Hey there, need a reason to smile? Well, I've got five. Let's get into it.

I ended up keeping my promise to him. Every time we crossed a state boundary, that was a finish line. Every time I made it up a hill, that was the finish line and so like, as special as the last finish line was, it didn't compare to all the other little ones?

'Meet the first woman ever to skateboard across America and learn why her journey was about so much more than breaking a world record. Then we head to Egypt for the discovery of 2,000-year-old treasures from a lost, sunken city.

I just said to myself, my God, how did this survive when everything else in this garden is dead? And I truly still believe that my mother and father asked God to leave me something.

One rose survived Hurricane Katrina and became a symbol of resilience 20 years later. From CNN, I'm Christa Boe and this is 5 Good Things. Stick with us back in a bit.

At 96 years old, Bill Brown has lived through a lot. World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, even the rise of the internet. But of all the history he's seen, Bill says it was the Great Depression that shaped him the most.

People came to help me and my mother and father during the Depression, and I've always felt I had a debt to pay.

And he spent a lifetime paying that debt forward. For the last 30 years, Bill – or Mr. Bill as everyone calls him – has run the nonprofit he founded called The Children's Table. It's a small but mighty food bank in North Central Florida. It started with extra vegetables from his garden, but now local farmers, grocery stores, and food suppliers help stock The Childrens' Table. What would have been wasted food is instead feeding families in 10 counties, places where poverty rates are high and healthy options are scarce.

A lot of the public assistance benefits don't go far enough, and that's where the children's table comes in and fills that niche for families who are just trying to make ends meet month to month.

That's Cheryl Twombly with the Florida Department of Children and Families.

I think what's different about this food bank is it's not just giving food. It's giving encouragement, it's giving a hug, it is giving a smile and people are treated in a dignified way where it's you're not coming to ask for a handout, you're coming to join and be part of the Children's Table family and part of that is receiving food from here.

Every Monday, cars line up outside headquarters in Bronson, Florida for their week's worth of groceries.

Good morning, you want to take these items? So it is a $10 suggested donation. No one is turned away, no one has to feel obligated. That's what helps us continue our mission. At this point in the year, we have served 1.5 million meals through our organization alone.

Operations for the children's table alongside Mr. Bill. Now that he's approaching 100 years old, Mr. Bell says he's not slowing down anytime soon.

Well, helping is contagious. And I might have started it, but the community has stepped forward and helped with what we do.

I am now officially the first woman to skateboard across America and the fastest woman to skateboard across america. I hold two world records now which is crazy.

'29-Year-old Brooke Johnson from Seattle just rolled her way into the record books, coast to coast. And the reason she did it makes this journey even more extraordinary. She skateboarded over 3,000 miles from Venice Beach in California to Virginia Beach in 119 days, reaching the East Coast on August 15th, making her stepfather Roger really proud.

Other than breaking a world record, what made you want to skate across the whole country?

Yeah, so I skated a long time ago. It was an idea of mine to skate from LA to Mexico. I was like, that'll be fun because I was afraid to run a marathon. And I did that and it was 178 miles. And then after that, I was, like, what if I skateboarded across America? And I never really had a purpose or a cause to do it for, I would just be doing it. And then my stepdad, when I was living in New York, he fell and broke his C5 vertebrae and became a complete quadriplegic. And I flew home and I was like, I think now's the time I skateboard across America and raise money for his recovery. And unfortunately, during the recovery process, he ended up passing away. I ended up keeping my promise to him. And we ended up partnering with Wings for Life, where we raised $55,000 for spinal cord research in his honor.

I checked this morning it was 54 and like literally two hours you rose another thousand dollars. Like that's so cool. Thank you. And I'm sure there were a lot of highs but there were also a lot of lows. Can you talk a little bit about that and how you pushed through?

Yeah, so on average every day I was doing about 30 to like 40 miles a day and I would experience every single emotion throughout the whole day. Happiness, sadness, joy, anger, hate, because you're so tired. I had to choose oftentimes between sleep, shower, and eat. It would oftentimes be sleep and eat, but when I did get to shower, having my own soaps and having my nice hair products always made me feel like a girl when I was done. I was like, she's here. She's still here. Oh, let's start the biggest hill climb of the day. But at the same time, every time I was skating on the road, I was like, I just played his voice in my head. And so I want to live life to the fullest. I want put my body through as much as it can because I have the privilege of moving it. And so, I want take advantage of that. Having Roger there in spirit, he was definitely there. I didn't get injured once on the trip. Our van got stuck in a ditch and it should have toppled over, but it looked like someone was just holding it up. I was, like, Oh, Roger's definitely working overtime in angel land. I don't know. He is going to work.

So how did it feel to get to Virginia Beach and how do you feel now?

