The goal for Scholastic Book Club’s ClassroomsCare initiative was for classrooms to read 100 books each, a total of one million books.
The reward? Scholastic would donate one million new books to children in need.
By the deadline, more than 70,000 classrooms reported they had read a grand total of 7 million books. A teacher from Michigan wrote, “Our class was so excited to read 100 books so that other children could have books too. Thank you for giving us a way to care.”
Jackie Wilson drove into a Falls Church, Virginia shopping mall when for no apparent reason her attention locked on a young black man in his twenties wearing jeans and sweatshirt who was stopping a stranger to show him a piece of paper. Minutes later, across the parking lot he suddenly approached her, out of breath.
He told her he was in trouble.
Richmond State Prison Farm instructed him to arrive at a halfway house in Damascus, Maryland 60 miles away by 3 PM. Faulty directions, he said, led him to Jackie, lost and desperate. “I need help,” he said.
Jackie, in her sixties, offered him her favorite motherly advice: “Take 3 deep breaths. Release, let go, let God.” She asked if he believed in a higher power. He affirmed the idea and she calmed him with the assurance that all was in divine order.
“Have you eaten today?” No.
She learned his name was Clarence, he was from Delaware, had been in prison 10 years for what he described as a nonviolent drug offense. He talked about Enron, and how, “those men hurt so many people… and they won’t go to jail.”
He kept thanking her over and over.
He told her there were no buses from the subway station that would deliver him to Damascus. She gave him money for a cab. He kicked over his drink in her clean car and was fretting, trying to clean up the mess. She urged him out toward the trains, writing down her phone number in case he needed to verify his whereabouts.
When Jackie related the incident to her son, he flipped. “Are you crazy? Haven’t you heard of car-jackers!!” She said it never crossed her mind. It felt from the start that it was right. “I knew I was meant to help this young man. I had no fear.” And, she reports that since that day, everything is going her way. “It’s incredible. The universe is just flowing. Everything is coming to me. Incredible.”
The largest gift ever to a private conservation group was pledged to Conservation International by Intel Corp. cofounder Gordon Moore, 72, and his wife. $261 million was designated to help end plant and animal extinction in the world’s 25 “hotspots” and to protect tropical rainforest areas in Amazonia, New Guinea and the Congo.
A big guy with a beard wandered the streets of New York handing out cash at Christmas. The man, wearing a red Santa hat, handed out $100 notes to dozens of people at random over three days. He distributed a total of $25,000 before flying home to Kansas City, MO. He says he has done this every Christmas for 22 years.
The anonymous businessman told the Kansas City Star that he was once destitute when the owner of a Mississippi diner handed him a $20 bill and said, “Son, you must have dropped this.”
“That fella just knew I was in trouble and helped me in a way that didn’t embarrass me,” recalled the Samaritan Santa.
Santa also gave money to fire stations, churches and charities. He also dropped $100 into the bucket of a dumbfounded Salvation Army worker, said, ‘Merry Christmas,’ and kept going.
AT&T is the 2001 recipient of the Vision for America Award for its environmentally sound workplace practices.
Through AT&T’s telework program, employees who telecommuted from home avoided driving 110 million miles, eased traffic congestion, eliminated pollution from greenhouse emissions of almost 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide, and saved 5.1 million gallons of gas.
Additionally, teleworkers saved AT&T about $100 million a year due to increased productivity, and about $25 million a year in reduced office space. Teleworkers report increased loyalty and job satisfaction.
The Vision for America award is presented by Keep America Beautiful, Inc. whose non-profit network motivates millions of volunteers to beautify neighborhoods around the world.
A quick rundown of 11 bright spots that are healing the globe, from Cairo to California, from Bolivia to British Columbia, From Moroco to Mexico City:
GIFT TO THE WORLD The Bolivian government designated three wetlands totalling 17,760 square miles — an area larger than Switzerland — as a Gift to the Earth. Their decision is a commitment to conservation, a wiser use of resources, and careful screening of development projects. The wetlands are linked to the Amazon basin and are home to hundreds of threatened species of plants and animals.
