This Friday is "National flip-flop day" and my favorite stories of the day are...

Children found wandering the streets

Dan Jovic Fox 8-  An Eastlake woman was arrested and charged on two counts of child endangering after her son and niece were found walking the streets unattended on Thursday morning. The woman, Danielle C. Phelts, was taken into custody after police received a call from a neighbor stating that two children, both two-years-old, were walking down E. 349th Street. The neighbor called the children to her front door and tried to find out where the kids live, but she was unsuccessful. She then contacted police, according to the report.  Once police arrived at the scene a second neighbor alerted police of the children’s residence. When police went to the home they found the front door opened slightly and unlocked. Police knocked and yelled inside but no one answered. According to the report, officers then entered the home to find Phelts sleeping in a back bedroom. Phelts told the officers that she thought the children were playing the house and that the front door was locked. She was arrested after being informed that the kids had exited the house and were found four houses down the street by a neighbor. Phelts was taken to the Eastlake Police Department where she was booked on the charges and later released on bond. The children were released to the care of a family member.

Man offers teens money not to drink

 (CNN) — Five years ago, Leo McCarthy lost his 14-year-old daughter, Mariah, when a drunken driver hit her and two of her friends as they walked down a sidewalk near her home. But he refused to let her tragic death become just another statistic. Knowing that the driver was 20 years old — not even old enough to drink legally — McCarthy made an unusual promise to the teenagers attending Mariah’s memorial service in Butte, Montana. “If you stick with me for four years,” he said during her eulogy, “don’t use alcohol, don’t use illicit drugs but give back to your community, work with your parents and talk to your parents, I’ll be there with a bunch of other people to give you money.” McCarthy has lived up to his end of the bargain. Along with Jimm Kilmer and Chad Okrusch, the fathers of Mariah’s two friends who survived the accident, McCarthy has given $1,000 scholarships to more than 140 high-school graduates who have taken Mariah’s Challenge. “I wanted to give them encouragement and to tell them that … you can be better and always be greater in the situation,” said McCarthy, whose nonprofit raises the money through private donations. Mariah’s Challenge is simple. Teens can go online and sign a pledge to not drink until they are 21 and not get into a car with someone who has been drinking. Toward the end of their senior year, if they have not been convicted of underage possession of alcohol, they are eligible to submit a scholarship application, which includes a 300-word essay explaining how Mariah’s Challenge has affected their life. Recipients are selected by McCarthy, Kilmer and Okrusch based on the essay and an interview. “Mariah’s Challenge stands for integrity, character and honesty and living a life of simple self-respect,” said McCarthy, 52. For him, seeing kids make responsible choices means Mariah’s memory will live on. “Mariah is forever 14,” McCarthy said. “I can’t get her back, but I can help other parents keep their kids safe. “We save one child, we save a generation, and that makes me encouraged to continue what we’re doing every day.”

Want to get involved? Check out the Mariah’s Challenge website atwww.mariahschallenge.com and see how to help.