Leftover soap and shampoo from your hotel’s bathroom is being recycled to help Clean the World.
The Global Soap Project, along with Clean The World, has launched programs to collect and recycle partially-used toiletries from hotels across the United States.
The remade soap, shampoo and so on is then donated to developing countries to improve hygiene and sanitation, as well as going to some local US women’s, children’s and homeless shelters.
(READ the story in Australian Business Traveler)
He set out on his own in 2009 when he took the 8,000-mile flight from Kenya to Maryland as a foreign exchange student.
He had no running experience before coming to the US, but now owns the fastest 1,600 time in the state and has secured a college scholarship.
“I’m not just running for fun. I have a longer goal.” It involves his poor village in Kenya.
The long goal is a difficult one. He wants to return home to a village that has no electricity or running water and ask a mostly illiterate population focused mainly on herding sheep and cattle to learn how to read.
(READ the story in the Washington Post)
According to Richard St. Denis, an estimated 75,000 wheelchairs are thrown away in the U.S. every year. For people with disabilities in Mexico — who are often unable to leave their homes to get jobs or an education — wheelchairs in any condition can make a world of difference.
The award-winning wheelchair athlete started the World Access Project to provide life-changing mobility to people with disabilities in rural Mexico.
Richard knows firsthand the impact a disability can have on one’s life. Paralyzed from the waist down in a skiing accident and confined to a wheelchair, St. Denis didn’t allow his accident to cripple his spirit. Through his efforts, hundreds of people have received free mobility equipment and are now more active.
WATCH the CNN Hero video below, or read the story at CNN…
According to Richard St. Denis, an estimated 75,000 wheelchairs are thrown away in the U.S. every year. For people with disabilities in Mexico — who are often unable to leave their homes to get jobs or an education — wheelchairs in any condition can make a world of difference.
The award-winning wheelchair athlete started the World Access Project to provide life-changing mobility to people with disabilities in rural Mexico.
Yesterday, 10 more of America’s wealthiest families committed to giving more than half their wealth to charity, bringing the total number who have joined Warren Buffett and Bill Gates in their “Giving Pledge” to 69. Launched in June of last year, the Giving Pledge is a long-term charitable initiative that aims to inspire immediate philanthropy and increase charitable giving throughout the United States.
“We are seeing great progress in less than a year,” said Warren Buffett, pledge co-founder and chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. “I am delighted that so many wealthy Americans are taking a public pledge that supports philanthropy. The continued energy and passion for this project, and the many philanthropy conversations it has sparked with families from all walks of life, are inspiring.”
One of the newest to take the charitable pledge was John Paul DeJoria, co-founder of John Paul Mitchell Systems, Patron Spirits Company, John Paul Pet and ROK.
“At an early age, my mother shared with me the privilege of giving back and I experienced how good it feels to help someone in need. That stuck with me in my adult life,” he said. “I believe that we all have the responsibility to make the world a better place to live…its part of our rent for being here. My motto is ‘success unshared is failure,’ and that’s something I’ve passed on to my children too.”
The Giving Pledge aims to address society’s most pressing problems by inviting the wealthiest American families and individuals to commit to giving more than half of their wealth to philanthropy or charitable causes before their death. The pledge is a moral commitment to give, not a legal contract, and it does not involve pooling money or supporting a particular set of causes or organizations. The effort specifically focused on billionaires or those who would be billionaires if not for their giving.
Both Buffett and Bill Gates, along with his wife, Melinda, have recently had conversations with wealthy families and business leaders in China and India, to learn about their philanthropy efforts and what has worked in their communities.
The April 2011 Pledge Signatories by State:
California
John Paul DeJoria
Vinod and Neeru Khosla
Florida
Phillip and Patricia Frost
Massachusetts
Joyce and Bill Cummings
New York
Ray and Barbara Dalio
Oklahoma
Harold and Sue Ann Hamm
Lynn Schusterman
Texas
Rich and Nancy Kinder
Edward W. and Deedie Potter Rose
Annette and Harold Simmons
See a full list of those taking the pledge and their personal letters of committment online at www.givingpledge.org.
Yesterday, 10 more of America’s wealthiest families committed to giving more than half their wealth to charity, bringing the total number who have joined Warren Buffett and Bill Gates in their “Giving Pledge” to 69. Launched in June of last year, the Giving Pledge is a long-term charitable initiative that aims to inspire immediate philanthropy and increase charitable giving throughout the United States.
“We are seeing great progress in less than a year,” said Warren Buffett, pledge co-founder and chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. “I am delighted that so many wealthy Americans are taking a public pledge that supports philanthropy. The continued energy and passion for this project, and the many philanthropy conversations it has sparked with families from all walks of life, are inspiring.”
With declarations that a new day is dawning in the treatment of hepatitis C, an FDA advisory panel unanimously approved the first of two new drugs to treat the stubborn liver infection.
