Vince Schiavone recalls that, “Mom [Rita] used to make an extra portion of food every night. She’d put it in a tin container, and, the next day, give it to an elderly person who needed it. It was just part of our dinner routine.”
Rita’s work also inspired her friends and her church in Philadelphia. They joined her efforts to provide food to the elderly and Rita’s movement grew into a nonprofit, Aid for Friends.
(READ the story from BradAronson.com)
Quinoa, the new “super food,” is a grain packed with nutritious protein and fiber.
Not only has the quinoa popularity surge given us a delicious new food, it has also benefitted family farmers in rural Bolivia.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) assisted Bolivian quinoa (pronounced, keen-awa) farmers in upgrading their processing machinery so they could increase their capacity by six fold. As the farmers made more money, their kids could go to school — a win-win success story.
The modern equipment also reduced energy consumption at the same time. USAID says the cleaner technologies cut electricity use by one-fifth, and water and natural gas by a third.
Photo by the FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization in Latin America (CC license)
Most parents are more comfortable talking to their kids about bullying or drugs than family finances or investing. One of the most valuable lessons to pass on to your children is the importance of how to deal with money.
According to a recent JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy survey, only 26 percent of teens up to age 21 say their parents taught them how to manage money.
Maybe you’ve already told them, ‘You should save your money,’ but have you exposed them to the magic of compounding? (See #6 below.)
For the sake of their future finances (and possibly yours) you should be sharing these smart money tips now with any young adult in your life. But, not only their futures are at stake, spending and saving habits practiced during their twenties, can prevent needless debt and earn good credit records for when they need it most.
Here are six money tips, but most critical are the last two:
Amy Grant worked in the financial services industry for ten years, having earned a series 7 securities license. On her own, she has counseled many young adults on how to maximize their finances. She urges everyone to seek the advice of an independent expert, before investing.
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A baseball player in the Houston Astros minor league, Conrad Gregor, hit his first Midwest League home run on Saturday night and the ball was caught over the right field wall by a familiar face — his own father.
“That was my dad,” said the 22 year-old.
According to the Quad-Ctiy Times, Marty Gregor and Conrad’s mom came to Davenport, Iowa, for the Memorial Day weekend series, making the nearly five-hour drive from Carmel, Indiana.
(Watch the video below and READ the story from Major League Baseball)
More than a century after it was “lost”, the New Guinea big-eared bat has been discovered by Queensland researchers in Papua New Guinea’s forests.
The tiny critically endangered bat was thought to be extinct, but the discovery shows how much there is to learn about biodiversity in the region.
(READ the story in The Conversation)
Harriette Line Thompson, a cancer survivor and last living sibling in her family, just shattered the world record with the fastest time in a marathon for a woman over 90 years old.
A concert pianist by profession, the 91 year-old turned in a time of 7:07:42 for the Suja Rock ‘n’ Roll San Diego Marathon.
Harriette has raised over $90,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of the many members in her family who have died from cancer.
(READ the inspiring story at NPR)
Story tip from Ellen Marsh
Currently in developing countries more than 200 million women who do not wish to get pregnant lack any access to modern contraceptives.
In the last year, global NGO parters with the governments of Norway, the UK, the US and Sweden, delivered access to a long-acting contraceptive, providing women and couples with a safe, effective family planning option.
The contraception is being offered at a 50 percent price reduction to more than 27 million women in the world’s poorest countries.
The Clinton Health Access Initiative and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says the program will avert more than 28 million unintended pregnancies between 2013 and 2018, and, ultimately, prevent approximately 280,000 infant and 30,000 maternal deaths.
Sam Schmid made international headlines in 2011 after making a miraculous recovery from a near-fatal coma. It was called a “Christmas miracle” just to have moved two fingers.
After sustaining critical brain injuries from a car accident, people said he would never walk or talk again.
About his painful two-year physical therapy, Sam says, “I know this pain is good for me in the end, so I’m just going to keep working.”
Now 23, he plays basketball and is encouraging others to find the miracles within their own lives.
WATCH the uplifting video above, documenting his amazing recovery…
The Kenai Peninsula wildfire in Alaska grew rapidly from 7,131 acres burning on May 19 to more than 156,000 acres on May 25.
The American Red Cross was readying a temporary shelter at an elementary school to help some of the hundreds of evacuees expected from the areas around Soldotna.
Meanwhile, Soldotna locals readied comfortable beds; churches served dinner; and Hooligan’s Lodge put out the word on Facebook: free room and board for anyone displaced by the fire.
When the Red Cross shelter opened that night, the cots remained empty because, according to the Anchorage Press, every single evacuee had found more comfortable accommodations in private homes and inns, including Hooligan’s Lodge, which welcomed 118 people and 25 pets.
(READ the full story from Anchorage Press)
95 percent of California beaches earned A or B grades for water quality during the summer of 2013, a 2% improvement over 2012, according to an annual report. (LA Times)
Every work day for the past 11 years, Juanita Vega greeted a homeless man who slept outside the bank where she worked.
