Stay Tranquilo - There Is Still Good in the World 🌎 | Miami Mangroves, 106-Year Skydiver & a $1 Lemonade Stand

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Happy Monday, mi gente ☕️💛 In this episode of Cafecito y Croquetas, we’re flipping the script on the usual news cycle and sharing only the good stuff — stories that prove there’s still a lot of heart, courage, and kindness in the world.We dive into:🌿 Miami’s Mangrove Guardian – Andrew Otazo, a Cuban-American writer, runner, and environmental activist who has removed over 35,000 pounds of trash from our local mangroves, including refrigerators, couches, tires, and even an abandoned boat.🪂 The 106-Year-Old Skydiver – Alfred “Al” Blaschke, who broke his own Guinness World Record as the oldest person to go skydiving, reminding us that “everyone is more capable than they think.”🎤 From School Janitor to #1 on the Charts – Richard Goodall, a middle school janitor whose video singing “Don’t Stop Believin’” went viral, led to America’s Got Talent, and a song that hit #1 on the iTunes country charts.🍋 A 7-Year-Old’s Lemonade Stand of Love – Emmery Johnson, who started a $1 lemonade stand to raise money for her mom’s headstone and ended up bringing in over $10,000 thanks to the kindness of her community.Throughout the episode, we talk about:The power of small, simple acts of kindnessHow social media can still be used for good and uplifting storiesWhy supporting your neighbors, checking in on people, and doing “little things” can change someone’s entire trajectoryIf you needed a reminder that there’s still good in the world, this is your sign. 🌤️⏱ Chapters00:00 – Intro & Happy Monday vibes01:00 – Miami mangroves cleanup & Andrew Otazo’s mission05:20 – Why the mangroves matter to our ecosystem06:50 – 106-year-old skydiver breaks his own record09:30 – “You’re more capable than you think” – life lessons from Al11:55 – The school janitor who went viral and hit #1 in country music15:30 – How one viral moment can change a life18:30 – The 7-year-old girl, her lemonade stand & $10,000 in support21:00 – Turning tragedy into community, hope & legacy24:00 – The ripple effect of small acts of kindness20:40 – Final takeaway: do good, support your neighbor, simple acts matter🔔 Subscribe for more Miami stories, good news, and uplifting conversations:👉 Cafecito y Croquetas | Powered by Stay Tranquilo & H&CoDrop a comment:💬 What’s one small good deed you’re going to do this week? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Good morning and Buenos Aires. Welcome back to another episode of Cavesito and Croquettas, brought to you by H&Coh and stay tranquil. Happy Monday. It's a good start to the week. Felice Lunes. Felice Lunez, that's for sure. It's Monday.

We're excited for the week. We're going to be bringing to you some very, very powerful uplifting stories today. Some here, locally here in Miami and some across the nation that are some awesome stories. It includes some picking up of the mangroves here in Miami, a skydiver that just broke a record, 109 years old. Okay. A girl with a lemonade stand, super inspirational story. And we got a one more story here with the, let me see,

a janitor who just hit number one in the country charts. Okay. Yeah, there's got a nice little lineup of some cool stories. There we go. Let's get into it. So we're going to start here locally. Andrew Otasso, Cuban-American writer, runner,

and environmental activist here in Miami. He actually has been picking up trash here in the Miami mangrove since 2018. He just got featured, and I think it was the New York Times or the Washington Post, I think just picked them up on a story, but he's picked up over 35,000

pounds of trash from the mangroves by himself. Maybe a couple of friends here help him, but over the course of the last seven years, essentially, he's picking up trash through the mangroves, just cleaning up the ocean, basically. Listen, man, it's, I think people forget how important the mangroves are to, like, our ecosystem. Like, not only, you know, you see them around the grove, coconut grove.

You see them, you know, closer, like, around the grove, the Bay Area. As you get down to the Florida Keys, it's a lot of mangrove areas there. And obviously, it's just a home of so much life and ecosystem. And, you know, unfortunately, man, those branches, they catch hold of anything. You know, those things are crowded. They're packed with branches. They're narrow. So any little piece of trash gets caught up.

there so not only is it's impressive but it's like a dedication to really go into those mangroves because anyone that goes kayaking into the mangroves know there's mosquitoes there's bugs yeah in some areas there's gators so you really have to have some courage to do but kudos to him man i mean it's definitely amazing to see you know and there's so many initiatives like that you know picking up the beach picking up of course but to see one man taking the initiative yeah and picking up 35 i mean 35 000 i mean you're talking about he's he's picked up it's not just like plastic bottles and little rappers he's taking out refrigerators yeah no Tches, tires, fishing gear, metal scraps, waterlogged debris.