WHALES COMING BACK Blue Whales are being spotted in record numbers in California. Hundreds of these huge mammals spent the summer near Channel Islands National Park in Southern California and the Cordell Banks area of San Francisco.
CLEAN WHEELS Six of the world’s smoggiest cities will benefit from new fuel-cell powered buses provided by a five-year, $60 million program by the Global Environment Facility. 46 buses powered by fuel cells will serve Mexico City, Sao Paolo, New Delhi, Shanghai, Beijing, and Cairo with public transportation that doesn’t pollute the air. An average car emits over 3 tons of CO2 each year.
A PLAN FOR CLEAN AIR 1990 air quality laws have reduced Mexico City’s air pollution to lower than international safety norms almost every day. Plus, the city is unveiling a 10-year plan to require exhaust spewing trucks to meet the same strict rules imposed on cars.
DETOX OF THE GREAT LAKES The world’s largest freshwater system is purifying itself. As chemical levels in the air drop, the lakes are able to outgas toxins into the atmosphere. Since 1992, the lakes have exhaled tons of PCBs and pesticides, surprisingly, at twice the rate of intake. Additionally, the US House voted Nov. 3 to ban new oil and gas drilling under the lakes at least until September 2003 while environmental impact is assessed.
KYOTO TREATY More than 160 countries signed a new global warming treaty requiring about 40 industrialized countries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by an average of 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2012. The US will not participate. US CO2 emissions jumped by 3.1% in 2000, most since 1995.
CONSUMERS GREEN CRUSADE A consumer write-in campaign led by environmentalists against Home Depot, Lowe’s and other wood retailers across North America, culminated in the largest rainforest conservation measure in North American history, permanently protecting 1.5 million acres of Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest from logging.
PATCH Scientists report that the ozone hole over Antarctica — roughly the size of North America — has stopped growing and is about 10 percent smaller than last year’s record size. As pollution by CFC’s declines, researchers predict a slow recovery of the ozone that shields the planet from damaging UV radiation.
RHINOS BORN Four rare new baby rhinos were born in the wild on the island of Java in the past two years. They boost a population of fewer than 60 Javan Rhinos in the world and indicate a hopeful future for growth. None are in captivity.
Additionally in Indonesia, East Asian ministers pledged to crack down on illegal logging and trading at the first ever forestry conference organized by the World Bank.
JUNGLE AID The US will donate $11 million to help protect Guatemala’s rivers, volcanos, and jungles, like the jungle housing the ancient Mayan city of Tikal.
BRITAIN BUYS GREEN CARS The Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom has updated its delivery fleet with 15 battery powered electric cars. The Ford Th!nk vehicles are chargable directly from the power grid and have a range of 56 miles. They displace diesel vans and in turn, their noxious emissions. The agency was selected to take part in the Th!nk @bout London initiative, a partnership between the Ford Motor Company, the Energy Savings Trust, Transport Action Powershift, Kwik-Fit, London Electricity and Hertz.
Andreas Schmitz, a German man, received a lottery ticket as a wedding gift. It turned out to be a winner, worth a million Deutsch marks.
Instead of keeping the money, spending it on a fancy honeymoon, he donated it all to a dance company that was in financial straits. The dancers had performed at his wedding.
The 40-year-old businessman said he was giving the lottery win to the dance troupe — who had disbanded — to help reestablish a resident company in Cologne.
Mr. Schmitz says he’s already been lucky in life and he felt his new fortune came with an obligation. “If I win again, I’ll donate that money too.”
The Good Friday Peace process in Northern Ireland was collapsing. David Trimble, who won the Nobel Peace Prize and was elected the first minister of the fragile new government there, resigned in disgust. Britain threatened to pull the plug from the power-sharing experiment that brought home rule to the war-weary Protestants and Catholics.
