A story to remind you of the good in the world. One recent day, I headed out to Van Sant Airport to document Freedom’s Wings International’s inspiring work. It was a feature photo gallery and video package for the Bucks County Herald Newspaper. The group gifted free glider rides to several Pennsylvanians with mobility impairments at Van Sant Airport in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Gil Frost, president of Freedom’s Wings International, and several volunteers welcomed members of “I AM,”
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As market booms, affordable housing in Bucks County is in short supply. Marion Callahan Bucks County Courier Times/ USA Today Pennsylvania A cactus rests by the windowsill, perched above eight large plastic bins packed with most of Karen McDonald’s belongings. The plant, McDonald said, brings her peace as she moves through a revolving door of homes. It’s a symbol of survival in the transient and often unforgiving world of navigating homelessness in the Philadelphia suburbs. In February, hope for a more
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By Marion Callahan Published in USA Today, The Bucks County Courier Times and The Intelligencer. Ernie Gross learned to find hope and humor in the darkest of places. It was not an easy task for Gross, who from a very young age was known as “the boy who never laughed.” When he did laugh as a child, banging pots and pans with his older brother David, his mother would scold him. “How can you laugh
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Covering elections means getting local and national in scope. That year, I captured presidential visits through photos and video, covered the polls, and wrote breaking-news stories.
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Foster kids: ‘They are the forgotten children’ Marion Callahan Published in The Bucks County Courier Times & Intelligencer Andrew Smith knows how to file a tax return. He knows how to cook a steak, and at 18, he knows the cheapest place to buy one. But he doesn’t know why he was pulled from his home and separated from his four brothers at age 9. He doesn’t know why the family that fostered him for
Read MoreThere I was at Manhattan Bagel frantically tearing up bite-size pieces of my bagel so my then 9-month-old would stop trying to arch his way out of the high chair. Meanwhile, my 2-year-old stood wobbling on his own chair, licking butter off his toast while testing my patience. Then she walked in — all professional in a pinstriped suit and the kind of heels I see only on mannequins. I sat in my elastic-waist pants
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By Marion Callahan, USA Today Network, Pa. The words were not hers, but she delivered them as if they were. Doylestown Hospital ICU nurse Shumi Mazzacano had two daughters on a FaceTime call, eager to hear what they knew would be the last words from their mother, in the hospital stricken with COVID-19. Despite the agony of forced separation, one of the pandemic’s cruelest sentences, Mazzacano said the daughters made a choice “out of love”
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How the healing power of nature inspires resolve in recovery Marion Callahan Bucks County Courier Times / USA Today Network Bathed in the orange glow of the setting sun, Jose Ortiz-Nieves gazed at the horizon and then closed his eyes, taking in the cool mountain air from atop the observation deck of the Trexler Nature Preserve. Under a sky ablaze in color, the 31-year-old felt free from his past anchored in addiction. A weight was lifted. The world from
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Perkasie community unites to help disabled man get to work, food pantry Marion Callahan Bucks County Courier Times/ USA Today Network For months since moving to Perkasie, John Gaskin focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Walking to find a job. Walking to lug groceries from the food pantry to his Perkasie apartment. Walking to fight the isolation of living in a new place, far from his mother and all things familiar.
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Story and Video by Marion Callahan and photos by my talented colleague Michele Haddon. By Marion Callahan Under the weight of a soaked blanket, Megan Cohen inched her way, on foot, along a stretch of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia, the rain beating against her frail body. She wasn’t looking to be saved. “I was so broken. I was homeless at that point for quite a while and I wasn’t in the right state of mind at all,” said Cohen.
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