It's messed up. I mean, you'd be surprised, you know, people might have dumped this somewhere and it just finds this way to the mangroves and you just get stuck in there. Obviously, you're talking to so many trees and stuff in there. But, I mean, 35,000 pounds is a lot, a lot of trash. Seven years of picking up trash. I mean, if you check out your trash at home, you know, it's probably maybe 10 pounds. Imagine that times.

No, no, 100% times 3500. 3500. 300, imagine 300 and 3,500 bags of trash. and carry that all on your shoulder and see how that feels. It's crazy. No, absolutely. But kudos to him, man. That's amazing.

It's awesome what he's done. Even for it to be recognized by the Washington Post shows, obviously what he's doing is, you know, inspiring one. But it's also like a testament. Like we got to take care of our oceans. Like this is one person. Imagine what like hundreds of us can do. Thousands of us can do.

And it's like the prevention too, right? Where don't like if you see a trash can go throw it away or just don't. just like toss things to just toss things. You know, we can keep our oceans clean. I have seen the shift like locally of people kind of getting annoyed when people see people dumping into trash. Absolutely. It's lazy.

A local like I mean you see a lot of like, you know, not to call them out, but you see a lot of terrorists just kind of dumping away, you know, probably see a lot of people popping balloons after a birthday letting it fall into the ocean. You can see like the locals are very on top of it. They're reporting it. They're like, hey, guys, like that's not okay. Yeah.

Like, you know, maybe they're not out there clean up the trash, but they're aware of it and like at least on their own and they're not going out and they're trying to keep our oceans clean. But to see someone doing the initiative, hopefully it's a little bit of inspiration to other people that love to kayak, they love the water, they love the ocean, and go out there, you know, picking up one bag of trash

just makes it such a long way of just, you know, cleaning things up out there. So kudos to him, man. We talked about that reef, you know, that's going on out there. And a lot of those things are put in place because of the fact that there's been so much pollution over the years that, you know, our reefs are dying and reefs are essential to the ecosystem in the ocean.

And doing stuff like this is not only going to help the, you know, future of the ocean, but the current state of the ocean now and helping these initiatives kind of prolong and have like a longer like longevity to them. One of the things that he pulled, he pulled out an entire abandoned boat out of the ocean. Like it was rotting there. It was becoming a problem to the ecosystem and he pulled out a whole boat appliances. Like it's, it's incredible. So this guy's going beyond just plastics. He's going, he's finding anything. Everything and anything that is detrimental to the ocean. He was pulling that out. That's a level of dedication. A level of of commitment to it and you know you got to respect it yeah like a hunt all through Miami local that just

I mean he has a quote here uh I just love Miami if I can leave this place better than I found it then that's enough so kudos kudos to Andrew shout out to you Cuban American love to see that here in our backyard taking care of our our oceans so another pretty epic story here is there's a 106 year old skydiver who just broke the record of being the oldest person to ever go skydiving Dahl Aiejo. Crazy, man. His name's Alfred Blaschke. He's a retired craftsman from Texas who became famous at 103 years old when he broke the record for oldest tandem skydiver.

And he did it again now at 106 years old. So he broke his own record. He broke his own record. He jumped from 9,000 feet. So is it the oldest person of skydive or the highest skydive by someone that age? It's the oldest person to ever go skydiving. That's crazy. So he broke his own record.

He broke his own record. He broke it at 103 and he just broke it again at 106. First off, 106 years old is crazy. Just being 106 years old is wild. I mean, dude, like, if there's a way to go at skydiving, you're overlooking the city and you just peacefully just go. I mean, that's crazy. But the fact that he's still going up there at 106 in skydiving, I mean, me personally, I don't know if I'd skydive. So the dude, 106, man, it's crazy.

Well, like, he mentions here. He's like, if you think you can't, you're underestimating yourself. everyone is more capable than they think. Oh, no, 100%. He's the true testament to just saying, like, if you don't think you could do something, go look at this guy because he's proving. Talk about living life, man.

Living life, you're never stopping, dude. Because one thing is, like, you know, you hit like the midlife crisis. You're 50 years old and you're like, damn, I want to go skydiving. This guy's completely surpassed that. Like, he's lived his life. He's lived his life.

