The University of California announced yesterday that it will make the largest solar energy purchase by any U.S. higher education institution to fulfill 60% of the energy needs on five campuses and three medical centers.
UC signed two Power Purchase Agreements with Frontier Renewables to secure the renewables energy for a 25 year period. The agreements will help the University meet its goal to make UC the first research university to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025 for all UC’s 10 campuses and five medical centers.
“As a national leader in sustainability, the University of California is taking on bold, new goals and transforming our approach to procuring and using energy in more sustainable ways,” said Napolitano. “Our partnership with Frontier Renewables will ensure that UC has a steady supply of cost-effective, climate-neutral electricity.”
The projects will use two solar fields in Fresno County, with a combined capacity of 80 megawatts (MW). Construction on the solar fields — which have undergone a full environmental review and been approved by Fresno County — is expected to end in late 2016 for UC Irvine and its medical center, UC Merced, UC San Diego and its medical center, UC San Francisco and its medical center, and UC Santa Cruz.
The project also allows Frontier Renewables to consider education partnerships with UC researchers and students, such as research access to solar fields, the creation of a field station on the project site, internships, technology testing and curriculum development, according to UC News.
Here is another reason to love the hilarious mind of Bill Murray.
He was attending the Toronto International Film Festival September 5, on the date officially named Billy Murray Day, which featured screenings of old films like Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day and the premiere of his latest movie St. Vincent.
At a Q&A discussion he recalled that the night before the festival, he got into a taxi in Oakland and ended up driving for the cabbie after he mentioned he was a saxophone player.
“I said, ‘When do you practice?’ He said, ‘I drive 14 hours a day.’”
When the driver told him the sax was in the trunk, Murray told the cabbie, “Pull over and get in the back, I know how to drive a car.’ ”
“Not only did he play all the way to Sausalito, which is a long way, we stopped and got barbecue. And it made for a beautiful night!”
The Oregon Public House began as a dream to bring the individual charitable experience into the social space of a community. They wanted to transform the solitary act of quietly donating to a good cause and give it some bravado — and some beer.
It took three years to renovate the building at 700 NE Dekum Street in Portland. Today the “family-friendly” pub, with its delicious-looking menu of sandwiches, pastas and salads, is open every day at noon.
It serves as a “community center for change” with 100% of all profits going to a variety of charities on the menu — just pick your favorite.
The video below was created by Stillmotion’s 4-day Filmmaking intensive, EVO 11, and helps promote nonprofits.
Craig Jeeves of Melbourne, Australia rescued a cat two years ago from an animal shelter and this week, she returned the favor and saved his life.
Jeeves, 49, was awakened by the tabby in the middle of the night. Sally jumped on his face, screeching, as a fire raced through his home. He said, otherwise, he would have probably stayed asleep and not made it out alive.
(WATCH the video below from IB Times UK) – Story tip from Cathy Fries
On this day in 1956, Elvis Presley appeared nationwide on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time, performing Don’t Be Cruel and Love Me Tender. Sullivan, the most popular TV variety host of the day, had relented after previously vowing never to allow the performer on his show. (1956)
Timmy Tyrrell celebrated his 10th birthday today, and he’s not counting how many gifts he received for himself but counting the money he’s raised for families dealing with pediatric cancer — over a quarter million dollars since he was six years old.
For three years this extraordinary boy from Virginia has planned an annual charity kickball tournament in September during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. His latest event, a tournament in Manassas on Sunday collected donations of $29,000 and his friend, NASCAR king Jeff Gordon, is matching that, dollar for dollar.
When he was just six his friend Ella was diagnosed with cancer and he overheard adults saying that her father was losing time at work due to the illness and bills were mounting. Timmy, who goes by the name “Mini”, decided he could raise money for their family with his favorite hobby, racing go-carts. He started his charity Mini’s Mission, with the slogan “Burn Rubber to Help Another,” in March 2011.
His father, Timmy Tyrrell, Sr., who holds car racing records himself and owns an auto repair shop and used car showroom in Manassas, delights in his son’s charity work.
“My wife Tina spends all her time helping him enact new ideas about how to help people,” he said. “Like the tsunami in Asia: Even after I suggested there was nothing we could do, he insisted that we had to help.”
Hanging out with Jeff Gordon at the race track
At six years-old, Mini’s story as reported by NBC Nightly News so impressed Jeff Gordon that, not only did the NASCAR driver donate to Mini’s charity events, and take him into the pits to inspect race cars close-up, the charismatic kid was hired to work with the Jeff Gordon Children’s Foundation, which is dedicated to finding a cure for pediatric cancer.
“He’s not only inspiring adults. He’s also inspiring young kids,” said his mom.
He won $70 at the race track in a kids event and she asked him, ‘What are you going to do with it.’
“Duh, mom… I’m going to give it to the kids with cancer.”
Another little boy, a regular on the racing circuit heard him, went home, and brought back $50 the next week, saying, “I want to donate this to your charity.”
The quarter million dollars has been raised through a conglomeration of events, from the car racing to lemonade stands, from 5K walks to the kick ball tournaments that support the Kick It campaign. Gordon introduced Mini to the Kick It campaign, founded by a 10-year old Ohio boy during his second battle with cancer, which has raised more than $2.5 million through community Kick Ball events nationwide.
