To benefit Walking for the Wounded, a charity to help men and women injured in military service, Prince Harry will join a group of wounded soldiers on an expedition to the South Pole.
The prince will join one of three teams leaving this weekend for a 200-mile race across the Antarctic Plateau.
Wounded warriors from as far away as North Carolina met the queen, shared laughs about the weather at the Pole and are currently participating in a LIVE ceremonial send-off in Trafalgar Square.
His death at 99, one of the last survivors of successful British battles of World War II, might have been a lonely service in an almost empty chapel. His friends were all gone and he had no children.
It seemed there would be no one to mourn Harold Jellicoe Percival except a handful of nursing home staff and a distant relative or two.
But on Monday, after a newspaper appeal led to an internet campaign highlighting the forgotten war veteran, hundreds of people who never knew him came to pay their respects at his funeral – poignantly held at 11am on Armistice Day, 11/11 (now Veterans Day in the US).
“We just wanted a handful of service members to be present,” said the funeral director who placed the ad. “It’s turned into something far more than we ever imagined.”
The small chapel was bursting at the seams with veterans wearing their medals, with hundreds having to wait in the rain. All brought special meaning to the Armistice Day moment of silence, a pledge to never forget.
(WATCH the video below or READ the story from the Daily Mail)
When Jerral Hancock came home from the Iraq war missing one arm and a paralyzed body that was burned all over, he was a hero to this Mojave Desert town.
But he was eventually forgotten.
Then the students in Jamie Goodreau’s U.S. history classes learned that Hancock had once got stuck in his modest mobile home for half a year when his handicapped-accessible van broke down, and that the hallways of his tiny house were so narrow he couldn’t get his wheelchair through most of them.
“They would fix that, Goodreau’s students decided, by building Hancock a new home from the ground up —one that is handicapped accessible,” reports the Associated Press. “It would be their end-of-the-year project.”
It’s six months later and the students have closed escrow on a $264,000 property.
(READ the AP story at the LA Times)
The International Fund for Animal Welfare arrived yesterday in Tacloban, the community in the Philippines hardest hit by Super Typhoon Haiyan to deliver animal relief packets for farm animals and pets.
The trained responders are working with local partner agency, the Philippines Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) to mobilize in the field and conduct an immediate animal needs assessment.
“The Philippines is facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Many of the grief-stricken communities live with farm and companion animals and have no way to provide for them now,” said Shannon Walajtys, IFAW Manager for Disasters. “IFAW is here working with our trusted partner PAWS to offer relief to humans and their animals in this their greatest time of need.”
In honor of Veteran’s Day Monday, Brad Aronson sent this great list of unique organizations that serve returning warriors.
From pets, to homes, to jobs to brides, Carolyn Blashek, founder of Operation Gratitude, may have summed up the interest in serving vets best:
“Serving those who serve us is both an expression of thanks from a grateful nation and a fitting tribute to our military heroes who inspire us to a cause greater than ourselves.”
(READ about the organizations at BradAronson.com)
As part of a special week of stories about who most inspired them, TODAY show co-host Hoda Kotb credits a stranger on an airplane for encouraging her to stop hiding her breast cancer journey.
“I decided to pick people who any one of us could have met, but if you turned right instead of turning left, you would have missed them,’’ Hoda said. “After a chance meeting, I truly hit the brakes and said, ‘Today is a game-changer in my life.’”
She met Ken Duane on a flight in 2007 while she was in the midst of a fight with breast cancer.
In 1983, Tom Hall was the 45th patient in the world to receive a lung transplant, but the first ever to survive more than a few days or weeks afterward. The 58-year-old lived more than six years after receiving the organ.
Grateful family members were reunited with the surgeon last week to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the historic operation in Toronto.
“Most people don’t recognize that Canada is No. 1 in some things and this [lung transplants] is one of them,” Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, director of the lung transplant program, said in an interview.
(WATCH the video below or READ the story from the CBC)
A Connecticut man bought a large desk from Craigslist and luckily it was too big to fit through the door.
“The desk did not fit into this office by fraction of an inch,” said Rabbi Noah Muroff.
He and his wife took the desk apart only to find a huge pile of cash hidden in a plastic bag behind the deep file drawers.
The original owner had hidden her father’s inheritance in the desk and it had fallen behind the drawers, which could not be taken out, according to the report from Vozisneias.com. She figured the bag must have been moved to another hiding place.
When the money was returned she offered a reward. “I do not think there are too many people in this world who would have done what you did,” she wrote in a thank you note.
The rabbi, who has four children, consulted with his spiritual advisor on what to do with a reward. Though uncomfortable with the idea of accepting anything in return for doing a good deed, the desk’s owner insisted — and she threw in a refund for the $200 he paid for the desk.
The rabbi decided to go public with the story so he could serve as an example of honesty.
(WATCH the video below, or READ the story from Times of Israel)
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carried three astronauts and the Olympic torch back to Earth on Monday after the torch was taken on its first spacewalk in the run-up to the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.
Russia’s Fyodor Yurchikhin “beamed” as he held up the silver-and-grey torch alongside his fellow Expedition 37 astronauts, American Karen Nyberg and Italian Luca Parmitano, after returning to central Kazakhstan from the International Space Station (ISS) following a 166-day mission.
The Olympic torch was launched to the station Nov. 6 and taken on a spacewalk Saturday as part of the official torch relay. This is the same torch that will be used to light the Olympic flame at the Fisht Stadium in Sochi, Russia, marking the start of the 2014 Winter Games in February.