He's a hundred and six years old. And he's like, yeah, I'm going to go jump out of a plane from 9, 9,000 feet. Apparently he was smiling the whole way down. Oh my God. And yeah, he's a Guinness World Record immediately reinstated him as the oldest skydiver in the world. So someone had broke his record. Well, no, he had his own record.

He's like 100 days and not going. I mean, I don't know how many people. One, just getting to 106. So, like, there's already a small sample size of people that are 106 years old. And out of those people, how many of them are going to choose to jump out of a plane? Not many. Not many. Not many.

If I make it 106, don't leave me alone. Leave me alone. I'm not jumping out of any points. I'm just there. I'm sipping my cafcito. Maybe watching some news. and that's the extent of my day. I'm not waking up saying I'm going to go jump out of a plane at 106.

I got to go jump out of a plane. But man, props to you, Al. You are a legend. You're an inspiration to many. And it's pretty epic to see someone being able to do that at 106 years old. Good for all. Let us know what your training regimen is to, you know, last to 106, man. That's pretty epic.

So here we got another awesome story. His name is Richard Godol. He's a middle school jam. in Indiana, all right? Apparently, he's known as the nicest guy in the building. He loves to sing while he's working, you know, he's there mopping, doing his little thing, got the headphones on, you know, jamming. But there was a video. This is a, it's been around already, but in 2024, a video went viral of him singing, Don't Stop Believing, at a school talent show, and it got millions of views. He recently then was on America's Got Talent, and he's saying, you know, he did his,

bit there. And he came out with a song called A Long Time Coming and is now number one in the iTunes country charts within 24 hours of it being released. That's freaking crazy. I've seen this video. I have seen this video. I have seen it. I believe I have come across it because like when you said it, I'm like, dude, I feel like I've seen something like that. A gender at a school goes to the time show performance with the kids and all the kids hyping him up and stuff. Insane. Insane. Imagine. I mean, that's the power of social media, right? Like at one given moment, like your life kid literally. He can be discovered, man. I mean, that's like a life change.

Like a life-auntary moment. He just did his, you know, his middle school talent show just because he likes to, you know, he likes to sing. He likes to participate in the arts, right? And he's just there doing his job as a janitor. And boom, goes on America's got talent. And his song goes number one on the country art. It really is crazy how your life can turn in a second and how your entire trajectory of your life

go from mopping floors and now performing and, you know, singing and writing music. I mean, for all we know, he's probably been writing music. He's probably had songs in his head. He just maybe didn't have the time or didn't have the courage to do it. Right. And, you know, social media, you know, he saw those, you know, support is one thing. Seeing the support for people and be like, I want to hear you sing. I want to hear you, you know, I want to hear more from you.

I mean, the power of that alone and then to actually go out and do it and to have so much success doing it off the bat. I mean, it's a crazy inspiring story to see, you know, I mean, the come up early. It's just the come up of somebody's career and just, you know, how it can take off at any given time. It doesn't matter. You always say it doesn't know how old you are. You know, you just got to go out there. Exactly. And make it happen.

I mean, dude, look at him making it happen. I know. That's pretty epic. That's pretty epic. I mean, he's a guy that just living his life every day. And I think it's a testament to, you know, when you, you love what you do and you're just organic in the way that you go about your day. Like something like this could happen to you. And it's also like, don't be afraid to put yourself out there because you really never know what's going to happen.

This guy probably never expected any of that to happen. I mean, honestly, you think about it. Reality TV and then number one on on country. charts. People can call it. It's a crazy mistake that the video went out and it wasn't viral. But like, imagine the video that didn't go out. You know, you probably still be doing his thing. Probably still singing and then, you know, you know, so many people that sing, but for it to go like that and go crazy like that, it just, you talk about the power of social media and the power of, you know, the true purpose of social media is to put the stories out there and, you know, give people platform. You know, that's the, that's the social media I love. That's the side of social media that I love and that, you know, I love to see come to life because that's really what the true purpose is is to share stories and share stories and share. the amazing people out here and you know you might just discovered a jam that might be the next

big country music star just because he was cleaning floors one day and singing and someone's like I'm going to take a video of this and post it exactly and I think it's just like whatever you're thinking about doing like go do it right because like we were saying like at any given moment your life can change and it's just about doing the little things right every single day and the rest will kind of just kind of stack it's kind of like that guy the famous voiceover guy that you know he was a homeless on the streets. Someone videotaped him. And he became one of the most famous

voiceover artists in history. I mean, he does a voiceover so many things. So it's like the same thing. They took a video with him. Yeah. It went viral and they're like, I'm going to give you a job.

