Applying to colleges can be complicated and confusing– especially when no one in your family has ever attended college. Where can you get help with writing admission essays or figuring out financial aid forms?
Well, one high-school is matching parents who have gone through the process with their own college students to kids hoping to be the first in their families to continue with higher education.
Newton North High School in Massachusetts created a program called Transitioning Together that taps the city’s affluent parents to help their neighbors’ children.
Since 2012, these experienced parents are paired with students who are first generation college applicants — many whose parents speak English as a second language.
Then-principal Jen Price noticed a huge gap between college enrollments based on race and income and helped create Transitioning Together. She’s moved on to another school, but the mentoring program she helped start has continued to grow.
The program featured 29 students last year. All 29 went to college. This year, 40 students are taking advantage of the program — and, best of all, there’s no shortage of mentors.
“As people had amazing experiences, they started talking at cocktail parties and to their friends and to their neighbors and so the mentor pool has really grown,” Price told WGBH News.
Burnie thought it was a clever pick-up line, but the man was serious — and so was the mole.
A doctor determined it was an invasive malignant melanoma and removed it.
She told the New Zealand Herald she’s “excited to be alive,” but that she never got the name of the man who warned her about the mole. She’s gone on social media trying to track him down to thank him in person.
“Whoever you are that approached me — I am a mum with a young teenage boy. THANK YOU for saving my life,” she posted to the Neighborly network. “I am truly appreciative of your advice. THANK YOU THANK YOU SIR whoever you are.”
Her tests since the surgery show she’s free of the cancer.
Photo by PDPics, CC
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Faced with the threat of terrorist attacks in West Africa, Muslims and Christians have each other’s back.
The worshipers are protecting every place of prayer, no matter religion. On Fridays in Cameroon, Christians guard the mosques as Muslims pray. Muslims return the favor by protecting churches during Sunday services.
The Nigerian militant group Boko Haram is an equal-opportunity destroyer, attacking both churches and mosques while services are in session. The prayerful people inside can’t see it coming, but in some small villages, the terrorists are now running into armed patrols.
Cameroon has set up volunteer “vigilance committees” to patrol villages and the capital of Yaounde, to watch for possible terrorists. They are armed for self defense but report any suspicious activity so the police handle it.
The idea of Christians and Muslims protecting each other’s worship services is not new to places like Egypt or in Western cultures like France recently or Norway, as these two stories detail, but it is new to the remote, northern tip of Cameroon where the model is being testing to see if it might be effective elsewhere.
A young German tourist gazed at a view fit for a king — or, more properly, a pharaoh.
He also was given a brief view of an Egyptian jail after authorities nabbed him climbing down the Great Pyramid of Giza, but he says it was worth it.
Note: We don’t condone the defacing of monuments or otherwise breaking the law, but since this is the Photo Of The Day section of our website, we had to share the stunning the picture.
Andrej Ciesielski was on top of the world–the ancient world–after slipping past security and filming his climb to the top of the 4,500-year-old landmark (see video below). An experienced urban climber, he scaled the 455-feet to the top in eight minutes, listening to music all the way up.
After he captured some spectacular photos, and climbed back down, police took him to the station, questioned him briefly, and checked his camera to see what he’d been up to. They released him without punishment — but with a stern warning not to repeat the climb.
A contractor who was renovating an historic home, stumbled onto a piece of personal history — a little boy’s time capsule from 1949 — so he spent his own time to return it to the now-old man.
Bill Gilbert was 12-years-old when he fashioned his time capsule in a Mason jar and hid it in new cabinets at the family home in Pueblo, Colorado.
He included a neatly typed note describing his family history and their pets — an Irish setter, two kittens and a bird — along with some stamps from his collection, an old coin, and a family photo.
Sixty-six years later, contractor Mark Knecht was renovating the basement of the house and discovered the time capsule. Realizing it might have a great sentimental value, he decided to track down the owner.
A quick Internet search led him to a relative of Gilbert’s who passed along the contractor’s phone number to the now 79-year-old man living in Seattle, Washington.
Gilbert was excited about the discovery and offered to pay the postage to have the time capsule shipped to him, but Knecht said he’d bring it in person.
It turns out, Knecht had grown up just a few miles from where Gilbert now lives and brought the artifacts with him on a trip to visit family.
The cure for what ails you may come in the form of a needle — not a hypodermic, but the knitting kind.