Then, on October 23 the Irish Republican Army (IRA) announced the long-awaited disposal of a significant amount of the paramilitary group’s weapons and an independent international disarmament commission confirmed that guns, ammunition, and explosives were extinguished.
Trimble, long beleaguered over the arms impasse, smiled broadly after seeing the proof: “This is the day we were told would never happen.”
Trimble was restored as leader of the majority Protestant government. Catholics, including Sinn Fein, the IRA representative, joined him to continue hammering out a lasting peace within a representative government. (Oct. 2001)
Why would Peter and Linda Biehl, a wealthy, conservative Newport Beach couple, leave their privileged community for South Africa to work arm in arm with former radical leftists to bring jobs and opportunity to disadvantaged blacks? Because it is the place where their daughter Amy, a 26 year-old blue-eyed blonde valedictorian from Stanford, was stoned and stabbed to death in 1993.
“In all the world this is the one place Amy feels most alive to us,” said Linda.
They have taken to heart their daughter’s conviction that to get to the root of apartheid’s sins, society needs to address the poverty and the hopelessness in people’s every day lives.
For the last seven years, the Biehls have committed themselves to building housing, schools, and golf courses for the same community where Amy drew her last breath. With a small group of volunteers they have raised money for scholarships, museums, music training programs, and adult literacy projects. They’ve opened bakeries, a print shop, and a construction company that vies for large contracts, giving jobs to men and women who live in the squalid townships set aside for blacks during the reign of apartheid.
“The Biehls came just when we needed them most,” said a seamstress who for years had to struggle to make a living selling her tapestries until the Biehls helped her with marketing. “Losing their daughter like they did, I cannot imagine what that pain must feel like. But from that one horrible moment, so much light has come into the world, so much good,” she told the Washington Post.
The Forgiveness
But it is the forgiveness that the Biehls demonstrate for Amy’s killers that is most amazing. Jon Jeter of the Washington Post describes it this way: “Theirs is not a story for cynics. It is about redemption and transformation. To South Africans, the Biehls have offered their help. To Amy’s killers, they have offered not just absolution but friendship, taking them to the movies or dinner just as casually as they would an old friend. And from the deepest hurt anyone can know, they have exhumed an unimaginable peace and a stirring sense of purpose.”
Easy Nofomela and Ntobeko Peni, along with two other young men, were convicted of Amy’s slaying. They were part of a mob incited by a political rally to kill whites. Four years ago, they asked for amnesty from South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which set international precedent, finding a way to heal a nation bitterly divided by freeing prisoners who demonstrate a political motive for their crimes and who testify fully and truthfully.
The Biehls have become close friends and coworkers with the two.
“I know this sounds strange, but the one place I really feel Amy’s spirit is with Easy and Peni.”
“We call them mother and father now,” Peni said. “I don’t know how they found it in their hearts to forgive us, but I can tell you that it has greatly enriched my life. I will never forget what we did that night, but I will also never forget the kindness they have shown me when they had every reason to hate me.”
The Biehls often are asked how they could forgive such horrendous acts. “We have seen that to hate, to want revenge, to be angry consumes a tremendous amount of energy, all of it negative, and time, all of it nonproductive. It is completely selfish,” reasons Peter. “As Christians — we’ve taught high school Sunday school — we would be heretics if we now did anything other than to forgive. And finally, it is completely liberating. We can forgive, move forward, and we’re at peace with ourselves.”
Donate musical instruments, golf clubs (for youth lessons), or money to www.amybiehl.org Tel: (949) 650-5356
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in the United States, Don Forman, a used car dealer in Las Vegas, heard on the radio the plight of stranded travelers who could not get home to their families. Because every airline was grounded for weeks, there were no bus or train tickets left. No rental cars available.
Business was slow at Forman’s United Nissan, so he decided to help. He rented passenger vans and called the media. He was offering a ride to anyone stranded in airports who needed to get home. For free.