I feel so cliche about what I'm going to say is like, crossing the finish line was an incredible experience. And over the course of the journey, we crossed many finish lines. Every time we crossed a state boundary, that was a finish line. Every time I hit a thousand miles, that wasn't a finish. Every time, I made it up a hill. That was a finished line. And so like, as special as the last finish line, it didn't compare to all the other little ones because we needed all those little ones to get to the last one. But I truly thank, like, to all the listeners out here. If there's something you wanna go do and you're afraid to do it, you have to do. It's something that you have face. And I challenge you on your days off, give yourself a goal, put something on your horizon, and I promise you results happen, things get easier. Giving yourself a light at the end of the tunnel, but staying consistent with it is really magical.

'For centuries, legends have swirled about Egypt's lost coastal cities. And last Thursday, divers off the coast of Alexandria pulled up proof from the Abu Kir Bay, some submerged ruins of a 2,000-year-old sunken city called Canopus. Egyptian authorities say they uncovered a treasure trove of artifacts like statues and sphinxes from Egypt's pre-Roman era, including one with Ramesses II's name on it, one of the country's longest-ruling ancient pharaohs. There were also parts of marble and granite statues from time periods before and after Roman rule, plus outlines of limestone buildings and a 410-foot dock.

These artifacts confirm the study that says that Alexandria was submerged by water as a result of a major earthquake or tsunami. This is why all the statues are missing the head and feet.

That's Mohammed Ismail, one of Egypt's top archeology officials. The artifacts are now being carefully restored and will be featured in a new exhibition at the Alexandria National Museum called The Secrets of the Sunken City.

These coins help tell the story of our nation through the remarkable women that helped shape it. And we're proud to help lift up stories like Stacy's, stories that haven't always been included, but deserve to be known.

For the first time ever, you can now see a woman in a wheelchair on a US Quarter, Stacey Park Milbern. She was a disability justice activist who fought for equity and inclusion until she died in 2020. Stacey was born with congenital muscular dystrophy. Her mom said she used a wheelchair for 20 years and a trach tube to help her speak.

She didn't see her impairments as limitations, but as her birthright into a vibrant, valuable community. She advanced American rights and she expanded the American heart.

That was her father, Joel, speaking at an event for the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum earlier this month. The US Mint's new coin shows her speaking to an audience with her wheelchair clearly visible, and that visibility matters. Because Franklin D. Roosevelt also used a wheelchair, but when he went on the dime in 1946, it was never shown. The Milbern quarter began shipping earlier this months as part of the American Women Quarters Program, which has honored five pioneers each year since 2022.

Out of all the devastation and destruction Hurricane Katrina left behind in Louisiana, one rose survived and now blooms across the country. More on that after a quick break.

'I'm meteorologist Brad Huff-Ines from the CNN Weather Headquarters. What we're looking at right now is a Category 5 hurricane.

This week marked 20 years since Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast. It was one of the deadliest and costliest storms in US History. But out of all of the loss, a small, unexpected survivor became a lasting symbol of resilience. If you follow the Mississippi River down to where it meets the ocean, you'll find Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, where a mysterious rose became famous for withstanding the storm.

'It was in 1989 when I got a cutting of it from my hairdresser, and she had gotten it from her mother-in-law. They didn't really know a name of it. So I planted it that year, 89, and it grew and grew, and it is like clusters of grapes hanging on the vines, but it's flowers. And they'll have like fuchsia and maybe pink and then a lighter pink. It's just gorgeous.

Peggy Martin's tried for decades to try to figure out the rose's origin. She believes it may have come from Europe in the 1800s, but beyond that, a trail goes cold. And after Hurricane Katrina, the mystery only deepened. Peggy lost nearly everything after the storm. Her parents, who lived next door, her home, and hundreds of roses she had collected in her garden. Three weeks later, she returned to her home to only find ruins, until something caught her eye.

And as I'm going towards our house, so we can see if we can salvage anything, I see this big dark green canes left on the roads. But when I look closer, I see about an inch of new growth coming on the canes. And so I just said to myself, my God, how did this survive when everything else in this garden is dead?

She doesn't think it was an accident.

I just felt like my mom and dad knew what I was going to go through, losing everything and losing them, especially, and ask God to leave me something, it's in my heart.

Despite enduring winds over 100 miles per hour and being submerged for weeks in saltwater, experts say its rugged genes were built to withstand extreme elements. A horticulturist from Texas A&M University, Dr. William Welch, cut off pieces of Peggy's rose to study and propagate them, helping it spread far beyond Louisiana. And eventually, she says, he asked her to name it the Peggy Martin Rose.

I know it's sold millions. So many people are enjoying it. And it gives me a good feeling and it helps with the sad parts, but a lot of joy has come through the rows.

And be sure to tune in to tomorrow's edition of CNN One Thing to hear how music helped New Orleans recover. All right, that's all for now. And there's more good news where that came from if you sign up for the CNN 5 Good Things newsletter. The link is in our show notes. Thank you so much for listening. Take care. Till next time.