Multiple studies have found evidence knitting or crocheting can lower blood pressure, reduce stress, and even improve memory and brain function as you age.
Medical researchers believe the relaxed, repetitive motions of the crafts are akin to meditation. At the same time, the creative process keeps fine motor skills honed and your mind sharp as it does “real world math” as you work on a project.
A University of British Columbia study showed 74% of women with anorexia nervosa saw improvements in their eating disorder after learning to knit.
A 2012 study published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences, found people who took up knitting and crocheting late in life reduced their chances of suffering memory loss or other mild, mental impairments.
Doctors at the Mayo Clinic argued in that study that the crafts helped keep the neural pathways functioning properly.
The UK website Stitchlinks, which focuses on “therapeutic knitting” asks knitters to submit their stories of how knitting has helped improve their health. The non-scientific survey shows that 54% of people with depression say knitting helps them feel better while 60% of people with chronic pain reported the craft lets them focus attention away from it.
Regardless of their effectiveness on a person’s health, knitting and crocheting gives the patient the comfort of something soft and warm to wrap around themselves and others — something other medicines can’t offer.
(WATCH the video below from the Craft Yarn Council) — Photo: derya, CC
We’ve heard about celebrities such as The Game, Pearl Jam, and Cher contributing to the Flint, Michigan water crisis, so it’s not surprising that Detroit native Aretha Franklin, showed some R-E-S-P-E-C-T for the gravity of the situation.
In a serious feel-good move, the R&B star is reserving enough rooms to house up to 50 of the city’s residents in the Southfield Holiday Inn in nearby Detroit, with the Coney Island restaurant providing catering.
Flint residents who wish to apply for the accommodations will go through a pre-screening at Detroit’s the New Bethel Baptist Church where Aretha’s father used to minister.
“Detroiters usually come to the aid of Detroiters – and Flint is certainly regarded as Detroit,” the Queen of Soul told the Local 4 news station. “Hang in there.”
No word on how long the hotel rooms will be available at no cost.
Meanwhile, Michigan’s political leaders are scrambling to keep from looking like a ”Chain of Fools.”
Brits are banding together over the garden fence to save the country’s favorite little spiny critters – by carving tiny holes in the bottom of those fences and creating ‘hedgehog highways’.
Hedgehogs are much beloved in England as ideal gardening partners because they eat pesky slugs and insects, so it’s been an easy sell by the Hedgehog Preservation Society (HPS) to enlist homeowners in the creative conservation measure.
Since hedgehogs can explore up to one mile a day looking for food, shelter, and, especially, mates, they need plenty of space. Due to residential sprawl and the sturdy fences that inhibit the travel and reproduction of these nocturnal creatures, their population has plummeted by 30% in just the last decade.
The HPS is touting several strategies for the public to help the prickly guys, such as cutting a 5×5 inch hole in your fence (which is just small enough to keep larger pets from escaping your yard), removing a brick or stone in your masonry wall, or simply switching to hedges.
Photo by The Hadfields – CC
You can also make sure your garden is safe for the highways by removing netting, ponds, or toxic slug pellets.
More than 30,000 Hedgehog Champions have registered on the HPS website to take action, which has created friendly web of passages crisscrossing England.
If you want to become a Hedgehog Champion, find out more ways on how to support hedgehog life in your garden by visiting the Hedgehog Preservation Society website.
(CHECK Out the special traits of a hedgehog in the BBC video below) –Top photo by Riude, CC
This “Dynamic Duo” from Down Under had a secret crimefighting weapon to help them stop a robbery: alcohol — lots of alcohol.
And the two Australians showed off an added superpower – the ability to make people laugh uncontrollably.
James Ross-Munroe and Kane Wiblen were hanging out at a gas station parking lot after a long night of partying. While James tried to fix his broken flip-flop — a “busted plugger” as he put it, they noticed two men hop out of a car, cover their faces, and head into a store.
Realizing they were witnessing a robbery, the drunken buddies ran — and stumbled — to the getaway car where James found the keys in the ignition, grabbed them and tossed them down a grate.
Unable to drive, the suspects ran off, with the two Aussie heroes in hot pursuit — Kane in flip-flops and James barefoot.
They never never caught up with the bandits, but Kane recorded the whole episode with his cell phone camera and the shaky, profanity-laced video was viewed more than a million times over the weekend.
The two heroes teamed up again for a Nine Network’s Today show interview that left the hosts rolling in laughter. One asked James if working out gave him the confidence to confront the suspected criminals.
“The only gym I go to is Jim Beam,” James answered with a nod to the Kentucky whiskey.
He hit the brakes, losing control of his big rig on the slick road. The 18-wheeler took out 30 feet of guardrail before coming to a stop — the cab hanging precariously over a steep hillside.
Even worse, tree branches kept Collins from opening his door to escape and the smell of leaking diesel fuel portended fire.
Hardly any time passed after the accident, before a rescuer moved the branches, forced the door open, and pulled Collins from the cab with one arm.
As the trucker looked up the hill, he saw eight men, arms linked together, forming a human chain to secure their safety up the slippery slope.
Truck driver Arlyn Satanek happened on the scene and snapped a photo of the rescue.
“It was just like everyone knew in that moment, we have to reach him, ‘Let’s lock into this and get this guy up.’ It was awesome,” Satanek told WTAE News.
As quickly as the human chain formed, each of its links headed back to their vehicles.
Collins didn’t get a chance to thank them at the time for their “proper road ettiquette,” but said later it’s “nice to know there’s still people like that out there.”
(WATCH the video from WTAE News below) — Photo: Arlyn Satanek
Like an electric blanket, this slab of concrete promises to keep airport runways warmer and bridges free from ice whenever winter storms strike.
Researchers have altered the basic foundation of roadbuilding material so it can electrically melt ice and snow.
At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln they mixed in steel shavings and carbon which allow the material to conduct an electric current. Turning up the power heats the concrete slabs and melts ice and snow.
In the past, road builders have installed cables and pipes in bridges and highways to melt ice and snow, but so far the systems have been expensive and unreliable. Some are eventually ripped out by heavy traffic.
This is the first material to be used within a bridge that conducts electricity directly throughout all the concrete. Even if traffic wears away part of the roadway, the electricity continues to flow and the concrete continues to melt ice and snow.
The university researchers have been testing the material for more than 13 years on a busy 150-foot bridge. The concrete has been melting snow and ice on its own and without a problem since 2002.
In the picture above, snow blankets the ground outside a UNL classroom except for a 200-square-foot slab of the electrified concrete. Cranking up the power after a winter storm hit in December, melted the precipitation that fell on it (see the video below).
The snow-melting road material isn’t cheap, at $300 per cubic yard, it’s more than twice the price of regular concrete.
The bridge uses about $250 in electricity over a typical three-day storm, but the researchers say that’s a small fraction of the cost of deicing chemicals used to do the same job.
They admit it’s not economical to electrify an entire highway, but since bridges and highway ramps freeze more quickly than roads, the electric-concrete mixture is a bargain to make them safer in freezing weather.
The UNL team is now demonstrating their technology to the Federal Aviation Administration with a goal of using their invention for the tarmac at a major airport.
The FAA isn’t interested in heating runways, but believes the concrete could be helpful around the gates where planes, baggage carts, and food trucks can slide on slick pavement.
“They said that if we can heat that kind of tarmac, then there would be (far fewer) weather-related delays,” civil engineering professor Chris Tuan said. “We’re very optimistic.”
Nebraska’s Department of Roads gave the material a positive review after five years of use on the Roca Spur Bridge in Lincoln and the FAA appears impressed with the material so far.
To show how much he believes in the material, Tuan even built his home’s patio out of the material – and hasn’t ever had to shovel snow off of it.
(WATCH the time lapse video of the concrete in action below) – Photos: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
People at each successive adoption event were taken aback by Nate the rescue dog because of his birth defects, but a Hollywood legend decided he was a perfect pet.
“A barrel chest, a leg that swayed. He walked like a Hyena.” LuvFurMutts Animal Rescue posted on its Facebook page describing the little terrier mix.
Actor George Clooney, after seeing photos and video online, thought the little dog was a keeper and adopted the three-year-old mutt for his parents, whose own terrier had passed on recently.
Nate had been one of 22 dogs rescued from a hoarding situation and moved to the group’s adoption facility in Fairfield, Ohio. For nine months nobody wanted him, until the Hollywood A-Lister swooped in to claim him for his mom and dad.
Clooney is keen on rescuing shelter dogs. He and wife, Amal, adopted their third rescue dog, a basset hound named Millie, in October to join two rescued cocker spaniels.
(READ more at LuvFurMutts’ Facebook page) — Photos: Thescrutineer, CC; LuvFurMutts, Facebook
When a wildfire swept across Western Australia, a pair of veterinarians and their nurses elected to stay at their clinic to give free medical care to animals left behind.
Baby kangaroos, possums, horses, dogs, and cats were brought by firefighters to the staff at the Waroona Veterinary Clinic, keeping them busy around the clock.
The Joey family this afternoon, all doing well, putting on weight and stressing as little as possible!
Kangaroos, wrapped in pink and blue bandages, have filled the paddock behind the clinic, since brush fires swept through the town of Yarloop and scorched 76,000 acres in early January.
The fast moving blazes struck the town with only 25 minutes warning. Hundreds of people were forced to flee so quickly, they had to leave pets and livestock behind.
Genuine heroes, Dr. Ronald Schneider and Dr Rebecca Flegg have traveled to farms and ranches around the region, taking food to surviving livestock and rounding up strays that needed medical attention.
Communities across the region have rallied to donate food for the animals, and the clinic has a stockpile of everything from dog food to cattle feed, which they are offering free of charge to anyone returning to Yarloop.
(WATCH the video of two of the clinic’s rescues below) — Photos: Waroona Veterinary Clinic, Facebook
The city of Chennai in India experienced one of the worst monsoons in over a 100 years, with daily life coming to a standstill in December when thousands were stranded without homes, food or supplies.
During those chaotic weeks, Chennai’s local heroes emerged, battling nature’s fury with resilience and determination to keep the capital city alive.
This is one such story of a man who cooked for four days non-stop without sleep to prepare 170,000 food boxes for people in need. At first, Santosh Muruganantha, who owns a take-out restaurant, was preparing all the food himself, but word spread in the community and help arrived in droves.
He not only wanted to feed people, he organized the army of 300 volunteers–college students, elderly folks, and wealthy businessmen–to put together one thousand personal care kits for people in remote villages who weren’t receiving aid yet– and then deliver them.
“80 percent of the credit goes to Milaap contributors,” said Santhosh, describing the funding he received from the micro-lending organization that collects small loans from citizens across the world to benefit the poor in Africa and Asia.
Eventually, Muruganantha did allow himself to go home and sleep, a new hero to the people of the Tamil Nadu region.
(WATCH the inspiring story below)
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When a drifter wandered into a fast food restaurant asking for any food they might be tossing out, the manager refused to give him scraps and gave him a full meal instead.
The man was covered in mud with a scruffy beard. He stood alone as people avoided him, while someone went to find the manager of the Chick-Fil-A in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
When the manager came over, he offered a hot meal for the traveler then asked to pray with him. The two bowed their heads and the manager offered his blessings for the meal as customers went about their business all around them.
I took Stella to Chick-fil-A today. It's our normal daddy/daughter spot. It's clean, so good, and the playground has a...
Joey Mustain and his daughter, Stella, watched the scene unfold and posted the story and a picture of the two men praying to his Facebook page. As he explained to his little girl what was going on, Stella bowed her head, too, while the manager and drifter finished their prayer.
Rapper “The Game” is stepping up the game for celebrities who want to contribute to suffering residents of Flint, Michigan during the city’s contaminated water crisis. He delivered a million dollars, in cash and water, and challenged other smaller donors, like Jimmy Fallon and Madonna who gave $10,000 each, to open their wallets wider.
The Game, also known as Jayceon Terrell Taylor, has given $500,000 of his own money and he worked with Avita Water to provide another half-million in free bottled water for city residents.
Flint’s water supply became contaminated after the city switched sources and lead leeched from old pipes into its drinking water.
Other celebrities such as Cher, and Pearl Jam, and Big Sean have contributed money and bottled water to the city’s people, but The Game’s gift is believed to be the largest single contribution so far.
Stay tuned to see how many celebrities take him up on his million-dollar challenge.
Police officers trained to take down terrorists came to the rescue of a frightened kitten blocking traffic in New York City.
The kitten ran into traffic and jumped into the wheel well of Geraldine Cassone’s car as she was stopped at a red light. When the light changed, she was afraid to move the car for fear of hurting the cat.
Cassone got out of the car and tried to find the kitten. At least eight other people nearby joined her, but couldn’t figure out where it was hiding under her car.
She finally flagged down a police car for help. The officers, with NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, put their training on hunting terrorists to work.
Officers Christopher Rinelli and Kenia Marte carefully moved the car into a driveway and began a strategic search, listening for the cat’s meowing.