I'm going to give you a trial. And dude, his life turned around because someone decided to take out their phone and post it. Absolutely. It's a story that, you know, who knows where that guy's life would have been. Oh, 100%. If he never went on Kiamber or someone that didn't post that video.

100%. So it's crazy to see that, you know, this side of social media still still lives. you know, people are still benefiting from what, you know, like I said, the true purpose of social media is. And that's just put people out there. Absolutely. I love it.

I love stories. Shout out to Richard and Indiana. Got to go check out his music. I got to listen to the song. Yeah. I got to listen to the song. Go check out his music. Go see where the inspiration.

Maybe it inspires you to go do something of your own. Maybe that's a foreshadow to our song in the week on Friday. Who knows? Hell yeah. I like that. I like that. Show Richard some love, you know? I like that.

Maybe we'll play. Maybe we'll play. We'll see. I like it. I like it. And then another story here that we have. This is kind of like an emotional roller coaster of a story, but it's pretty amazing. So it's unfortunately, Emery Johnson, she's a seven-year-old girl from Alabama.

Her mother passed away at 29 years old. So she loses her mom. You know, they were not a well-off family. And they didn't have funds to pay for a headstone for the funeral, basically, for her mom. So Emory goes out of her way, ask her grandparents if she could set up a lemonade stand. And it was basically the lemonade stand sign said lemonade one dollar raising money for mommy's headstone. And essentially people started seeing the sign, people were driving by, saw what the initiative was, and people just started going crazy.

A local news outlet featured her story. And then essentially it led to $10,000 worth of, donations that she received by just starting this lemonade stand in front of her house and having her grandparents support through the process for her mom. I mean, that's unreal. There's really no words to describe something like that. And, you know, one, the bravery of a little kid to go out there and do it. Seven years old, dude.

Seven years old, going through that kind of, you know, life altering event. And then just seeing, you know, the humanity of people getting behind and just, you know, pouring their love and supporting this little girl in her mission. So, you know, what she thought she had to be doing for years of selling lemonade and trying to, you know, she was able to achieve just because there's still humanity out there. I mean, it's really no words to describe something like that other than it's just inspiring to see, you know, how people come together to support,

you know, their fellow neighbor. And in this case, you know, a little girl that went through so much. And, you know, for the most, for all we know, people probably didn't know, this mother, this girl, little girl's mom, this little girl's, you know, Of course, yeah. You know, what her situation was, but, you know, it's crazy to see that, you know, the support still exist. And, you know, there's still people out there that are willing to, you know, especially a little girl seeing their out there and doing their thing. I mean, there's probably people that, you know, saw them in her own shoes and, you know, but like, you know,

exactly. I don't want this little girl to stand out here. I'm going to go and try to get her off here as quick as possible and help her achieve her go as quick as possible. And for all we know, she probably achieved her going, then some, you know. Oh, I mean, I don't think she ever expected. to, you know, say, hey, I'm, I'm going to raise $10,000 by starting a lemonade stand, but it's a testament that there's good in the world, right? And I think we always hear, and that's obviously, like, the basis of all of this, right? It's like, we're always so tied up

in the negative every single day, and we don't really, you know, see that there's actually so much good out there. And I think you said it best, right? Like, when you put yourself in the, in the shoes of someone that's going through something unfortunate and uncomfortable, you relate to that person and say, damn, imagine, you know, me losing my mom at seven years old, right? Like the impact that that would have had. And you're like, you're looking at yourself and you're like, damn, I'm so fortunate. So I'm going to give so I can help this little girl who's going through something terrible. But also in the midst of her going through something terrible, she put it upon herself.

I mean, incredible seven-year-old girl to think about doing something like that. And then that's what happens. Like the good just kind of starts stacking because you see. holy cow, I want to help this girl. And you think of the little girl too, you know, her memory of her mom passing isn't going to be, you know, having to put her mom. It's going to be, I brought an entire community together.