Nyberg, Parmitano and Yurchikhin arrived at the station in May, and during their extended stay in space orbited Earth 2,656 times and traveled more than 70 million miles. Parmitano conducted a spacewalk in July, becoming the first Italian to walk in space.
The ISS has had continuous human occupation since November 2000. In that time it has been visited by more than 200 people and a variety of international and commercial spacecraft.
(READ the full story from Reuters)
Beyonce brought to life a dream-come-true for 13-year-old Sophie, who is blind and suffers from hearing and muscle difficulties.
During her concert in Perth, Australia on Friday, the megastar singled out the special young girl in the front row and sang a duet with her.
With a radiant smile on her face, Sophie sang the words to Irreplaceable, at her idol’s request.
Her sister Ellie had planned the meeting for seven months with the help of a children’s charity Hope For Children.
(READ the full story, w/ photos, from the Daily Mail)
[Editor’s Note: I couldn’t find a video of this online.]
Many of the 400 tourists left stranded in the island community of Coron in the Philippines have offered to help pack relief supplies, rather than simply waiting around for the airport to reopen following Typhoon Haiyan.
The Philippines News Agency said the mayor thanked the tourists who flocked to the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council Command Center to help pack relief goods slated for delivery to hundreds of residents.
From a beauty who battled breast cancer to an orphan breaking racial and religious barriers, some Miss Universe contestants brought with them heart-wrenching — yet inspiring — stories. They are among the 86 women from around the world who competed for the 2013 crown in Moscow Saturday.
For Miss Bulgaria, Veneta Krasteva (right), the road to Moscow has been a difficult one. Just over two years ago, at the age of 18, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Miss Bulgaria isn’t the only one who has faced adversity. Titi Yitayish Ayanaw, Miss Israel, is an Ethiopian-born orphan who moved to the country when she was only 12 years old.
As for other history-makers, 25-year-old Moe Set Wine is the first Miss Universe contestant to represent the historically war-torn nation of Myanmar in 53 years.
(READ the full story from TODAY)
A teenager brought his classmates to tears at a school assembly that was later broadcast by a documentary in Britain.
“Educating Yorkshire” placed cameras and videographers around the school, which captured powerful moments for the short TV series.
Musharaf Asgar endured years of bullying due to his stammering. But, one day a teacher tried the remedy that was hailed in “The King’s Speech” film.
Once the boy put on headphones playing music in his ears, his stammer subsided dramatically. The excitement of the breakthrough and the subsquent speech before the school was all filmed for the show.
(WATCH the video below)
Little Emmileah Anderson was so shocked to hear that some children don’t get any gifts, she decided she didn’t want any either.
So the six-year-old schoolgirl penned a touching letter to Santa, requesting that her toys be given to “the children that don’t have any”.
She hasn’t stopped there, and has decided that she also wants to raise as much money as possible for charity this festive season.
– READ the story from the Surrey Mirror
– Visit her Facebook fundraising page
The cellphone has become more of a tool and less of a toy, especially among the poor, and those trying to help them, in emerging markets. It helps deliver, via text message, water, energy, financial services, health care and even education.
More than 2.5 billion have no access to toilets. Yet according to the International Telecommunications Union, 96 percent of the world is connected via cellphone — which is why it has become a means of doing good.
(READ the article in the NY Times)
Taryn Thompson was astonished and grateful when strangers helped find her lost family heirloom. It was a special ring that her grandmother Louise Thompson left her after she passed away in 2007. As reported by WLEX 18 News, the western Kentucky student was attending a wedding in Lexington when she stopped into the Gratz Park Inn to freshen up.
That’s when she must have lost the ring… but, no one at the hotel could find it.
Roger Wilday, 68, was walking German Shepherd Jade in Stechford when she inexplicably raced to bushes, then lay down next to what looked like a discarded carrier bag – and refused to return to him.
As the senior moved closer he realized what the loyal family pet had discovered — and would not leave alone — a newborn baby, who has now been named after her four-legged rescuer, Jade.
The Birmingham Mail reported Roger saying, ‘‘I walked over and saw a carrier bag – then I saw it move. I thought it was a bag of kittens, but then I saw her little arms and a head, and the baby started to cry.’’
(READ the full story in the Birmingham Mail)
The Brookfield Zoo in Chicago welcomed the birth of a female western lowland gorilla. The infant, born to 18-year-old Koola, was born on November 4, weighing almost 5 pounds.
The two can be seen on exhibit in Tropic World: Africa, along with Koola’s daughter Kamba, 9; Koola’s mother Binti, 25; and JoJo, 33, the sire of the infant.
See more pictures of momma and baby at the the Brookfield Zoo FB Photo page.
(WATCH a video from the zoo below)
The World Bank on Wednesday said its private sector arm issued about $165 million in ‘women’s bonds’ in the first such sale by the development lender specifically aimed at raising money for businesses owned or run by women in emerging markets.
Bonds tied to social or environmental targets are part of a new trend in social finance, according to Reuters.
This follows the World Bank’s sale of several billion dollars in “green bonds” over the past five years, whose proceeds go to help countries cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change.
(READ the story from Reuters)
Never underestimate the power of a makeover.
This homeless veteran held a negative self-image of himself and suffered from alcoholism.
Watch the transformation after he gets a haircut, shave and new clothes from the Degage Ministries. He suddenly can see some potential in his life — and now he is making the changes needed to get back on track.
The video was released along with an online fundraising campaign that has raised more than $8,800 dollars of its ten thousand dollar goal.
WATCH the video below… Click for information about donating to the Degage Ministries.
