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Need a pick me up? Here are 3 stories to make you smile this week

Editor's Note: This is a roundup of this week's moments of joy from WBUR's seasonal newsletter, The Pick Me Up. If you want a little bit of good news to help you get through the week and spread cheer this holiday season, sign up here


From a new dog-friendly bar to a camera-loving elephant, here are the moments bringing us joy this week.

1. A presidential shoutout for a "hidden jewel" of Boston's effort to fight food insecurity.

You wouldn't notice it unless you knew where to look.

Three stories above Albany Street, Boston Medical Center runs a 7,000-square-foot rooftop farm that produces thousands of pounds of food as part of its Nourishing Our Community Program. The fresh produce goes to patients and stocks BMC's food pantry, the first hospital-based pantry in the U.S.

And as WBZ recently reported, the farm has gotten the attention of the White House's food insecurity team, which sees it as a model for how other national hospitals can help feed their communities.

2. New England’s first-of-its-kind “dog bar.”

Make space, Boston Common. The region’s dog lovers are getting a new type of watering hole. Park-9, a 5,000-square-foot indoor-outdoor dog park with a full-service bar, is planning to open in Everett. And it promises to be so inviting for our canine friends that its slogan is “Where dogs bring their humans.”

Now, I’m not a dog owner (I have two very sweet, cuddly cats), but I have friends who are. One friend in particular brought her dog along for our coffee date on what turned out to be an unexpectedly cold and noisy afternoon. In short, we had to quickly get her dog home. What we needed at that moment was the Park-9 Dog Bar. While we can’t go back in time, this is definitely something to look forward to early next year, which is when the bar is slated to open.

3. This baby elephant’s TV debut.

Drought has driven elephants into the care of a Nairobi orphanage. It’s a serious issue that calls for serious reporting, and a local Kenyan reporter is up to the task. He will not be distracted, not by the tap of an elephant trunk on the shoulder, or on the ear, or the head.

As it turns out this baby elephant refuses to be ignored.

Nature rarely follows a script. But if that makes a reporter break out in laughter, that right there is pretty good TV.

Related:

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Aimee Moon was a newsroom fellow at WBUR.

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Vanessa Ochavillo Associate Producer
Vanessa Ochavillo is an associate producer for WBUR focused on digital news.

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