By the end of the day, 150 people stranded in Las Vegas were back at home in Southern California.
He spent $8,000 of his own money but credited his employees for organizing the fleet, and the mayor’s office and dozens of businesses for donating food, money and time.
Forman recalled, “Our dealership was just like everyone else in the country. We all stood around with our mouths open. We didn’t know what to do. When we started doing this, my employees were ecstatic. They really felt a part of something.”
After the last piece of baggage was loaded onto each bus — Forman even schlepped bags — and after each passenger was given two bottles of water, Forman would climb up and stand next to the driver to bid them farewell and a safe trip home.
“Everybody just applauded,” said Irv Hamilton of Alameda, California. “I can imagine this sort of thing in the Midwest, but… you don’t think of Las Vegas as being particularly hospitable.”
Now, you do. And car dealers too.
“Dear Dad,
We are somewhere out to sea, still with little direction as to what our next priority is. We have spent every day since the attacks going back and forth within imaginary boxes drawn in the ocean, standing high-security watches, and trying to make the best of our time. Being isolated as we are, I don’t think we appreciate the full scope of what is happening back home, but we are definitely feeling the effects.
About two hours ago we got a call from the LUTJENS (D185), a German warship that was moored ahead of us on the pier in England. While in port, the CHURCHILL and the LUTJENS got together for a sports day/cookout on our fantail, and we made some pretty good friends. Now at sea they called over requesting to pass us close up to say good-bye. The Captain told the crew to come topside to wish them farewell. As they were making their approach, our Conning Officer announced through her binoculars that they were flying an American flag.
As they came even closer, we saw that it was flying at half-mast. They had made a sign to display on the side that read, “We Stand By You”. The entire crew of the German ship were manning the rails, saluting, in their dress blues.
More than a few of us fought to retain our composure as they stayed alongside us for a few minutes and we cut our salutes. It was probably the most powerful thing I have seen in my entire life.
The German Navy did an incredible thing for this crew. It’s amazing to think that only a half-century ago things were quite different. And to see the unity being demonstrated throughout the world makes us all proud to be out here doing our job.
After the ship pulled away the Officer of the Deck turned to me and said “I’m staying Navy.” I’ll write more as I know when I’ll be home.
Love you guys…”
After decades of decline in salmon and steelhead runs, this year the largest steelhead run in the history of dam counts is crossing Bonneville Dam on its way up the Columbia River. As of August 19, the count of steelhead at Bonneville, the first dam the fish must negotiate on the Columbia, topped 390,000, nearly four times the 1991 to 2000 average.
Steelhead trout, are considered to be a variety of salmon. They are listed by the federal government as threatened or endangered throughout western states.
Some of the conservation measures Washington state has taken may be responsible for the increased steelhead run. In 1999, Washington put in place its Statewide Strategy to Recover Salmon, specifically addressing ecosystem health and conservation measures. Habitat was upgraded. Harvest and hatchery management practices were implemented. Lawmakers in the state opposed all proposals for new hydroelectric projects and their potential for degrading salmon habitat.
Australia will end commercial coral harvesting on the Great Barrier Reef in order to protect the world’s largest living reef formation. While it is prohibited for private individuals to take coral from the reef, up to 200 tonnes are still taken commercially each year, most for the retail aquarium trade. A phase out plan will be implemented to try to limit the economic impact on coral harvesters along the 1,300 miles of the reef.
When 13 year-old Cody Clawson attended a boy scout camp in Yellowstone National Park he accidentally strayed from the path while hauling supplies from their vehicle and wandered deep into the Wyoming wilderness.
After a four-hour search with dogs failed to find Clawson, air rescue teams from two states were called in. It was cold and raining and the scout had to hunker down for the night alone in the forest dressed only in a Tee shirt, shorts and sandals.
He couldn’t have dreamed the happy adventure that was about to greet him the next morning.
