The owner of Fox’s Pizza, Tom Wynkoop, who earned media attention in early January after he volunteered to deliver their medicines to any homebound residents during an extreme snow storm in Pennsylvania, received many donations in the mail from strangers who heard about the gesture.
One man called from Nebraska, saying he wanted to buy a local stranger dinner. A minister from New Mexico sent a letter saying he used the story to begin his sermon. A thumbs-up came from Denmark.
Wynkoop thought about positive avenues in which to distribute the money, and he chose the local Meals on Wheels program, which delivers hot meals to shut-ins. He then matched the donations, doubling the amount of the check to $2,000.
Youth around the world have managed to turn a dangerous and deadly viral drinking game into random acts of kindness that have most recently turned infectious on university campuses in Canada.
It started when a man in South African decided to give away a sandwich to a homeless guy, rather than continue the drinking-dare game for which his friends had nominated him publicly, called NekNominations.
This one alternative act inspired European youth to begin nominating each other to do good deeds while recording videos of themselves being kind. Random Act of Kindness RAK Nominations were born.
The Canadian version currently captivating students on campuses like McGill University is called Feed the Deed.
University of Ottawa medical student Josh Stern saw someone abroad use their nomination for a good deed and he decided to do the same. Feed the Deed has spread exponentially and into other countries, like the US and Mexico, with Stern estimating that more than 1,000 good deeds were recorded in only a couple of weeks.
#FeedTheDeed videos are being tagged and posted on a Facebook Page run by Kindness Counts, a foundation run by Russell Citron and other university students along with high school leaders since 2012.
(WATCH a Feed the Deed moment by a random Canadian)
An Australian group, Clowns Without Borders, travels the world on a mission bringing smiles to the faces of children in refugee camps and natural disaster zones.
They recently returned to the Philippines after performing for thousands who were recovering from Typhoon Haiyan.
Thirty people braved the Minnesota cold to ask the local Home Depot Hardware store to “show bees some love” on Valentine’s Day.
Babies in bee suits, beekeepers on bicycles, and a slew of other Minnesotans were eager to urge home garden stores to stop selling bee-harming neonicotinoid pesticides — and plants pre-treated with “neonics.” Retailers like Home Depot have a unique opportunity to act as industry leaders by taking these products, known to endanger bees, off their shelves.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture is currently reviewing neonics. After 50,000 bumblebees died in Wilsonville, Oregon last year, a bill to restrict neonics made significant progress through the Oregon legislature. And in Congress, new co-sponsors continue to sign on to the Save America’s Pollinator Act.
Vancouver is rated first among North American cities for quality of life, in a closely watched annual survey, followed by Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal in second, third and fourth places. San Francisco won the fifth spot.
On a global basis, once again, the top city in the world for quality of life is Vienna. Zurich is second, followed by the New Zealand city of Auckland and then Munich. Vancouver clinches fifth place.
Independent bookstores, with their paper-thin profit margins and competition from Amazon, have found a sugar daddy in the person of famous author, James Patterson.
The best-selling author has started a program to give away $1 million of his personal fortune to dozens of bookstores, allowing them to invest in improvements, dole out bonuses to employees and expand programs, especially for children.
More than 50 stores across the country will begin receiving cash grants this week.
Corrections officials in the New York State prison system Wednesday took a major step toward reform by agreeing to new guidelines for the maximum length prisoners may be placed in solitary.
The state will also curb the use of solitary for the most vulnerable groups of inmates: those younger than 18 will receive at least five hours of exercise and other programming outside their cell five days a week, making New York the largest prison system yet to end the most extreme form of isolation for juveniles.
Last Friday the biggest snowstorm of the last decade hit the Tokyo area. Some of the worst off were drivers along the Chuo Expressway that runs through mountainous Yamanashi region into Tokyo.
39 inches of snow (100 cm) stopped cars and trucks in their tracks, enough that the driver of a bakery truck decided, since the delivery could not likely be completed by the sell-by date, he would give away all the pastries and breads to those stuck on the roadway.
He posted this on Twitter: “To anyone by the exit of the Otsuki Interchange: We have a full load of bread that is about to expire in the truck parked by the exit. We are handing it out to whoever wants it, so please come.”
Soon hungry motorists were flocking to the back of the truck.
A man in Minnesota saw a Facebook post about some deer stuck on the ice in the middle of a frozen lake.
The exhausted animals had been sprawled out there for a couple days, so James pretty much became a hero when he and his dad used their hovercraft vehicles to stage a rescue.
They shot video with a GoPro camera recording their unique life-saving antics atop icy Albert Lea Lake.
Unemployed, in debt and facing another year living on the streets in Hungary, László Andraschek spent his last remaining coins on a lottery ticket. Now the formerly homeless man has a choice of accommodation around the world after becoming one of Hungary’s biggest lottery winners, with a prize of about $2.8 million.
Now, the 55-year-old recovering alcoholic plans to use his winnings to establish a foundation for addicts and women abused by their husbands.
Bode Miller, who sat out all of last season recovering from knee surgery, hadn’t won an alpine race in more than two years and had bombed out last week in the downhill and super-combined, roared down the mountain at Sochi with reckless abandon, nearly losing control, risking all, just barely keeping it together enough to make it to the finish line.
It was the kind of aggressive style that had produced five previous Olympic medals, and on Sunday Miller’s sixth, a record for U.S. mens skiers.
