The Make-A-Wish Foundation made 13-year-old Erik Martin’s superhero dream a reality with a giant city-wide role playing scenario that incorporated all of Seattle. With the help of a major league soccer team, a DeLorean, and Spider-Man, Electron Boy saved the day.
Martin, who is living with liver cancer, always wanted to be a superhero, and the people of Seattle, along with the Make-A-Wish foundation made that fantasy a reality for one perfect day.
Three times in Anne Frank’s widely read diary, the young Holocaust victim wrote about a tree. She could see it from the attic window of the secret annex where her family hid for two years, before being betrayed. The tree helped keep her hope alive.
“From my favorite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind,” she wrote on February 23, 1944. “As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be.”
(READ what has become of the tree at CNN)
Paying it forward. That’s what a group of veterans is doing with a $20 million class-action settlement from the Department of Veterans Affairs over a massive identity-theft suit.
They’re donating about $13 million to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund and the Fisher House Foundation, two charities that help families of fallen and wounded troops.
“When I first heard about it, it just really knocked me down. It’s indicative of the kind of men and women they are,” said Fisher House CEO Ken Fisher.
The National Association of Letter Carriers is asking everyone to leave non-perishable food items by their mailboxes on Saturday, May 8 as part of the nation’s largest annual food drive to combat hunger. On that day, letter carriers will help “Stamp Out Hunger” for the 18th year in a row, an effort that, after Saturday, will have collected a total of more than one billion pounds of food for the needy.
Last year alone, amidst a recession, Americans donated a record 73.4 million pounds of food to the May hunger drive, which was organized in over 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam.
Just leave a sturdy bag with your cans and boxes of food inside, where your mail is usually delivered. Food will be delivered to food banks, pantries and shelters that serve the communities where they are collected.
The National Association of Letter Carriers is asking everyone to leave non-perishable food items by their mailboxes on Saturday, May 8 as part of the nation’s largest annual food drive to combat hunger. On that day, letter carriers will help “Stamp Out Hunger” for the 18th year in a row, an effort that, after Saturday, will have collected a total of more than one billion pounds of food for the needy.
Last year alone, amidst a recession, Americans donated a record 73.4 million pounds of food to the May hunger drive, which was organized in over 10,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam.
Just leave a sturdy bag with your cans and boxes of food inside, where your mail is usually delivered. Food will be delivered to food banks, pantries and shelters that serve the communities where they are collected.
Mary Tattersall was 88 years old when she first took up golf. Now, at age 90, the woman from West Yorkshire has amazed her fellow golfers by hitting a hole in one.
Tattersall made the 181yd (165m) shot on a par-3 hole at Shay Grange Golf Centre in Heaton near Bradford, England
(READ the story w/ photos at BBC News)
Just five minutes of exercise in a “green space” such as a park can boost mental health, researchers claim.
There is growing evidence that combining activities such as walking or cycling with nature boosts well-being.
In the latest analysis, UK researchers looked at evidence from 1,250 people in 10 studies and found fast improvements in mood and self-esteem.
(READ the article at the BBC News)
For the first time, scientists have discovered a way to predict whether women with the most common form of non-invasive breast cancer are at risk of developing more invasive tumors in later years. The women will then have the opportunity to be more selective about whether to choose radical treatments, according to the scientists.
“Women will have much more information, so they can better know their risk of developing invasive cancer,’’ said lead author Karla Kerlikowske, MD. “It will lead to a more personalized approach to treatment. ”
“Women choose their treatment based on their level of concern of developing invasive cancer,’’ said Kerlikowske. As many as 44 percent of patients may not require any further treatment, such as chemotherapy or mastectomies, and can instead rely on surveillance.
(WATCH a video from KTVU San Francisco, or finish reading below)
In the White House Rose Garden on Thursday, President Obama honored the 2010 National Teacher of the Year, Sarah Brown Wessling, from Johnston High School in Iowa, for her creative efforts to treat every student as a unique learner.
