Nearly 21 years ago, Patty Webster landed her dream job as an adventure tour guide in the Amazon jungles of Peru. But as she shared the area’s beauty and culture with tourists, she realized there was no medical service to native people in this rainforest paradise.
Since 1993, Webster has been bringing medical relief to some of Peru’s poorest and most remote areas through her nonprofit, now known as Amazon Promise.
WATCH the video below, or read at CNN Heroes…
Courtney joined the bone marrow registry as an undergrad at Georgia Tech. It was a quick process, a swab to her cheek. Two years later, she found out she was the only match out of 13 million donors on the registry for a father in his 50’s who would otherwise die of leukemia.
Courtney underwent the simple two-hour procedure, which she described as easy as giving blood. The hardest part for Scott, was finding the words to say thank you to a stranger who saved his life..
The bone marrow donor system is the only way to beat the horrific disease of leukemia. The story of a dying man and a grad student half a world away, who gave ten minutes of her time as a donor, illustrates how easy it would be to successfully treat leukemia and other blood diseases if everyone registered as a bone marrow donor.
Go to www.marrow.org to sign-up to be a marrow donor.
Watch the video below, or read the story at 11-Alive Atlanta…
Even a staid men’s choir can step out once in a while.
Watch as the Cottontown Chorus surprises their audience by belting out ‘Fat-Bottomed Girls” by Queen.
The chorus was formed in 1979 and has been the British Barbershop Champions three times in the last five years.
(Thanks to Nic DePalma for the link!)
Even a staid men’s choir can step out once in a while.
Watch as the Cottontown Chorus surprises their audience by belting out ‘Fat-Bottomed Girls” by Queen.
The chorus was formed in 1979 and has been the British Barbershop Champions three times in the last five years.
(Thanks to Nic DePalma for the link!)
A college student received an honor Tuesday night for her selfless actions after receiving a phone call that according to authorities helped save the life of an elderly Richmond woman.
While the student didn’t know the woman who rang her in the middle of the night from hundreds of miles away last month, the two people are now forever linked by the fateful call.
(WATCH the video below, or READ the story at KTVU.com)
More than 170,000 troubled homeowners are breathing a lasting sigh of relief now that they’ve received permanent modifications under the Obama administration’s foreclosure prevention program.
Another 835,000 people are currently in trial modifications, a review period during which banks check whether borrowers can make the reduced payments.
The number of people receiving permanent help has been steadily rising as the administration increases the pressure on mortgage servicers to make decisions on those in the trial phase.
(READ the story at CNN.money)
In Honduras, Ana Carolina Ebanks was a public defender. But when she immigrated to the United States six years ago, the career did not come with her. Today, she has a job on the campus of American University, a short walk from its law school. She works in the student dining hall, making burritos, because of her lack of English-speaking skills.
But now Ebanks has help in her bid to resume her law career. Through a program called Community Learners Advancing in Spanish and English, or CLASE, AU students are teaching English to the workers who clean their dorm rooms and cook their meals. Students meet the employees where they work, or in dorm lounges and conference rooms, to eat, drink and conjugate.
(READ the story in the Washington Post)
The World Bank on Thursday approved a record $1.05 billion line of credit to help get more children into schools in India, the largest ever investment in education by the poverty-fighting institution.
“This is going to be a game-changer for a number of the poorest households in India, who until now have been out of the system,” Carlson told Reuters.
Since that program’s launch in 2002, school enrollments have increased significantly.
(READ the story in Reuters)
Cheetahs have returned to a national park in Angola, after a three-decade civil war devastated their former habitat, according to a conservation group based in Namibia.
The cheetah’s prey of deer and oryx have also returned to the 3.8 million acre reserve in the years since peace was declared in 2002.
(READ AP story in Huffington Post)
Federal workers Lisa Grimm and Brian Norton were honored Monday by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association for guiding Doug White and his family to safety on April 12, 2009, when the pilot of their plane died during a flight.
Talking on the radio was the one bit of knowledge that may have saved White’s life — and the lives of his wife and two daughters who were with him. The controllers could hear the panic in his voice.
(READ the story in the Washington Post)
For the first time in twenty-three years, a religious Sikh was allowed to complete officer training for the U.S. Army after he was issued an individual exemption.
Capt. Tejdeep Singh Rattan, 31, was allowed to serve without sacrificing the turban and full beard mandated by his faith. An immigrant from India who arrived in New York as a teenager, Rattan said it was important for him to serve a country that has given him so many opportunities.
(READ More in the Huffington Post)
By nickels, dimes, and dollars, Americans donated a record $139 million to the Salvation Army’s Red Kettle campaign during the holidays, despite a continued economic slump.
The tally represents a seven percent increase over the record set in 2008 of $130 million, and comes at a time when demand for social services has skyrocketed.
“America is an incredibly generous nation and philanthropy is alive and well, despite the current economic conditions impacting so many,” said Commissioner Israel L. Gaither, national commander of the Salvation Army, Religion News Service reports. “We are grateful for every donor, volunteer and corporate partner for supporting the Salvation Army’s mission during a time when some have so little to give.”
Researchers in Japan have designed a super-elastic iron alloy which they hope can be used in sophisticated heart and brain surgeries and even buildings in earthquake zones.
In a paper published on Friday in the journal Science, the researchers said the metal’s super-elasticity allows it to return to its original form and gives it additional properties, such as ductility and a change in magnetization.
(READ More in article from Reuters)
As soon as President Obama signs the historic health care legislation that passed in the U.S. Congress, the American people will see immediate benefits, including a guarantee that children can get health insurance — even if they have a pre-existing illness — and a measure that would let young adults stay on their parents’ policies until they turn 26.
The legislation will (either now, or in six months to one year):
Many of the plan’s most important benefits won’t kick in until 2014. Those include the guarantee that anyone can buy insurance; the exchanges where individuals and small businesses can shop for policies — and the subsidies to help pay for them.
As soon as President Obama signs the historic health care legislation passed by Congress tonight, the American people will see immediate benefits, including a guarantee that children can get health insurance — even if they have a pre-existing illness — and a measure that would let young adults stay on their parents’ policies until they turn 26.
The legislation will (either now, or in six months to one year):
Many of the plan’s most important benefits won’t kick in until 2014. Those include the guarantee that anyone can buy insurance; the exchanges where individuals and small businesses can shop for policies — and the subsidies to help pay for them.
Englewood’s Urban Prep Academy for Young Men in Chicago has fulfilled its lofty mission within four years: 100 percent of its first senior class has been accepted to four-year colleges or universities.
Mayor Richard Daley and Chicago schools chief Ron Huberman surprised students at a school assembly recently with congratulations, and school leaders announced that as a reward, their senior prom would be free.
107 seniors at the all-boy, all-African-American school gained acceptance from 72 different colleges, including Northwester, Morehouse College, Howard University, Rutgers and DePaul University.
READ the good news in the Chicago Tribune…
(This is one of the happiest stories I have ever read. – Lynn)
Gashaw Tahir, an American citizen, traveled back to his birth country of Ethiopia to find the green hills that surrounded his home eroded and stripped bare from deforestation. So he decided to do something extraordinary: Plant one million trees.
He hired 450 young people and changed the ecology of his country.
WATCH the video below…
Gashaw Tahir, an American citizen, traveled back to his birth country of Ethiopia to find the green hills that surrounded his home eroded and stripped bare from deforestation. So he decided to do something extraordinary: Plant one million trees.
He hired 450 young people and changed the ecology of his country.
WATCH the video below…
With her many good deeds, Angelina Jolie is quietly becoming a modern-day Mother Teresa, particularly in her role as Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency.
18 months ago, she visited a settlement for refugees returning to Afghanistan, mostly from Pakistan. The families shared with her their concerns about a lack of educational facilities in the area.
Now, people are celebrating the new primary school for girls, opened after Angelina donated the necessary $75,000 to construct the campus.
Inaugurated on Thursday in time for the start of the school year next Monday, the school in eastern Afghanistan features eight classrooms, four administration buildings, a well and eight latrines, the school can accommodate up to 800 students in two shifts.
For thousands of years, the people of China, Japan, India, and Thailand have consumed green tea and used it medicinally to treat everything from headaches to flatulence.
Over the past few decades, research in both Asia and the West has begun providing scientific evidence of green tea’s numerous health benefits — slowing or prevent conditions including high cholesterol, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, impaired immune disease and liver disease.
READ the recent article at Health News…
