Free meals and helping hands highlight good news coming out of Ferguson

Amongst tensions and civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, stories of kindness are emerging.

When Ferguson schools delayed their start — classes were set to begin on August 14 — a North Carolina teacher decided to take action. Knowing that many students come from households with food instability and depend on school-provided meals, Julianna Mendelsohn launched a fundraising campaign on Fundly to help feed Ferguson's children.

She's raised more than $129,000 so far.

"I started what I thought would be a small personal effort with friends," Mendelsohn said. "It's going beyond my wildest dreams."

Some Ferguson teachers have been offering classes anyway — at the public library.

On Twitter, Ferguson residents have been sharing stories hope and kindness. Volunteers have been handing out food, diapers and children's books.

They've been cleaning up, too:

CNN reported that out-of-towners showed up with water for protesters. When people were hit with tear gas last Tuesday, they offered bottles of milk to help relieve burning eyes.

Domino's Pizza handed out free pizza to protesters.

Some residents opened their homes to strangers:

Others offered rides, knowing it wasn't safe for people to be walking home alone.

The St. Louis Rams offered free tickets for last Saturday's preseason game to Ferguson's high school football players.

"In light of everything going on in that area, it just made sense to reach out to those high schools and their head football coaches," Kyle Eversgerd, the Rams' manager of fan development and alumni relations, told ESPN.

"I talked to them directly and just said, 'Hey look, we can't imagine what you are dealing with as a football team, it's game week right now and you're trying to get ready for all of that.' We just offered tickets to them for Saturday and that's pretty much the extent of it."