“This changes the game completely,” says Dr. Victoria Cargill of the National Institutes of Health, acting chair of the FDA’s advisory committee. “I can look into the faces of the people (with hepatitis C) and offer them some hope.”
“I can’t wait to get back and talk to my patients about it,” enthused panel member Dr. Barbara McGovern of Tufts Medical School in Boston.
(READ more of the story at NPR)
In another sign of recovery for the American auto industry, Chrysler said yesterday it intends to pay off its $7.5 billion in government loans by the end of June using investment money from Fiat and a new loan agreement with institutional investors, reports the Detroit Free Press.
For 11 years Sonja MacDonald and her family lived with the constant threat of oncoming black-outs. After seeing different doctors, giving varying diagnoses for the episodes, they still had no idea what the problem was or how to stop it.
In 2009, a new neurologist took a fresh look at her case and in short order figured out what was wrong. The answer, this doctor subsequently learned, had been buried in MacDonald’s records for years.
A man survived with injuries after driving his car over the south rim of the Grand Canyon by accident, authorities said on Wednesday.
The unidentified driver, aged 21, was treated for nonlife threatening injuries in a Flagstaff hospital on Monday after plunging 200 feet over the lip of the mile-deep chasm, a spokeswoman for the Grand Canyon National Park said.
(READ the story at Reuters.com)
Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef turned school lunch crusader, has been lobbying for years against flavored milks that contain more sugar per ounce than soda.
Kids drink it daily in their government-subsidized school lunch programs, but this week the second largest school district in the country announced a change in the menu.
In light of the epidemic of childhood obesity, Los Angeles superintendent John Deasy announced he is recommending a ban on flavored milk, saying the drinks will be out of schools by the fall.
The number of U.S. parents undertaking HIV adoptions is surging – from a trickle just five years ago. Most involve orphans from foreign countries, where they faced stigma, neglect and the risk of early death.
“I can’t think of a more significant way to make an impact than to do this,” said Margaret Fleming, a 74-year-old Chicagoan whose nine adopted children include three HIV-positive first-graders.
The Labor Department reported the unemployment rate in March fell in 303 of the nation’s 372 largest cities.
Overall, businesses added a net total of more than 200,000 jobs in March and February, the fastest two-month hiring spree in five years.
We all want to scream about the miseries of high gas prices. But, are there any “silver linings” in which we can find solace?
Instead of feeling totally stressed at the pump, think about the positive aspects of high gas prices — the five ways that life is already improving thanks to $138-per-barrel oil.
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley launched a new Green Taxi Program Friday that will encourage the taxi industry to purchase cost-effective hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles. More green cabs will help the city move closer to reaching carbon emission goals set out in its Chicago Climate Action Plan, while also improving air quality.
The Green Taxi Program uses $1 million in funding to provide a $2,000 rebate for every new hybrid taxi and between $9,000 and $14,000 for every alternative fuel car like those powered by propane or natural gas.
In the largely improvised scramble to set up an alternative to leader Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, the Libyan rebels are leaning heavily on Ali Tarhouni, a University of Washington economics professor who abruptly left his family and students to join an uncertain revolution.
In March, Tarhouni, 60, was named the rebels’ finance minister and overseer of its crucial oil and gas portfolio.
As a dedicated civil servant, he even jumped on a fishing boat recently to personally deliver salary money to the besieged city of Misrata in the Gadhafi-controlled west.
“Courage is not an endowment to particular people,” he says. “It’s surprising how everybody can be courageous. They’re very normal people and, suddenly, most of these normal people could be heroes, courageous — and do things you don’t expect.”
(READ the inspiring feature story at NPR)
So many people in the media, including Donald Trump, gratuitously gripe that the economy is “in the tank.” Here is another of the many articles featured in our Business Section over the past six months that show a steady improvement in the US economy:
“Stocks powered to fresh multiyear highs, boosted by consumer optimism and strong earnings from industrial heavyweights,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
Rapper, record producer and clothing entrepreneur Pharrell Williams is a key investor in Return Textiles, the the New York manufacturer of Bionic Yarn – a highly durable fiber composed of organic cotton wrapped around a core of recycled PET from plastic bottles.
Bionic Yarn has been woven into shoes, canvas bags, jackets and shirts currently for sale by such textile companies as Timberland, TopShop, Cole Haan and Moncler.
Rapper, record producer and clothing entrepreneur Pharrell Williams is a key investor in Return Textiles, the the New York manufacturer of Bionic Yarn – a highly durable fiber composed of organic cotton wrapped around a core of recycled PET from plastic bottles.
Bionic Yarn has been woven into shoes, canvas bags, jackets and shirts currently for sale by such textile companies as Timberland, TopShop, Cole Haan and Moncler.