As a high school English teacher, she creates individualized podcasts for each student and takes into account a wide array of interests and learning styles. Her students don’t just write five-paragraph essays, but they write songs, public service announcements, film storyboards, even grant proposals for their own non-for-profit organizations.
“With Sarah as their teacher,” the President remarked, “student who had been discouraged and disengaged have discovered a passion for learning.”
One of her students reports that in Sarah’s class, “No discussion was fruitless, no assignment was pointless, and not one day was boring.”
“When we embrace this open-model of learning, the consumers of our curriculum will become designers of their own learning,” said Sarah in her acceptance speech.
“It is in these moments of learning that I fondly think of my students (who) want to be seen as individuals, not as a number or the score on an exam, who clamor for innovative curriculum and passionate teachers. They all would say we need 21st century teachers, not just adults teaching in the 21st century.”
This year alone Sarah helped develop 15 new courses, worked to mentor other teachers, helped organize a statewide teaching symposium and to design Iowa’s core curriculum, and served as president of the Iowa Council of Teachers of English. And all of this is in addition to being a mother to three young children.
“Slow down,” Obama joked.
In the White House Rose Garden on Thursday, President Obama honored the 2010 National Teacher of the Year, Sarah Brown Wessling, from Johnston High School in Iowa, for her creative efforts to treat every student as a unique learner.
As a high school English teacher, she creates individualized podcasts for each student and takes into account a wide array of interests and learning styles. Her students don’t just write five-paragraph essays, but they write songs, public service announcements, film storyboards, even grant proposals for their own non-for-profit organizations.
“With Sarah as their teacher,” the President remarked, “student who had been discouraged and disengaged have discovered a passion for learning.”
A small camera used to look for and remove polyps in the lower part of the colon, helped cut cancer deaths nearly in half, according to a new UK study of 170,000 adults ages 55 to 64.
Researchers found and removed polyps in 40,000 participants and, after following the group for 11 years, saw colorectal cancers in that group drop by one third. Their death rates were 43 percent lower because early detection boosts survival rates if cancers are found early.
(READ More at Reuters)
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has ordered that a million abandoned barrels of Soviet-era fuel be removed from the Arctic because they are polluting the environment.
During the Cold War, the area, which is home to a large population of polar bears, was Russia’s outpost in the Arctic and hosted an air defense base and military air strip.
(READ the story from Reuters)
Losing your job does have its advantages. You can go back to college and pursue a long-lost dream.
Not since high school has Larry played in a real baseball game, but now the 58-year-old pitcher is back on the mound hurling knuckle balls for the Springfield College junior varsity team.
“It was always a dream for me to play college sports”, said Larry Hasenfus, who went undiagnosed as a dyslexic to college, and didn’t have the grades to play sports.
His teammates, who are much younger than Larry’s own children, are in awe when they see the left-hander in action.
WATCH the video below, or read the story at WWLP…
Hawaii is standing up for sharks, and in a big way. Despite pressure from a vocal Asian community that insists on eating shark fin soup, the Hawaii legislature passed a bill that would prohibit the possession, sale, or distribution of shark fins of any kind anywhere within the state as of July 1st, 2010.
The governor is expected to sign the bill, which drew praise from Native Hawaiians whose culture reveres sharks as guardian spirits in animal form.
The measure could put a small dent in the total number of sharks killed each year for their fins — some 89 million globally, according to the Associated Press.
Hawaii is standing up for sharks, and in a big way. Despite pressure from a vocal Asian community that insists on eating shark fin soup, the Hawaii legislature passed a bill that would prohibit the possession, sale, or distribution of shark fins of any kind anywhere within the state as of July 1st, 2010.
The governor is expected to sign the bill, which drew praise from Native Hawaiians whose culture reveres sharks as guardian spirits in animal form.
The measure could put a small dent in the total number of sharks killed each year for their fins — some 89 million globally, according to the Associated Press.
It’s hard to imagine a five-story farm in the middle of a city, but if Milwaukee urban farmer Will Allen is behind the idea, anything’s possible.
After all, Allen is a world hero, according to an issue of Time magazine that hit newsstands today. He’s among 100 individuals and small groups picked by Time editors for the annual “Time 100: The World’s Most Influential People,” which honors ideas, innovations and actions that are “shaping our world.”
Allen already has been dubbed a genius by the John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Foundation, which awarded him a $500,000 “genius grant” in 2008.
Now all Allen and Growing Power’s board of directors must do is find $7 million to $10 million to build the farm that Allen has been envisioning for nearly two decades to take his nonprofit enterprise to the next level.
(READ about Growing Power in the Milwaukee Journal)
Locking eyes with a driver in a van led a Connecticut cop to stop a man who was a heavily armed killer apparently headed to slaughter two more people in Brooklyn Monday after fatally shooting a Yale physician.
“It was the greatest feeling in the world,” said Joe Peterson, when he learned the man he had stopped was the wanted criminal who had just minutes before allegedly murdered Dr. Vijander Pal Toor at his home.
Wang was carrying three handguns, 1,000 rounds of ammo, and documents about the location of three people, including Toor, who were all involved in Wang’s 2008 firing from Brooklyn’s Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center.
(READ more at the NY Post)
A London hip hop DC is the face of Radio 1’s Local Hero initiative, aimed at encouraging young people to take up charity work. He was filmed cleaning up the Thames, teaching boxing to teenagers, and sorting the clothes in a charity shop.
“I found this week that it is an incredibly satisfying and fulfilling experience,” said Tim Westwood. “There was this one kid – this hardcore street guy – who actually loved (it). It gave him a real purpose in life.”
The project is part of a new BBC drive to increase social action work. As part of the scheme, Radio 1 announced yesterday that its Big Weekend musical festival, on 22-23 May, will for the first time reserve free places for youth volunteers.
(READ the story from the BBC)
As renowned chef Jamie Oliver wraps up his successful Food Revolution TV show in Huntington, West Virginia where he transformed the school lunch menu — and family habits — for thousands in front of a nationwide audience, the revolution continues, this time in a larger city, where a film crew has been following another charismatic chef on a food mission.
Tony Geraci is leading the charge to overhaul the dysfunctional school lunch system in Baltimore serving as the city’s new food service director.
He wants to replace pre-plated, processed foods with locally-grown, freshly-prepared meals for all 83,000 students. Once a passionate chef in New Orleans, Geraci describes himself as a “little bit lunch lady, a lot P.T. Barnum.” His bold vision includes a vegetable garden at every school, student-designed meals, meatless Monday’s, and nutrition education in the classroom. His mission is as audacious as it is practical.
The feature documentary film, now in production, follows Geraci as the central character in his ambitious effort to ‘green’ the public school diet in A Recipe for Change.
Inner city youth have planted and harvested vegetables at the school system’s 33-acre teaching farm. High school seniors are even developing practical job skills through a new citywide culinary vocational training program.
“If Tony makes this happen here the way he wants to, I think you’ll see this happening all over the country,” says best-selling author and food activist Michael Pollan in the film.
Learn more at A Recipe For Change or watch the wonderful film trailer below.
2011 UPDATE: After catalyzing change around school food in Baltimore, Tony Geraci felt he had taken his role as far as he could, and left in 2011 with confidence that the people and programs were in place to sustain the momentum. He moved to Memphis to try to do the same things there.
As renowned chef Jamie Oliver wraps up his successful Food Revolution TV show in Huntington, West Virginia where he transformed the school lunch menu — and family habits — for thousands in front of a nationwide audience, the revolution continues, this time in a larger city, where a film crew has been following another charismatic chef on a food mission.
Tony Geraci is leading the charge to overhaul the dysfunctional school lunch system in Baltimore serving as the city’s new food service director.
He wants to replace pre-plated, processed foods with locally-grown, freshly-prepared meals for all 83,000 students. Once a passionate chef in New Orleans, Geraci describes himself as a “little bit lunch lady, a lot P.T. Barnum.” His bold vision includes a vegetable garden at every school, student-designed meals, meatless Monday’s, and nutrition education in the classroom. His mission is as audacious as it is practical.
