A 96-Year-old man, heartbroken by the loss of his wife, wrote down some song lyrics for his “Sweet Lorraine,” and sent them to a singer-songwriter contest he saw in his Illinois newspaper.
Green Shoe Studios in East Peoria was so touched by Fred Stobaugh’s letter, that they decided to record the song for him as a testament to his long lost love.
In a tangle of forgotten, overgrown brush in the heart of India’s capital, a quiet plan has been hatched to change the landscape of one of the world’s most populous cities.
An intricate Mughal garden is being created. Crumbling sandstone tombs nearly lost to history are being rebuilt. An artificial lake is being carved out. The renovation of Sunder Nursery is intended to serve as the catalyst for an even more ambitious project: the creation of a mammoth, iconic park that would rival New York’s Central Park as a refuge from urban chaos.
Some tiny beings may have set up residence along a forest trail in Overland Park, Kansas, or at least that’s what city workers think.
The city doesn’t know who is building the intricate “gnome homes” that feature miniature hand-crafted doors at the bottom of trees, little tables and place settings, and tiny welcome mats.
There is a good reason that the motto at one primary school in Perth, Australia extols the sentiment, “I got your back”.
When a roomful of young teens, grade 6 and 7, heard their teacher read a story about the youngest Australian soldier to be killed in Afghanistan, and how his mother was grieving, they wanted to reach out with love and support.
Each of the 32 students wrote a letter or designed a card reminding Suzanne Thomas that her eldest son James didn’t die in vain and offering their love and support in any way needed.
“Dear Ms Thomas. When you’re feeling down about this tragedy, just remember all the hugs he gave you (and) that no matter what, he loves you,” wrote Jade Hancock.
They all offered Suzanne advice, telling her to stay strong and be proud.
After hearing their teacher read the story, it made them want to go home and hug their own mothers.
Among the red eyes and sniffles the kids said they wanted to let Suzanne know they “had her back”.
Suzanne was so moved that she arranged to make the long drive out to the foothills of Perth’s Darling Range to visit the class, where 32 classmates waiting excitedly to meet her.
(WATCH the story below, or READ the story – and see the letters – in the Herald Sun / PerthNow.com)
The International Interior Design Association recently selected the McAllen Public Library as the winner of their 2012 Library Interior Design Competition.
The city inherited the former Wal-Mart after the retailer closed the store and abandoned it. The decision was made to reuse the structure and create a new main library within.
A centrally located area painted bright orange contains all the service amenities.
Though the city just filed the biggest municipal bankruptcy in history, its decline is opening up opportunities. Jason Zogg is currently refurbishing a big art deco building, re-purposing a parking lot into a park, and conceiving a master-plan for the neighborhood where he works as an urban planner. He’s only 28.
A 27-year-old Japanese shop-assistant dons a superhero disguise in his spare time in order to help strangers maneuvering the dimly lit stairs of a Tokyo subway station which has no escalators or lifts.
For three months, Tadahiro Kanemasu has used his green suit, with silver trim, to protect his identity as he helps the elderly and people lugging heavy bags or stollers.
“Japanese people find it hard to offer or accept help because they feel indebted to the person,” he explained.
Fifty years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. offered a transcendent vision of racial harmony for America’s future with his “I Have a Dream” speech, tens of thousands gathered where he spoke Saturday to hear leaders tell them that while much has been attained, much remains unfinished.
“Dreams are for those who won’t accept reality as it is, so they dream of what is not there and make it possible,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, an event organizer, told the throngs that pulsated with enthusiasm — laughing, cheering, nodding and clapping.
Three years ago, a Chinese farmer packed his worldly possessions into a rusty rickshaw, and, after pedaling 37,500 miles (60,000 km) through 16 countries and more than 1,700 cities, arrived in London.
Chen Guanming, a 58-year-old from Jiangsu Province in eastern China, is a huge fan of all things Olympics, so he decided to pedal his rickshaw all the way from China to “promote the Olympic spirit” and see the London 2012 opening ceremony.
The ever-smiling Chen decided one global trek to an Olympic venue was not enough. A friend found a shipping company willing to transport his rickshaw to Canada, so he can begin pedaling across the Americas to Brazil in time for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro games.
Even though he only speaks Mandarin, and just a few words of English, the man told the BBC he will keep going. “This is my job now, to tell the people of the world about the Olympics and about peace.”
(READ the story w/ many photos, from the BBC)
Photo credits: (top) xpgomes11 via Flickr – CC
(bottom) R. Schofield via Flickr – CC
A boy who lost his mother to cancer has had a life-size statue built in his image out of Lego, after the toymaker hailed him as a hero for his charity work.
Jack Covill-Lowndes was honored for raising thousands of pounds for the hospice that cared for mother Steph.
The ten-year-old from Wainfleet, Lincolnshire gets to take home the statue – made of 35,000 bricks.
A smartphone app is now diagnosing cataracts and other eye-related problems for people in developing countries.
The Portable Eye Examination Kit (Peek) includes an app-based diagnosis tool and clip-on hardware to examine cataracts and retina problems.
Peek Vision can be used to examine the retina at the back of the eye and the images can be transmitted to experts anywhere in the world.
(WATCH the video or READ the story in the CBC)
The British Heart Foundation has released figures that reveal a huge 83 per cent drop in the number of children dying from congenital heart disease – birth defects of the heart – over the last three decades.
Progress in diagnosis, intricate surgery and post-op care has created the first generation to enjoy high survival rates for major heart defects. There are so many survivors that a new speciality – adult congenital heart monitoring – has emerged to treat them in later life.
A dreamed-up doughnut that melds together chocolate, caramel and pecans has earned its inventor $10,000.
Andrew Shepherd, from Hamilton, was crowned the winner on Monday after beating out 63,000 entries in a Tim Hortons contest.
The 39-year-old chose a “classic-flavor combination” and named it The Tortoise Torte.
Winning the Tim Hortons cash means that he is going to take his wife to Switzerland — which he could never afford — so they can savor the national specialties of cheese and chocolate, his two favorite foods/
(READ the story from CBC)
Executives at a Minneapolis advertising agency founded 7 years ago, decided to give each of their 18 employees a free summer. Each was given paid leave and full benefits for 12 weeks to do something meaningful.
“I think people were stunned more than anything else,” says Stuart D’Rozario, the president and creative director of Barrie, D’Rozario, Murphy, who first had the idea.
Partnering with 40 hotels and dozens of businesses, Judson Kinnucan, 37, has made it his mission to collect their donated items, like surplus shampoos and toilet paper, and get them to charities in need.
Every month, Kinnucan delivers about 200 pounds of donated shampoo, conditioner and lotion and about 1,000 rolls of toilet paper to homeless shelters Chicago. In three years, that’s more than $20,000 worth of products just to this one charity — for free.
A “Dance for Your Meds” party is just one of the reasons the Ronald McDonald Camp for kids with cancer is more of a raucous party than a quiet hike in the woods.
Camp Wellness Center, which children attend with their healthier siblings, teaches that almost anything can be fun — including helping others who might be going through a tougher time than you.
To protect bees and other pollinators, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed new pesticide labels that prohibit use of some neonicotinoid pesticide products where bees are present.
The new labels will have a bee hazard icon and precautions about the spray drift precautions, but environmentalists say they will push the agency to remove these pesticides from the market altogether.
New York photographer Richard Rinaldi has embarked on a remarkable photo project called “Touching Strangers”. He wanders the streets of major cities looking for strangers willing to pair up for photographs that look as if the subjects are loving family members.
After Rinaldi arranges his strangers side-by-side, face-to-face, or kneeling beside — always with hands touching — a transformation takes place. “I felt like I cared for her,” a poetry teacher, Brian Sneeden, told CBS after he agreed to pose with a 95-year-old stranger.
“We think these great photographs have something positive to say about human connection . . . about a diverse society in which people have been taught not to touch each other but in which we can and do transcend the boundaries set around us,” said Chris Boot, the director of Aperture, a nonprofit foundation that wanted to publish a book of Touching Strangers.
Renaldi received his BFA in photography from New York University. Exhibits of his photographs have been mounted in galleries and museums throughout the U.S., Asia, and Europe.
–WATCH the Kickstarter video and CBS video at bottom, READ the story from Steve Hartman)
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In Canada, a significant portion of Banff’s grizzly bears are using the 23 underground wildlife crossings to safely get across the busy 4-lane Trans-Canada Highway and access important habitat, according to a new landmark study.
The “encouraging” study identified 15 individual grizzly bears and 17 individual black bears that used the highway crossings over a three-year period — close to 20 per cent of the estimated population.
More than 90 low-income students in Seattle will be boarding buses together on a shopping trip for back-to-school clothes because of the generosity of a one woman who has no children of her own.
For a decade, Mrs. Jean Renny has been donating money to the Salvation Army so that kids could buy what they need for the new school year. This year she is giving $20,000 for the shopping spree.
