At 2 1/2 years old, Hannah Warren has never played outside — or been able to breathe, talk, eat or drink on her own.
She was born without a windpipe, a rare congenital condition that kept her hospitalized for her entire life in a neonatal intensive care unit, where a tube from her mouth to her lung kept her alive.
Like so many others, Kenny Chesney watched the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings with “incredulity and horror.” The country star didn’t know what to do, but he wanted to help.
He talked to some Boston folks and decided to help fund and support prosthetics for the people who were having or would ultimately need amputations.
At the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi late last week, the world’s two richest men made a bit of philanthropic history. Carlos Slim announced his foundation will donate $100 million to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a new effort organized by the Gates Foundation to eliminate polio.
In celebration of National Park Week, the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund presented a $500,000 grant last week to help connect kids to nature through America’s national parks.
Disney’s investment will go specifically to the National Park Foundation’s “Ticket to Ride” program, which helps students explore the outdoors by providing field trips to national parks around the country.
(TODAY) Nick Santillo’s rare heart defect has kept him in and out of hospitals since he was an infant. The eight-year-old, who was born with only half the chambers in his heart, had his wish granted this morning when the TODAY show arranged for him to meet his hero, WWE champion wrestler John Cena.
NBA player Jason Collins, 34 came out as the first openly gay professional athlete in America, drawing surprise and praise from fans and teammates. (2013, US News)
Autism left 8-year-old Jonny Hickey closed off and isolated. Most of his social interactions resulted in painful awkwardness; unfamiliar situations can trigger terror or tantrums.
Then, about two months ago, everything changed. Jonny forged a connection with a dog so unlikely that people familiar with it describe it as a miracle.
A generous gift is making life more enjoyable for children at UNC Children’s Hospital. It’s a video game built with the same materials as real race cars. The special ride won’t be found in any arcade; Mark Smith designed it specifically with patients like Dylan in mind.
Dylan Price, 15, of Greensboro, was the first in a pediatric cancer clinic at UNC to take the “Dream Racer” for a spin.
He forgot all about his connection to the IV drip as he climbed inside the lime green racing simulator.
“It’s like an actual driving car and everything,” he told WRAL-TV. “It feels like you’re actually in a car.”
Such playtime may even boost the healing process. According to an article in Pravda entitled, “The importance of the playroom in children’s healing,” Brazil makes it mandatory through federal law that all hospitals offer playrooms for children.
Bees are vital — because of their pollination in the fields — to any nation’s food production and to Europe’s agricultural industry worth €22 billion annually.
That’s why Europe has voted to enforce the world’s first continent-wide ban on common insecticides linked to serious harm in bees.
At select coffee shops around the world you can get your morning caffeine fix and at the same time do a kind deed for someone in the community.
Buying a “Suspended Coffee” means purchasing an extra cup at the time you are paying, which can be claimed later by anyone who walks in from the street who may be unable to afford one. The barristas keep track of how many Suspended Coffees have been bought and serve them for free upon request.
The movement has been growing in popularity since it began in Italy several years ago, and has already been embraced by hundreds of coffee shops around the world.
Now, Starbucks has announced it will be adopting a version of the scheme in the UK, but with drinks being distributed by charity partners around the communities.
The movement is being documented on a blog called Suspendedcoffeeglobal.com — and, lately, on a Facebook page set up to promote the idea.
(WATCH the video at the BBC)
Hollywood celebrities, political bigwigs and journalists shared dinner and laughs last night at the 2013 White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, DC.
Conan O’Brien hosted the evening but the highlight of the night was the 20 minutes of stand-up comedy when President Obama joked about himself, the second term, Republican leaders, and Jay-Z.
Mark Horvath is thanking a social media company for saving his life.
“I genuinely believe that if it wasn’t for Twitter – I’d be back on the streets – or worse.”
The truth is: social media helps fight homelessness in many ways including helping people find housing.
Now a homeless advocate, Horvath started using social media to fight poverty around the time when he ran out of money after 19 months of unemployment.
“My house was being foreclosed on and I could not find work anywhere. It was a very dark time in my life.”
(READ his story on his website InvisiblePeople, WATCH his video below)
U.S. economic growth accelerated to an annual rate of 2.5 percent from January through March, buoyed by the strongest consumer spending in more than two years.
Consumer spending surged at an annual rate of 3.2 percent, the Commerce Department said Friday. Business spending also expanded along with home construction.
It’s been more than 300 days since 9-year-old Vivienne Harr of California first started selling lemonade in an effort to help end child slavery. Having collected $500,000 in donations, Vivienne and her family are taking her business to the next level by bottling the precious product for the masses.
The proceeds from Vivienne’s Make A Stand Lemon-aid and its online equivalent, www.makeastandlemonade.com, go to Free the Slaves; Not For Sale; the Nepal Youth Foundation; and GEMS: Girls Educational and Mentoring Services.
Jim Abbott was born with only one hand.
Despite the impairment, he won an Olympic gold medal, played professional baseball, pitched a no-hitter, wrote a bestselling memoir and has impacted the lives of thousands of people through his inspirational talks.
With all of that success, Jim still enthusiastically recounts how one of his greatest inspirations came from his third grade teacher.
(READ the story from Brad Aronson’s blog)
Richard and Laura Howard encountered a pod of Killer Whales that began following their speedboat at top speed, playfully jumping in the wake and spraying the couple for almost 30 minutes.
Richard has long been photographing marine life posting his photos at www.oceansofimages.com. But on the occasion of their 20th wedding anniversary, it was his wife who captured the jovial orca whales — nearly 20 of them — while diving off the coast of in La Paz, Mexico.
(WATCH the videos below)
More than 110 underprivileged students from Africa will get to study at the University of British Columbia thanks to a $25 million donation from MasterCard Foundation.
“This transformative grant will help support a new generation of African leaders and will enhance UBC and Canada’s connections with Africa for the future,” said UBC president Stephen Toope, in a statement.
This extends to Canada the MasterCard Foundation’s worldwide program aimed at educating talented students from economically disadvantaged communities in Africa so they can lead change at home.
Need a power source when you’re camping or during a black-out? Heat up this pot on a fire or burner and it can turn the heat into useful electricity for powering USB devices.
The PowerPot is the invention of two graduates from the University of Utah, who built the original prototype using an old pan and materials bought on EBay.
The Czech Republic plans to donate $200,000 to help the Texas town of West recover from a devastating fertilizer plant explosion.
The government decided to provide the aid in solidarity because a significant number of people in the town of 2,700 have Czech roots.
The UK is becoming a more peaceful place with rates of violent crime and murder falling more rapidly in the past decade any other Western European country, researchers say.
Violent crime overall was down by a quarter in the decade ending in 2012, and murders were cut in half, according to the UK Peace Index, a report compiled by the Sydney-based Institute for Economics and Peace.