The 36-year-old also became the oldest of any country’s alpine skiers to win an Olympic medal.
A children’s charity in Norway set up an experiment to see what people near a bus stop would do if there were a boy sitting alone on the bench shivering.
The heart-warming video of men taking off their coats for the boy — and women giving their gloves, scarves and hoodies — was posted on YouTube today along with a plea to help other children, especially the children of Syria.
In some Palestinian communities yoga is being introduced for the first time as a way to reduce stress and create a sense of connectedness.
Adults already active in youth and community development are undertaking the pioneering task of introducing yoga into the local culture.
“In Palestine, the continued stress is effecting individuals and community relationships in a way that is driving people apart,” said one trainee at the Olive Tree Yoga Foundation’s Teacher Training. “We believe that sharing the practice and the core principals of yoga can help reconnect people in a beautiful way.“
The Foundation, located in Beit Jala, just outside of Bethlehem, tries to overcome logistical challenges and restricted travel to gather as many as possible from this conflict zone, both men and women, to become certified teachers.
“Too often we tend to focus on what we don’t have, as opposed to what we do have,” according to one student whose life was changed dramatically after he was struck by a reckless driver. “I want people to understand that life is a gift.”
He’d like to wake up, walk outside, and gaze at the blue sky, get into his car, and drive to the gym. But now he’s blind and all he can see is blackness, and there will never be a car in his driveway.
Music has helped Gabe recover from the devastating accident, which occurred a year after graduating from Rutgers University. Playing guitar helped him remain positive enough that he started speaking to groups, inspiring them with his story.
“Time is something you can never get back,” he says. “So if you have an opportunity, or a door opens, walk through it.”
He has given more than 60 talks throughout the state to juvenile delinquents, and middle and high school students, and whenever he speaks during an assembly, you can hear a pin drop.
He tells the students who can’t wait to get behind the wheel that crashes such as the one that left him blind can be prevented. He refuses to call it an accident because that implies it wasn’t the result of reckless behavior.
“Even though I’m very aware of what’s been taken away, I also see it as an opportunity to help save lives and to empower people.”
Except for his guitar playing—a passion that has ignited him since he was six years old—everything was taken away in an instant by a teenager celebrating the last day of high school. But a door was opened. A new opportunity was presented that wouldn’t have been there before.
“Considering that in four and a half years so much has happened, who knows where this is going to go?” says Gabe.
The giant solar receiver installed on a wheat field here in California’s agricultural heartland slowly rotates to track the sun and capture its energy. The 377-foot array, however, does not generate electricity but instead creates heat used to desalinate water.
It is part of a project developed by a San Francisco area start-up called WaterFX that is tapping an abundant, if contaminated, resource in this parched region: the billions of gallons of water that lie just below the surface.
The modular, solar-thermal water system can treat and desalinate any water source, including drainage water. The technology not only restores the dirty salty water to pure H20, it recovers all the minerals, salts, and fertilizers for reuse.
This video is an homage to the stellar song by Pharrell Williams, called I’m HAPPY.
Shot on the streets of Belfast, in Northern Ireland, happy people dance to the catchy tune, including the staff at The Spaniard & Muriel’s cafe and bar, who funded the video.
Gabbie and Alice are second graders at the George J. Mitchell School in Waterville, Maine, a school that, based on the number of students receiving free or reduced lunch, is one of the poorest in the state.
Last year, the school, in an effort to prevent evening and weekend hunger among its students and their families, opened a no-questions-asked food pantry IN the school.
Best friends Gabbie and Alice, wanting to help, so they decided to hold a joint 8th birthday party, and ask for donations to the food pantry, instead of gifts.
They came from all walks of US life – Girl Scouts troops, National Guard units, financial planning offices – to spend three days packing food for thousands of hungry children they will never meet.
Two Million Meals, the brainchild of a Detroit-area pastor, resulted in 8,810 volunteers putting together 2.02 million meals to be shipped to El Salvador, Haiti and the Philippines.
The mixtures of rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and 21 vitamins and minerals will provide one meal a day for a year to 5,560 children.
A Minnesota clothier spared no expense after a customer forgot his wedding pants in a changing room and flew off to get married in Costa Rica.
FedEx, UPS, and airline package services couldn’t help, so Judd Frost put his 32-year-old daughter on a plane to hand-deliver the $500 tan gabardine suit pants.
“I didn’t want them to try and find something else. He is really hard to fit. He’s a big kid,” said the businessman who opened Judd Frost Clothiers in 1994 along Lake Street in Wayzata, Minnesota.
As two female venture capitalists, Jennifer Fonstad and Theresia Gouw are a rare breed in Silicon Valley. As a team, they launched a firm this month with their own fortunes, based on the fact that diversity will boost investment returns at the new Aspect Ventures.
A number of research studies have shown that diversity isn’t just a socially important goal–it also makes financial sense. For example, one analysis of more than 20,000 venture-backed companies in the U.S. showed that successful startups had more women in top positions than failed startups. Another study showed that public companies with more women on the board have significantly better financial performance.
The owner of Fox’s Pizza, Tom Wynkoop, who earned media attention in early January after he volunteered to deliver their medicines to any homebound residents during an extreme snow storm in Pennsylvania, received many donations in the mail from strangers who heard about the gesture.
