Made with millets, rice, and and wheat, the spoons come in dozens of different flavors such as garlic, ginger, mint, and lemon. Instead of contributing to landfills by using chemically made flatware, some eco-conscious diners are using this nutritious alternative.
The trailblazer behind the idea, Narayana Peesapaty, believes environmental protection has been–and always will be–our responsibility.
“Change is inevitable,” Narayana says on his website. ”Before this change can overtake and overwhelm us, we should be the instruments of positive change”.
If you think Hollywood actors cannot be counted on to care about anyone who walks outside the red carpet, take a look at these three actors taking a stand for rainforest conservation.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Adrian Brody, and Fisher Stevens made a trek to the lowland rainforests of Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem in Sumatra this week to protest the construction of palm oil factories.
These are some of the last intact jungle ecosystems in Asia that are capable of supporting Sumatran elephants and their herds.
The three Hollywood heroes visited the Gunung Leuser National Park in support of the campaign by Forest Nature and Environment Aceh to eliminate the expansion of palm oil plantations.
Adrian Brody extolled the importance of this eco-system by taking a video with local children.
“Yayyy!!! Let’s not forget the sweet kids in Sumatra who deserve clean air instead of their lowland rainforests being slashed and burned to make more palm oil,” said Brody in the Facebook post.
hear hear!#Repost @adrienbrody with @repostapp.・・・???????????????????????????????? Yayyy!!! Let's not forget the sweet kids in Sumatra who deserve clean air instead of their lowland rainforests being slashed and burned to make more palm oil. #CutConflictPalmOil #SaveLeuserEcosystem
If you’d like to sign the petition to protect the Leuser Ecosystem, click here. Male Sure Your Friends Get A Glimpse Of These Dreamy Actors In Action… Click To Share
After hundreds of dollars worth of pet food was stolen, the Animal Rescue League of New Hampshire reports the donations that came flooding in have replaced the food ten-fold.
The group excitedly posted on Facebook saying they were overwhelmed by the generosity of hundreds of people in the aftermath of the crime at their Bedford office.
“A day that began with sadness and shock, ended up filling our hearts over-the-top! We were confident we would replace the stolen food, but your support – the support from our community – far exceeded our wildest expectations!”
(WATCH the video above from WBZ-TV in Boston)
A day that began with sadness and shock, ended up filling our hearts over-the-top! We were confident we would replace...
When this homeless man asked a restaurant owner for spare change, she gave him a job, instead.
Rather than giving him a handout and turning her back on his future, Cesia Abigail asked Marcus why he didn’t have a job. He bowed his head in embarrassment but said, honestly, that no one would hire him because he had a criminal record.
Abigail didn’t think that was fair and, despite business being slow, she hired him on the spot to wash dishes for a couple of hours.
When she offered him a sandwich, he immediately wrapped up half of it and took it outside to a homeless woman on the street. Abigail said in a Facebook post his act of kindness really touched her.
Marcus started showing up on time every day at Abi’s Cafe at 1532 E Lake St in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Abigail continued to find the money to pay him for a daily two-hour shift for a couple of weeks, until she decided to make the job permanent.
A group of Stanford University graduates have created a nonprofit organization to save millions of jars of prescription medication from the trash–and get them into the hands of people who need them.
It is estimated that two billion dollars worth of perfectly good pills go to waste every year in America.
Software created by California-based Sirum could save at least $700 million of those drugs — more than 10 million prescriptions — and re-route them to people who can’t afford their medicine.
More than $3,000,000 worth of drugs have already been saved by the software which finds medication headed for disposal, and pairs it up with clinics in need.
Many unused drugs that end up in incinerators were disposed of in nursing homes. If a patient doesn’t use a whole prescription — say from an allergic reaction to the drug — strict rules prevent the staff from giving the rest of the medication to other patients who have the same prescription.
Drug companies produce stockpiles of extra drugs to prevent shortages, only to have to get rid of them as they near an expiration date.
In both cases, it’s usually cheaper to destroy the unused portion rather than donate it to someone in need, even though 40 states allow some degree of recycling. Usually pharmacists–and in some states, doctors–can oversee various stages of donation.