Not only was Cody rescued in a helicopter and airlifted back to civilization — pretty cool for most teenagers — but the pilot who swooped down and landed the chopper turned out to be real-life Star Wars hero, Harrison Ford.
As a part-time resident of nearby Jackson, Wyoming, Ford helps out the local authorities flying his trusty Bell 407 helicopter into the backcountry where airplanes cannot land. The July 9, 2001 rescue was his second in less than a year. Last August, the action star guided his chopper up Wyoming’s Table Mountain to save hiker Sarah George.
“Boy, you sure must have earned a merit badge for this one,” Ford reportedly told the boy. The lad, who lives in Huntsville, Utah, replied, “I already earned this badge last summer.”
Marshall Levit of Houston, Texas, was 14 years old and seeking an Eagle Scout project. He looked at the large parcel of land next to his synagogue. Where others saw only a vacant lot filled with weeds, Levit imagined a lush, organic garden whose yield would feed the poor, hungry, and homeless.
Undaunted by the fact that he knew nothing about gardening, and undeterred by the scope of the task, Levit persuaded the synagogue to donate the land. This 14-year-old took seriously his religion’s dictum to feed the hungry, and he insisted that his synagogue take it seriously. Levit reports that, “Adults did not embrace this issue or support it. There were doubts and skepticism. But I had a vision of what could happen.”
Levit solicited donations of expertise, money, seeds, tools, and labor from the community. His vision and enthusiasm persuaded dozens of volunteers to help him create five 40’ x 5’ beds on the vacant lot, which he dubbed ‘The Garden of Eatin.’ Levit pressed particularly hard to get volunteers from his synagogue to join him in planting, weeding, and watering under the hot Texas sun. Levit kept the garden productive throughout his high school years, working there at least two days a week.
For over eight years, the garden has meant more than simply having additional items available at the food pantry. Food banks—and the poor they serve—typically cannot afford fresh produce. One family wrote to the garden’s volunteers, “May God bless you for your generosity toward the needy of this parish.” Marshall Levit says, “We’re giving not just food, but time and love.”
Most gardens grow only fruits and vegetables. The Garden of Eatin’ yields a harvest of love, compassion, and sharing.
Instead of looking for land in the outer suburbs to house a new stadium for its basketball and hockey teams, the city of Dallas decided to assist developers in cleaning up a 72-acre toxic mess at the city’s core.
Where there once was arsenic and lead leftovers from a 100-year old city dump, the American Airlines center opened this summer, serving sushi and sea bass to its sports and entertainment fans. Where once motor oil and benzene spills leached into soil and groundwater from abandoned industrial and railroad facilities, 8 million sq. ft. of apartments, offices, stores and entertainment will meander around the arena, providing auto-weary Dallas commuters with a place to live, work and play downtown.
Mayor Ron Kirk recognized that building a $1 billion development would keep dollars and jobs from migrating to the suburbs. “The manufacturers and polluters abandoned this 30 years ago, but we’ve cleaned it up and put it back on the tax rolls.”
The $12 million clean up costs were a small fraction of total dollars spent, and were partially borne by previous land owners responsible for the pollutants. Developers had to haul away 15,000 huge truck loads of contaminated soil and clean 15 million gallons of polluted groundwater.
The nation’s largest brownfield project is Bethlehem Steel’s $1.5 billion plan to convert its Pennsylvania steel mill into an entertainment and retail complex. At its heart will be a Smithsonian-affiliated American Museum of Industrial History featuring blast furnaces, painted and preserved. Giant vats that formerly moved steel will become people-movers. The plant dates back to 1870. It covers four and a half miles of river frontage, and once employed 30,000. The proposed complex with its cinema, shops, ice rink, and hotel could have enormous economic and social implications for Bethlehem’s south side neighborhoods of Puerto Rican Americans, providing up to 10,000 jobs and a $70 million tax base.