And I had, you know, I was able, you know, had so much overwhelming support. Yeah. You turn the little girl's trauma into, you know, something that, you know, as unfortunate is, had a positive impact on not only the community, but on her life. And just to see that, you know,

she didn't have to go through it alone and that people were willing to have her back. And, you know, for a little girl, maybe she doesn't understand it now, but looking down her line, I mean, imagine she looks back on this event, be like, I had lost my mom, but, you know, the support from my community, you know, and how people came to support me. I mean, it's incredible, you know, it's crazy to think how much, you know, just that at this age can impact that girl's life, you know, she's not going to look back at the trauma and be sad. She passed away, but look at the overwhelming support. Look at the, look at the positivity, you know, a little thing of a little incident just brought in an entire community together.

I've rallied, you know, thousands of people gathered $1,000,000. of money just to, you know, support her. And not we support her, but support her mom so that she can, you know, have a proper burial, a proper headstone so that her, you know, life has remembered. And it's, it's crazy how you can turn tragedy into, you know, a promise and really just a miracle, you know, it's crazy. Yeah, people, people were driving hours away once they saw, you know, what was going on. They drove hours away just to come by and support her initiative.

It's, it's great to see, you know, like you mentioned, community coming together and people willing to do good in unfortunate situations. And I hope that's like motivation to go do something, you know, good. Because it's crazy how like something so simple could be so impactful, right? Like it's a dollar, dollar lemonade, right? And it raised $10,000. Like think about like all the things that we could do. Like we talked about what's happening in Jamaica, you know, with a storm.

And there's so much unfortunate, like bad things that go on. on an everyday basis, like throughout the world, yet there's so much that we can do as good to take care of these issues, right? Like, I mean, it's as simple as like opening the door for somebody or, you know, just buying someone a coffee that, you know, may need it. Like you don't realize, like, how much some little act of kindness can do. And it's like that ripple effect, right? Like, I do something kind to you.

Now you're going to feel like I want to do something kind for someone else. And it just gets passed on to the next person and the next person and the next person. And things like this are, I think, a testament of like, if we all just do our part to do something good, good's going to just get passed on naturally. Yeah, you've seen so many stories of like, you know, someone going through something really bad and, you know, maybe they were thinking negative thoughts.

And they had a simple conversation with someone. It was like, your conversation with you, save my life. It was just, hey man, how's your day going? Yeah. But you really don't know, you know, the impact of just asking someone. Absolutely. Like, how you're doing? How you doing?

You know, open the door for them. A natural, you know, you don't know what people are going through. Maybe, you know, for that five-minute conversation. you know, you bring some joy back in there. You bring a little bit of light and, you know, some people need that, man. Some people, you know, have a harder time finding joy, you know, they're going through stuff. They're seeing a lot of struggles. Yep.

You know, simple, how you doing? A simple, oh, hey, man, I got you, man, I'll get your coffee today. Yeah. You enjoy that's your day. You can really change a trajectory of someone's life, you know? It's crazy. Through one act. Simple, simple acts.

Yeah. I think that's something we can do better. Simple acts. It doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be anything extra. Yeah, it doesn't have to be anything extravagant. man just see someone you know you see someone down hey man you're doing okay bro let me buy you buy your beer like oh you know like try helping across the street you see someone you know with a broken leg hey man you need some help bro mm-hmm how seeing helping an alita take her groceries to the car

you know simple stuff like that man it's crazy a simple act absolutely it doesn't need to be anything this grand gesture it's just like little things that can then be passed on to the next person and the next person and it can make such an impact in someone's day so if there's anything out of all of this, you know, I think it's just like, do good in the world, do your part to help, you know, however you can, even in the smallest ways, it has the biggest impact. And I don't think we realize that just doing these little things make a huge difference. So, you know, we got people cleaning mangroves. We got 106-year-old skydivers, living life to the fullest, and a janitor just falling his dreams, singing some country music, and then a seven-year-old girl, you know,

doing the Lord's work and doing amazing things. So if there's anything out of this, it's a reminder that there is good in the world. And it's a reminder for us to do our part, to do good in the world as well. Love your neighbors. Support your neighbor. You know,

don't be afraid to talk. Support. You know, and like I said, a simple act can go a long way. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's what we strive to do,

man. That's the purpose of the show. Everything we do, simple acts, man. Absolutely. You're still good out here, man. Yeah.

You're still good out here. But yeah, that pretty much does it. as far as our recap today of what's going on in the world, the good, the positive, all that makes the world go around at the end of the day. So if anything, I hope you guys enjoyed this. I hope you guys are motivated to do good this week. Support your neighbor, love your neighbor. Do whatever you can to make the world better today. And the world will just continue to get better and better rather than worse and worse like they like to put out there. So do your part and live a good. Monday. Good Monday. Have a great week. You guys.