Sirum’s software reduces the cost, by having a ready list of people and places that need the drugs.
“We’ve been compared to a Match.com for unused medicine,” Co-Founder Kiah Williams told the The New York Times. “Our goal is to save lives by saving unused medications.”
Its founders say a typical, 75 bed nursing home that uses their program will donate about $6,000 in unused drugs every year. It then costs Sirum only about $10 in shipping to get the drugs where they’re needed.
Clinics that provide medication to the poor and uninsured get the drugs from Sirum’s network free of charge.
About 200 facilities in California, Oregon, Colorado, and Ohio currently donate drugs through Sirum. Since 2011, the nonprofit, with only five full-time employees, has delivered $3.7 million in recycled prescription medicines to 35,000 patients in need.
dru— Photo: National Cancer Institute Recycle This Story, Share It With Your Friends…
One restaurant in India is making a difference for the hungry population of Kerala.
The tea café Pappadavada has installed a 24-hour running refrigerator open to those in need of a meal. The restaurant’s Facebook page issued a message to their followers asking them to help stock the fridge with any leftovers they can spare.
The owner of the café, Minu Pauline, believes that not only will the installment be able to feed the homeless community in Kerala, but it will also teach citizens not to waste food or meals.
The fridge has been fondly dubbed Nanma Maram, meaning Tree of Goodness.
So after our performance in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, we visited a local bar and had the opportunity to serenade newlyweds Carmine and Yasmine for their first dance!!! Such a beautiful moment! Our lead vocalist is the fantastic Gareth Hanly!
A group of 125 Irish singers visiting a Bay Ridge, Brooklyn bar for a drink decided that a pair of newlyweds could use a little song.
The Line-Up choir had traveled from Dublin to New York in order to sing in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. Just when they thought they were done performing, they met the newly married Carmine and Yasmine in a pub.
A former homeless man’s $10,000 gift will inspire and reward random acts of kindness for years to come, thanks to two Illinois teens.
The generosity and compassion shown to Wade Herter by a pair of high school boys was never forgotten. Herter was a homeless drifter, freezing and alone in a blizzard three years ago when the two seniors helped him.
Ryan Kodat and Luke Arnold found him some warm clothes and a jacket and purchased a train ticket that would let him see his father. They never expected anything in return, but Herter has always wanted to do something special to thank them.
When his father passed away, Herter was stunned to learn that he’d left behind a $1.2 million estate. It helped Herter get back on his feet and move to California where he writes while doing film work and stand-up comedy.
Herter kept thinking about the students who helped him get home during the blizzard, and decided to thank them by giving a gift to their school in Dwight, Illinois.
He sent a letter to the school telling his story, along with $10,000 for the district to spend any way they wanted – only asking that the school use the money to honor his father.
It was the first time anyone at the school had heard about what Kodat and Arnold had done for a homeless man, and after reading Herter’s story, school administrators knew exactly what to do with the money.
They created the “Warren Herter Pay It Forward Award.”
Every year, for the next decade, it will award students in the small town $500 for performing a random act of kindness. And the school has asked Kodat and Arnold to judge the nominations.
(READ more at the Morris Herald-News) —File Photo: Digital Lightbox Show Some Kindness To Your Friends, Share This…
Speaking on stage at a Veteran’s Day event for hospital staff, Dr. Richard Brilli started telling a marvelous story about a “miracle kid” from Portsmouth Naval Hospital in the late 80s.
In the audience, Tim Duer was about to fall out of his chair–realizing that the kid was him, 26 years later. He was suddenly looking at the doctor who saved his life, and the two had even been working in the same hospital.
The ‘miracle kid’ from the story was 19-years-old, healthy, and serving in the United States Army when he suddenly came down with a life threatening lung infection that quickly progressed to multi-organ system failure. At the time, Dr. Richard Brilli determined the young man’s probability for survival was zero percent.
Duer’s father spent 3 weeks by his son’s hospital bedside while Tim’s doctor did everything he could to save the patient’s life. The soldier’s father recalls promising his son, “I’m not leaving until you get through this.”
Hopeful that he could increase the young man’s chances of survival, the determined Columbus, Ohio doctor put him on high-dose medications to drive his blood pressure to above normal levels.
“As a physician in the ICU we always know the statistics. That’s not how you take care of patients. You don’t take care of patients based on statistics, you take care of the person in front of you.”
Despite the grueling odds, the doctor’s strategy worked. After weeks in the ICU, Tim was finally healthy enough for release.
26 years later, Duer, now a veteran, was hired to work in Information Services at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Just a few weeks after he was employed, the hospital held the event which reunited the men.
Duer’s heart raced as he listened to his own story of survival being retold by Dr. Brilli, now the Chief Medical Officer at the hospital. Afterward, he walked up to the doctor and launched the unexpected, heart-warming reunion.
Dr. Brilli choked up when recalling the moment. “The most remarkable part for me is it just tells me how lucky I’ve been and what a God-given gift it was that I got to go to medical school, and do what I do… It’s amazing to me.”
Duer–now a husband, father, and grandfather–struggled to find words that could express his gratitude.
“How do you thank the guy who saved your life 26 years later; what can you say? I think a new word needs to be invented other than thank you, because it’s a thousand times stronger than thank you.”
(WATCH the video below, from Nationwide Children’s Hospital)
This college student secretly saved up thousands of dollars so he could give his grandparents the surprise of a lifetime. They burst into tears of joy as he presented them with an oversized check announcing he’d paid off their mortgage with $15,000.
Stefun Darts could always be seen helping his mother and family around the house, but he’d kept the idea of a gift for his grandparents secret for 14 years.
“I promised God in the second grade I would pay off you guys house and help you retire,” he wrote on Facebook after revealing the surprise.
Cecil and Marilyn Roberts had been steadily paying off their home mortgage – every month, on time — for twenty years. But they still had four years of payments to go, until Stefun showed up and shocked them with the news of his sudden gift.
The generous young man had saved so much money, that he was also able to send them on an island vacation to the Bahamas.
Stefun had socked away the money while going to college, holding down a full time job, and running two non-profits in Houston, Texas. He seldom went out with friends, choosing to bank the cash instead. So eager was he to eliminate that mortgage and show gratitude to his grandparents that he practically lived on microwave pizza.
A drug dealer and larcenist who had been arrested 13 times by his 20th birthday – and who once faced 15 years in a Florida state penitentiary for felony aggravated assault – has morphed into one of Atlanta’s hottest young lawyers.
David Lee Windecher uses his own gripping memoir, The American Dream: HisStory in the Making, to give troubled kids a “road map to putting their adolescent mistakes in the rear view mirror,” reports the CS Monitor.
His message: Too many Americans – prosecutors, citizens, and even gangsters themselves – buy into a myth that youths are a lost cause.
A group of Colorado deputies are getting a lot of attention this week after they saved a man who suffered a heart attack while shoveling his driveway.
But it is what the Jefferson County officers did following the rescue that is being celebrated. They picked up where the man left off and finished shoveling his driveway.
Geyza Periera, prima ballerina and instructor at Fernanda’s, has been dancing for 17 years. When watching the ballet company perform on stage, it’s hard to believe that the performers have been taught only by touch and auditory instructions.
An upcoming 90-minute documentary about the school, Looking At The Stars, just reached its Kickstarter goal, and collected $34,500 to finish production on the film (watch trailer below).
The movie intimately follows the journey of Geyza and her young protegée, Thalia, through their struggles at the academy.
“Three years ago we started this project as a profile of the school. Since then, it’s turned into a coming of age exploration of two remarkable young women at pinnacle moments in their lives,” says director Alexandre Peralta. “Even more than that, it’s become a coming of age for our own team as we’ve watched their courage and passion overcome all obstacles.”
The nonprofit school, which supports mostly young women from low income families and communities in and around Sao Paulo, was started twenty years ago and has since been recognized internationally, having closed the 2012 Summer Paralympics beside the London Royal Ballet, and danced for Parsons Dance, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and the Danish Royal Ballet, among others.