Another brownfield in Chicago will become the site of a solar-generated energy plant that will sell energy to the city.
There is a realization that if you remove the dangerous elements, the land can be reused and recycled to benefit the surrounding community.
(Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)
Studies show kids involved in music programs have improved reading abilities, higher self-esteem, score higher on standardized tests, and are more likely to stay in school and go to college.
Concerned with the growing number of public schools that have canceled music programs, cable channel VH1 initiated a rescue mission called Save the Music.
Save The Music focuses on rebuilding programs that have been eliminated, or boosting programs that are at imminent risk of being canceled.
Since the program was created in 1997, more than $17 million worth of musical instruments were donated to 750 public schools in 70 cities, enhancing the lives of more than 250,000 children.
For info, or to donate an instrument visit Save the Music, or call toll free 1-888-VH1-4MUSIC.
My husband, son, and I went out to McDonalds. We were standing in line, when all of a sudden everyone around us began to back away, and then even my husband did. An overwhelming feeling of panic welled up inside me as I smelled a horrible dirty body smell. There standing behind me were two homeless men.
As I looked down at the short gentleman, close to me, he was smiling. His beautiful sky blue eyes were full of Light as he searched for acceptance. He said, “Good day” as he counted the few coins he had been clutching. The second man fumbled with his hands as he stood behind his friend. I perceived the second man was mentally deficient and the blue eyed gentleman was his salvation.
When asked what they wanted, he answered, “Coffee is all Miss” because that was all they could afford. It was a cold March morning and if they wanted to sit in the restaurant to warm up, they had to buy something. Then I felt a compulsion so great I almost reached out and embraced the little man. I noticed all eyes in the restaurant were on me. I smiled and ordered two more breakfast meals on a separate tray. I walked to the table the men had chosen, put the tray on the table and laid my hand on the blue-eyed gentleman’s cold hand. He looked up at me, tears in his eyes, and said, “Thank you.” I leaned over and said, “I didn’t do this for you. God is here working through me to give you hope.”
I started to cry as I walked away to join my husband and son. When I sat down my husband smiled at me and said, “That is why God gave you to me, Honey. To give me hope.”
We held hands for a moment and we knew that only because of the Grace we had been given were we able to give. We are not church goers, but we are believers. That day showed me the pure Light of God’s sweet love. We as human beings and part of God, share this need to heal people and thus be healed. In my own way I had touched my husband, son, and every soul in that McDonald’s. I learned one of the biggest lessons I would ever learn. Unconditional acceptance.
A Congo Republic rain forest full of rare animals and trees, one of the most pristine left in Africa, will be protected from all logging thanks to the voluntary actions of a timber company to forfeit its harvesting rights.
Congolaise Industrielle des Bois decided it would be best to leave the 100-square-mile Goualogo Triangle forest forever untouched by humans, even though it contains thick patches of of mahogany trees and valuable hardwoods, because, as the company’s president said, “The Goualogo Triangle is a very special place.”
Logging in the triangle could potentially have been worth $40 million to CIB. Although the company is not getting anything in exchange for giving up its harvesting rights, they said there was plenty of other land in Congo available for logging.
The company’s sacrifice will benefit dense community of chimpanzees, forest elephants, red colobus monkeys, gorillas and other large mammals, and allow eco-tourism and scientific work to thrive. Congo’s government will protect the swampy forest by adding it to an existing national park.
As of July 1, cruise ships belonging to the International Council of Cruise Lines (ICCL) will implement a new set of dumping standards that includes zero discharge of some of the most hazardous chemicals used aboard luxury liners.
ICCL members unanimously adopted mandatory environmental standards for all of their cruise ships and they will be included in the Safety Management System (SMS), which ensures compliance through internal and third-party audits. Failure to comply with SMS procedures could prevent a ship from operating from US ports. Compliance with these standards is a condition of membership in the ICCL.
Cruise Lines Will:
