved a vacation, so he set up a fundraising page on the website indiegogo.com with the goal of raising $5,000 to send her on a dream vacation.

This is where the story gets inspirational.

Since the page was set up, over $300,000 has been raised.

By the way, when I started writing this article, the total was at $297,000, in just the time it took me to write those few paragraphs, an additional $10,000 was added to the total. By the time you read this, who knows where it will be.

Just yesterday I linked you to an article about inspirational pictures and stories of people helping others, and today we get this story about complete strangers coming together to help someone they've never met.

When you hold the door for someone going into a store and they don't bother to say "thanks" or even acknowledge you, just remember, there are good people out in the world.

And let's also remember something else - bullying isn't funny. It's not "kids being kids" and it's not "harmless fun".

If you'd like to read more about this story and maybe even make a donation of your own, click here for a full recap from our colleagues at TheFW and click here for the fundraising page at indiegogo.com.