The fab dinosaur pivots, sachés and prances its way through the opening number of the beloved Dave Attenborough musical with only one regret– his wee little arms aren’t long enough.
One crisp morning on Vancouver Island, Karen Parsons went on her regular nature walk with her two Pomeranian pooches.
Suddenly she heard the screams of an animal being attacked by two ravens. She immediately went into rescue mode and discovered it was a young abandoned fawn.
For two weeks Karen fed the baby by hand.
During that time, the fawn formed an amazing bond with Lincoln, her Pomeranian. Acting like a protective mom, Lincoln slept by the fawn’s side every night and cuddled.
Everyone in the family fell in love with the little fawn including Karen’s daughter.
The fawn got stronger and more adventurous every day.
Finally well enough, the baby fawn was taken to an animal sanctuary and was released into the wild.
Click To Share – See art and photography from Karen Parsons
A teen-aged girl who saved the lives of fellow refugees may soon represent them at the 2016 Olympics.
Fleeing Syria last August, Yusra Mardini and her sister, Sarah, boarded a seven-person boat overflowing with 20 refugees. None of the others knew that a world-class swimmer, who’d trained for a decade to compete in the Olympics, was sitting with them.
They’d owe their lives to her — and that training — over the next few hours.
Just 30 minutes into their perilous crossing of the Aegean Sea, the tiny boat’s motor died, and it began taking on water.
Yusra and her sister, the only two people on board who knew how to swim, leaped into the water. The sisters swam for three-and-a-half hours, pushing the boat to shore in Greece and saving everyone aboard.
She still leaps into the water every day for her fellow refugees, but now, it’s into Olympic-sized pools – completing her training to represent them at this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has created a special team for the 2016 Games. Instead of representing an individual country, it will be made up of refugee athletes from around the world who will compete under the IOC flag.
IOC President Thomas Bach says “Team Refugee Olympic Athletes” will deliver a “message of hope to all refugees of the world.”
Yusra is one of 43 refugees competing for just five to ten spots on the team. The 18-year-old says if she doesn’t make the cut, she’ll keep training for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
If she does earn a chance to compete this year, Yusra will march into the Rio Games exactly one year after the near disaster on the Aegean Sea that already proved she has the heart of a champion.
(WATCH the video from CCTV News below and READ more at The Guardian) – Photo: CCTV video
Nigerian troops have freed more than 800 people held by Boko Haram militants in the country’s northeast, the army said Thursday.
520 hostages were recovered in Kusumma village on Tuesday from the Islamist group, and an additional 309 from 11 other villages under the militants’ control.
“The gallant troops cleared the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists hibernating in Kala Balge general area,” army spokesman Sani Usman said in a statement, adding that 22 “terrorists” were killed.
According to news reports, regional force involving troops from Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin is to deploy to fight the Islamists.
The clip uploaded to Facebook by Parker Lim depicts one luxurious feline taking a snooze while its baby bird buddy snuggles into the fur.
The second scene in the video shows what can happen during a chicken’s pubescent phase– a laugh-out-loud moment when, if you look deep into this cat’s eyes, you can see the most annoyed soul of any animal on the planet. (Be sure to watch to the end.)
It Would Be Cat-astrophic If Your Friends Didn’t Get This Laugh Today…
Following several South American tour dates, the iconic British rock band landed in Havana Thursday with a free show for the Cuban people scheduled for today.
The Stones are the most famous band to play in the country since its 1959 revolution. Rebellious rock music was considered anti-patriotic, so fans had to listen to their favorite jams in private.
Ronnie Woods, Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards flew to the country’s capital with an entourage of roughly sixty friends, family, and crew members ready for the show which takes place only a days after President Obama’s historic diplomatic visit.
“We have performed in many special places during our long career, but this show in Havana will be a milestone for us, and, we hope, for all our friends in Cuba, too,” the band said in a statement released before the arrival.
Some Girls Might Share This With Their Friends… –Photo by Dave Hogan via FB