Vega developed a friendship with Richard Coleman who was popular among the Upper East Side community, including business owners, who collected $1500 to donate in his honor after his recent death.
She loved the way he called her “Sis” and she personally took responsibility for giving him a proper burial, spending $2,000 of her own money to lay him to rest at Rosemount Memorial Park (pictured above).
(READ the full story, w/ photo, from DNA Info New York)
Because they believe that small farmers are the answer to hunger in the developing world, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2012 had already committed more than $2 billion to agricultural development, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
The grants support research to develop more productive and nutritious varieties of the staple crops grown and consumed by farming families. These include varieties adapted to local conditions that deliver specific benefits farmers seek, such as increased yields, better nutrition, and tolerance to drought, flood, and pests. The Gates Foundation also funds research to discover ways to better manage soil and water resources and reduce crop loss due to spoilage, weeds, pests, disease, and other threats. They believe productivity increase will translate into 400 million people lifting themselves out of poverty.
By 2012, their efforts had supported the release of 34 new varieties of drought-tolerant maize, delivered vaccines to tens of millions of livestock and trained more than 10,000 agro-dealers to equip and train farmers — including more women — in the field.
Learn more at the Gates Foundation
Photo by Andy Kristian Agaba (andykristian.com)
A one-per-day pill that targets cancer-causing mutations has been shown in a recent trial to decrease the risk of death by 57 percent in patients with a particularly tough late-stage leukemia.
Called Imbruvica, the pill is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use against a different blood cancer called mantle cell lymphoma, as well as for chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
(READ the full story from TODAY)
A Jacksonville Sheriff’s Officer responded to a burglary call to find a mother devastated because her son’s birthday presents were stolen from her car. Purchased with their tax refund, she had no money to replace the gifts.
Officer Derek Pratico wrote up the police report but before moving on to the next case he showed us all what community service looks like.
The next day he went to the store and purchased with his own money a toy police car, a birthday cake and card, and a Spiderman backpack. He brought it to the boy and also handed his mother a $100 gift card to “help her get back on her feet”.
The Sheriff’s office learned of the good deed a month afterward and asked to share Officer Pratico’s photo on its Facebook Page saying that everyone needed to know about his amazing heart.
The photo tallied more than 7,000 comments on Facebook, mostly thanking him for making a positive impact on the Jacksonville community.
RELATED: Policeman Buys Bed and Desk for Troubled Boy Who Had None
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The country’s top 100 electricity producers have reduced emissions of major pollutants in recent years, showing that they could likely handle the new limits on carbon dioxide coming soon from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to a new report.
The Wednesday report from corporate sustainability group Ceres found that the major producers reduced emissions of carbon dioxide 13 percent between 2008 and 2012. They’ve also significantly cut nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury.
(READ the full story from The Hill newspaper)
Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet at the Vatican and pray for peace together at an unprecedented gathering on June 8, the Vatican said on Thursday.
In one of his boldest political gestures since his election in March, 2013, Pope Francis invited the two leaders to come to the Vatican and hold a joint prayer meeting with him during the pontiff’s trip to the Holy Land last week.
(READ the Reuters story via Newsweek – Photo by the Catholic Church via Flickr – CC)
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, are donating $120 million to help public schools in underserved communities through their foundation, Startup: Education.
In her first-ever TV interview, Chan told NBC she and her husband felt it was important to invest in the school system where they live, work and volunteer — in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“The Bay Area is one of the most prosperous places in the world, but there are so many schools here that don’t have the resources they need,” said Zuckerberg in an announcement on Facebook. “Students from low income and minority backgrounds are the hardest hit, which means fewer end up graduating or attending college. Improving public education in our country and our community is something Priscilla and I really care about, and we want to change this.”
The funds will be used to encourage innovation in the classroom, train principals, and support new district and charter schools that give students more high quality choices for their education.
“We’ve listened to the needs of local educators and community leaders and we’re excited to support them,” concluded the statement.
In 2010, the couple agreed to donate $100 million to the chronically troubled public schools in the city of Newark, New Jersey. One of the positive outcomes of that, Zuckerberg says, is the new performance-based pay bonuses for the district’s best teachers.
(WATCH the video below or READ the story from TODAY)
Women in a refugee camp for Internally Displaced Persons in North Darfur receive English classes conducted by volunteer teachers and facilitated by the UN / African Union peacekeepers (UNAMID).
Nearly 100 women, mostly adult and mothers, attend these classes three times a week in a school in the camp with materials (exercise books, notebooks, blackboards and chalks) provided by the UNAMID police section.
Photo by Albert González Farran for UNAMID – February 2014
Thanks to tougher environmental standards, Europe’s 22,000 beaches are getting cleaner.
In a report released on Tuesday, the European Environment Agency said almost 95 percent of those swimming spots measured adequate water quality.
The number of European bathing areas with “excellent” water quality rose by 3.6 percentage points last year from 2012 levels to 82.6 percent.
(READ the AFP story in the Sydney Morning Herald)