When they found the kitten, balled up and hiding above the gas tank, it was still out of reach. The officers and a neighbor had to finally remove the wheel before they could get to the little cat.
“This is exactly what I signed up for in the department,” Officer Rinelli told the New York Times. “To help people that need help. And animals, of course.”
The kitten is being fostered by an animal shelter, but Cassone plans to adopt the two-month-old cat she named Midnight, when she returns from vacation.
Armed with a shovel and a smartphone app, hundreds of young people fanned out across Baltimore, Maryland in the wake of last weekend’s winter storm, to shovel sidewalks for the elderly and disabled.
About 345 teens are benefitting from the City Youth Snow Program, clearing snow for roughly 1,000 people who can’t manage it themselves. They earn $10 an hour and can make up to $750 over the course of the winter.
The program uses a phone app to connect the teens with shoveling jobs within a few blocks of their homes. The shovel crews take before and after pictures of the sidewalk and submit them on the app to show the work was done.
Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced the Youth Snow Program last summer asking teens to hit the streets whenever Baltimore gets five inches or more of snow.
Their first job came on Sunday, when the city saw its largest single-day snowfall ever — topping 27 inches and creating plenty of work for the Baltimore youth who signed up before November.
“Yesterday my back was killing me. My back and my legs. But that was it. I’m good,” 17-year-old Aiesha Johnson told the Baltimore Sun. “I like it. It helps more people out.”
Residents who would like to register can call 443-263-2220.
A homeless good Samaritan rushed to help when he saw motorists stuck in the winter storm that hit the Eastern U.S. last weekend.
The man, identified only as Curtis, had been taking shelter between two buildings when he noticed cars getting stuck in the snow, so he ran out to help.
“It’s just the right thing to do,” he told WWBT News in Richmond, Virginia. “Because at times, people help me out. One hand washes the other one.”
Many of the more than half dozen drivers that he helped while the TV crew was there thanked him, but never knew he was homeless.
Curtis still didn’t have any idea where he would spend the night as the storm dropped more than two feet of snow on the area. People posting to Facebook wanted to raise money for Curtis, but he didn’t leave any information to make himself easily found.
Reporter Ashley Monfort and her cameraman gave him some hot coffee and a warm meal, and money to pay for transportation to a homeless shelter – then he was back to pushing cars down the road.
(WATCH the video from WWBT News below) — Photos: WWBT video
HOMELESS MAN HELPS STRANDED DRIVERSWe saw many good Samaritans today helping stranded drivers on Midlothian Turnpike. But Curtis has a special place in my heart. He's in the first clip wearing the neon hat. We started talking to him where he told me he's actually HOMELESS and was staying between two buildings. When he saw drivers who were stuck, he would come over to help. AND he flagged down the tow truck to help these stranded drivers.He says many people said thank you but had no idea he doesn't have a home. GOD BLESS YOU Curtis.(PS...we gave him some coffee, warm food and some money so he could make his way to the shelter. I told him over and over again to make sure he heads that way before nightfall).*****EDIT******PPS...So many of you have asked to help and I'm touched by your kindness. But unfortunately I didn't exchange information with Curtis. I was distracted by the snowy conditions and just getting him something warm to eat...I didn't get his information. But if I see him again I'll do a follow up. #RVAsnow #GoodSamaritan #positivenewsstory
Peter Rabbit makes an appearance in a recently discovered Beatrix Potter story to be published later this year — more than 100 years after it was written.
Potter, who created Peter Rabbit and dozens of other beloved characters in her 23 children’s books, sent “The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots” to her publisher in 1914, saying it was the story of “a well-behaved prime black Kitty cat, who leads rather a double life.”
World War I, along with family and health issues interrupted Potter and her publisher and she never completed the book — illustrating only one of the pictures to go along with her story.
Publisher Jo Hanks stumbled onto a reference about the lost book in an old biography of Potter. After some detective work, Hanks was able to track down three versions of the manuscript with notes, some sketches, and the one finished drawing.
Quentin Blake, an illustrator with expertise in Potter’s style has been brought in to finish the book’s pictures. He’s best known for his work with Roald Dahl, who wrote “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “James and the Giant Peach.”
In Kitty’s adventures, she runs into some familiar Potter characters, including Peter Rabbit, after he’d grown older, fatter, and a bit slower. This will be the seventh Potter book that Peter appears in. The Peter Rabbit series has sold more than 151 million copies in 35 languages since it was first published in 1902.