Mini, with Timmy and Tina Tyrrell
“Never in our wildest imagination, could we have predicted what Mini would accomplish in just three years,” said his proud mom, Tina.
As a racer, Mini is the youngest winner in Arena Car Race History, at 8, and the youngest driver, at 9, to compete in a Late Model Stock Car race, in Virginia earlier this year.
This self-possessed young man who has given speeches, talked to car clubs, and lately is persuading his local government to adopt gold ribbons for Children’s Cancer Month says he doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up — even though he has become a celebrity on the racing circuit as the youngest driver, at nine, to ever place in a late model stock car race.
He either wants to be a trash man, recycling valuable metals and materials, or a doctor so he can help more people. You can join him on Facebook at MinisMission.
Funded by charitable donations, the lifeboat crews and lifeguards of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution have saved at least 140,000 lives at sea since 1824.
A week ago, an RNLI crew spotted a sheep on some of England’s highest sea cliffs. Just as they were wondering how it got there, a dog’s head popped up.
A springer spaniel had been stranded for days 30 feet above the water on a rocky cliff just below Foreland Light House in North Devon. The dog ‘Sprigg’ who had been missing more than a week was stuck on such a narrow ledge, he could turn around.
Andrew Escott managed to jump ashore and climb up to the nine-year-old dog. The D-class boat – designed for working close inshore – was then called in so the dog could be lowered down safely.
He had been the subject of a major search by his owners, Mark and Susie Sanders, from Wheddon Cross, near Minehead. They and their family had organized search parties and scoured the area around Foreland Point after the dog disappeared during a walk there. They had plastered the area with posters appealing for any sightings while local fishing boats and an animal ambulance team from North Devon had checked along the shoreline.
“I just could not believe it when we had a call to say the lifeboat crew had spotted him and rescued him,” said Mrs Sanders. “It’s amazing: the best news ever. Bless them.”
Until now, U.S. laws have required patients or relatives of loved ones who had leftover prescription drugs in the home to dispose of them in the toilet or trash — the toilet being a terrible method because of our water supply and watershed pollution concerns.
Now, a new Drug Enforcement Agency regulation will allow pharmacies, hospitals, clinics, and other authorized collectors to serve as authorized drop-off sites for unused prescription drugs, reports KTVU.
Under the new policy, long-term care facilities will also be able to collect controlled substances turned in by residents of those facilities.
Prescription drug users will also have permission to directly mail in their unused medications to authorized collectors.
“Keila and Aidan Avila’s desire to pedal just a little bit faster than their father and cousin may have saved a cyclist’s life Friday at Salem Creek,” reports a North Carolina newspaper.
Had the kids not been racing ahead of their father and cousin, they would not have seen a young man of 20 vault through the air, and crash down a steep embankment into Salem Creek, out of sight from the path.
Because of lax exotic animal–protection laws, Maggie the macaque became a pet monkey for a family who wasn’t equipped to care for her. So for 10 years, Maggie was confined to a cramped cage and fed french fries and other junk food. After the initial thrill wore off, they tried to find other living arrangements for Maggie, without success. Finally, when the Indiana woman’s homeowners insurance company threatened to cancel her policy, she became desperate to place Maggie in a better home.
PETA.org heard about their plight and arranged for Maggie to be transported to a primate rescue sanctuary in Kentucky. There, she was treated for captivity-related conditions—including depression and chronic gastrointestinal disease due to the poor diet.
Maggie has made huge progress and was sent to her permanent home at the Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation sanctuary in Kendalia, Texas. Once she becomes better acclimated, she’ll be introduced to the other residents there—and for the first time since she was torn away from her mother’s side more than a decade ago, she’ll get to meet other monkeys face to face. She’ll enjoy fresh and healthy food, climb trees, swim in a pool, interact with her new friends, and finally get to be a monkey.
Carol Clark, a sixth-grade teacher who was diagnosed with cancer last year, was forced to use all of her sick and vacation days for treatment.
In 2014 she needed to take more days off for additional tests and treatment. So, using a little-known L.A. School District plan called Catastrophic Illness Donation Program, her husband Dave Clark rallied co-workers to donate their own sick days.
”The request, however, spread far more quickly and much more widely than the couple had anticipated,” reports the LA Times.
Generous teachers, as well as other county workers, who didn’t even know the Clarks joined the effort and gave up a total of 154 days to aid her in recovery – almost an entire school year.
“It’s people I’ve never seen giving us five days, 10 days,” an astonished Dave Clark told the Times.
23 of Los Angeles’s 30,000 teachers were able to take advantage of donated sick days, thanks to the program.
In a parched canyon where creeks were just sand and rock two weeks ago, water is now flowing.
Geologists were surprised to discover the California earthquake in Napa Valley August 24 apparently shook loose impediments to a supply of ground water, which is now trickling freely down several streams.
Three creeks in Sonoma Valley and two more in Napa and Solano counties have dramatically increased water flows since the Aug. 24 earthquake, according to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
On August 17, Officer Glenn Branham responded to a routine burglary call and found that the copper water pipes had been stolen and the house was in shambles. Thieves had ransacked the house, stealing everything of value over the course of several months.
Because Linda Tims had no money or friends that could help to repair the damage, the officer, who had owned a construction company before joining the Phoenix Police Department, stepped up — along with all his friends — in a big way.
”Over the past several weeks, Branham has recruited family members, friends and past business associates to restore the house,” reports the Police Department. “Numerous dumpsters of garbage and debris were removed. New walls and dry wall have been installed and new cabinets are coming.”
Thus far, all the supplies have been donated or paid for by Officer Branham, who has been renovating on his days off.
Branham initially wanted no media attention, but his boss thought the story was too inspiring not to share.
Ms. Tims told ABC-15 News that Branham was her “genie in a bottle” and her “angel” sent to perform miracles.
Channel 15 contacted America’s Best Furniture, which donated a $1,500 gift card and the City of Phoenix Neighborhood Services has agreed to help finish the house.
(WATCH the video below from ABC-15) – Story tip from Tonya Brown Wright
Lachlan Lever was just seven-weeks-old when doctors fitted his ear with a hearing aid. Without the device he would never have heard his parents’ voices.
From tears to smiles, this video captured the magical moment when he could hear for the first time.
The video was recorded two years ago in Australia but father Toby just added it to YouTube recently, where it has tallied millions of views.
A thousand people streamed into the University of Maryland’s gymnasium yesterday where a “Mission of Mercy” began dispensing a million dollars worth of free dental care.
800 dentists and hygienists are volunteering their time during the two-day mobile dental clinic to serve uninsured adults.
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of DC organized the event along with the Maryland School of Public Health to provide cleanings, fillings, extractions, root canals and oral hygiene education.
On July 28th, 2014, Jennifer Hughes and her daughter, Dakotah, we’re driving back home to Lakeland, Florida after attending a charity fundraiser in New Jersey when a semi collided with a metal box on I-95 and sent the object flying into Jennifer’s van. She and Dakotah were thankfully unharmed, but the van suffered major damages. Now Jennifer is in need of a new van, so with the help of friends and family across the country, she is trying to to make this happen.
Dakotah has Aicardi Syndrome, a rare disorder that affects mostly girls, in which the structure that connects the two sides of the brain (called the corpus callosum) is partly or completely missing. As an infant, she was given a year or two to live, but 16 years later she is proving doctors wrong on a daily basis. She also has two other life-threatening conditions, and the medical bills are considerable. Jennifer is a single mom who works as a teacher in Florida. Her income, despite being considered too high to qualify for financial aid from the state, is barely enough to cover the costs of day to day living. Financing a new van is just not possible. A gofundme page has been set up to help raise $30,000 so that Jennifer can replace the damaged wheelchair van, which has already seen better days and is becoming unsafe both mechanically and because Dakotah’s wheelchair is too wide to comfortably fit on the ramp.
A few weeks ago, a car wash was set up in Lakeland to help raise money for the campaign. Despite the typical Florida storm that rolled through that day, the car wash saw some business and they were able to raise a few hundred dollars. Then, late in September, Jennifer set up a tent outside popular Lakeland wing joint Mojo’s on Biker Night hoping to collect some donations from big-hearted bikers. One person challenged others on Facebook to participate in the Substitute Plan, where participants find one treat a week that they enjoy – be it a coffee, trip to the drive-thru, etc – then to go without it for one day and instead donate that dollar amount to the cause.
Inspired by this, Jennifer is putting $6 in the fund whenever she gets a case of Diet Coke for herself. In addition, she is planning a scrapbook sale and will be helping out with a friend’s Jamberry Nails party, where the commission will go directly to the wheelchair fund.
“I don’t want anyone to think that I’m just sitting around waiting for funding on gofundme. I’m doing as much as I can on the ground here,” says this hard working mom, who does everything she can to ensure that Dakotah’s quality of life can be the very best. This includes being able to transport her to doctor’s appointments as well as getting her out in the world safely.
In just under a month the campaign has raised just over 10% of its goal. The campaign link has been shared by thousands of people across the country, from Florida to California and in between, including a professional skater, and various Facebook groups who all support Jennifer and Dakotah and want to see them get the safe wheelchair van they so desperately need. Several people have embraced the Substitute Plan, others have donated multiple times. One Facebook group full of Walt Disney World enthusiasts who form the Pixie Patrol have taken to sprinkling virtual pixie dust as they make their donations. To help spread the word further, a Thunderclap has been scheduled for September 14th.
The response has been overwhelming for Jennifer, who expressed her gratitude on the gofundme campaign’s page by posting, “I can’t believe how much this has grown, and I have special people to thank for that!”
More information about Jennifer and Dakotah’s fundraising can be found at GoFundMe
Placed on the endangered species list in 1966, the largest animals on Earth are making a comeback, from the equator all the way up to the Gulf of Alaska.
Nearly hunted to extinction in the last century, the population of California blue whales, estimated to number around 2200, is now almost as high as it was in the early 1900s—a recovery being hailed as a conservation success story.
