A 30-foot tall totem pole is returning home to its native Alaska after an 84-year odyssey that landed it in the backyards of some of the most famous Hollywood mansions.
Famed actor John Barrymore, grandfather of actress Drew Barrymore, encountered it in an unoccupied village, according to NPR, and carted it off aboard his 120-foot yacht. He claimed that he purchased it during the cruise to Alaska in 1931.
But that doesn’t suit the traditions of the Tlingit (pronounced klink-kit) people to whom it belonged.
It was cut into three pieces and displayed in Barrymore’s California garden until his death in 1943. It was then purchased by horror film legend Vincent Price who later donated it to the Honolulu, Hawaii Museum of Art where the pieces went on display in 1981 (pictured left).
The museum decided earlier this year to return the totem to its rightful resting place, and after weeks of careful packing and planning, the pole was turned over to the Tlingit tribe October 22 during a ceremony in Honolulu. It was then flown to Seattle, Washington and placed aboard a ship for its voyage to Craig, Alaska where it was scheduled to arrive today.
Jonathan Rowan, one of the Tlingit people in Hawaii for the ceremony had one more job before the pole’s long journey home – he carved a replica of the original that will be placed in the tribe’s current home of Klawock, Alaska.
Just like the television show Extreme Home Makeover, we love to bring you stories of people coming together to surprise a deserving family or community group with a newly redesigned home, school, or community center. Who doesn’t get a little choked-up seeing the looks on those faces gazing at the new rooms for the first time?
Often, corporations are backing those good deeds, providing the materials, the furniture, and even the laborers and tools to make these dreams come true. Home Depot, Disney, and Century 21 are just a few that regularly contribute.
Some companies pay their workers to volunteer. On October 16th, Samsung offices across the U.S. and Canada officially closed their doors for the second of two annual “Days of Service” that enabled 4,200 employees to serve in their local communities for more than 50 nonprofit organizations.
“If we are going to be a successful corporate partner we have to be giving back in our communities,” said a vice president for Samsung Electronic America. And these words are backed with action: Samsung employees have donated more than 45,000 volunteer hours since 2014.
Creating Success Beyond Charity
For more than twenty years, Toyota has taken the charitable notion one step further. By sharing their know-how and knack for efficiency, the automaker has transformed charities, organizations, and hospitals with their philosophy of “continuous improvement”.
Illustrative of the old adage, “GIVE a man a fish and he will eat for a day,” this unique not-for-profit arm of Toyota is, instead, “TEACHING a man to fish,” which will make him more abundant for a lifetime…
They call it their Toyota Production Support Center, a 501(c)3 that helps community organizations adapt more efficient ways of doing their day-to-day work.
Central to these efforts is the sharing of principles from the Toyota Production System (TPS), first developed in the 1940s which is based on the notion that small, continuous improvements drive a higher quality of work.
“By eliminating problems, we’re getting incrementally better,” Toyota Advisor Scott Porter explained. “We fix little things all day long, and the collective of all those little things helps overall performance significantly.”
The car company partnered with filmmakers to create a series of short films to document some of the most valuable projects that Toyota has nurtured in recent years. The goal is the betterment of people’s lives through the betterment of the organizations.
One of the poignant partnerships was with the St. Bernard Project, which is rebuilding family homes lost in Hurricane Katrina. With an influx of Americorps volunteers to work on more homes, the founders were surprised that it hadn’t sped up the building time. Before Toyota stepped in to identify improvement opportunities, it was taking the group 116 days on average to complete a home. Afterward, it was cut almost in half, to 61 days.
Another organization helped by Toyota was a busy county eye clinic at Harbor-UCLA hospital, where patients were slowly going blind waiting months for medical services. The wait list was hundreds of patients long, but busy doctors and administrators didn’t know how to fix it. With a new color-coded filing system and moving the supplies to where the doctors needed them most often, and the shift to a culture of observation, they were able to eliminate the surgical backlog within two years.
Most Americans don’t know who Elizabeth Cady Stanton is, and putting her picture on the new $10 bill may be a good way to teach them about her.
The new, commemorative bill will be issued in 2020, the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment’s ratification giving American women the right to vote.
A nationwide poll in August, two months after the U.S. Treasury announced the plan, found six women favored: First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (29%), abolitionist Harriet Tubman (20%), explorer Sacagawea (11%), aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart (11%), suffragist Susan B. Anthony (11%), and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (4%).
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was born 200 years ago today, isn’t even in the running for having her portrait honored by the nation’s currency — but as founder of the women’s movement in her country, she should be.
Her father raised her in New York as he would any son–the lawyer encouraged her to enter traditionally male-dominated spheres.
At age 33, when Stanton was already a leading abolitionist, fighting alongside her husband to end slavery, she took on a new and more personal fight. She delivered a “Declaration of Sentiments” at the first women’s rights conference in Seneca Falls, New York. Modeled on the Declaration of Independence, it listed 16 “sentiments” describing the many rights denied to women by their patriarchal government and society.
These included the rights to own property, to have a voice in lawmaking, and to vote.
Stanton’s Declaration was controversial at the time, but abolitionist Frederick Douglas called it a “grand movement for attaining the civil, social, political, and religious rights of women.”
She would eventually form, and later lead, the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 with Susan B. Anthony, who is better known to most Americans–maybe because she was featured on a dollar coin minted in 1979 through 1981.
But Stanton would die 18 years before American women won the right to vote.
Maybe for us, a century later, the right thing to do might be to remember the woman who began the struggle a full 70 years before the 19th Amendment became a reality.
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One of his theories includes bigger, better, and more efficient batteries, which could store larger amounts of electricity and produce less waste. Another, the use of microbubbles — similar to the “shade balls” used in California reservoirs to prevent water loss during the drought — to make lakes and ponds reflect sunlight back into space and cool the planet.
Nye also argues that electric, self-driving cars could cut air pollution on the roads — and serve as power sources at home.
“My goal is to change the world!” Nye told Salon. “We’ve got to go into this knowing we have a hard challenge but that we’re going to win this fight, and we’re going to save the earth for humanity.”
Known for popularizing science for laymen and teaching a generation of American kids about science through his television show, “Bill Nye, the Science Guy,” Nye has concentrated his focus in recent years on calling attention to climate change and possible solutions.
This marathon runner thought a police officer deserved a medal for his actions, so he gave him his own.
Robert McCoy had just made the final turn, and could see the finish line in the distance, during the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in Savannah, Georgia. After running 26 miles, he had to know that all the effort was about to pay off.
That’s when he took a nasty fall, scraping his face, knees, and shoulder.
Sgt. John Cain of the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department saw him tumble and rushed to help him.
The Georgia elder did have to cancel a planned trip to Nepal to help Habitat rebuild homes destroyed by the recent earthquake, but it had nothing to do with his cancer. The organization decided civil unrest in the region might make the project to dangerous for volunteers.
The house in Memphis is going to Arlicia Gilliams, a 25-year-old single mom who’s putting 350 hours of “sweat equity” into helping build her future home. She said she was thrilled getting to work alongside the former president. Country music stars Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks also volunteered on the job site with Carter.
Carter says he’s all business on a Habitat project and doesn’t want to be bothered while he’s working. He says if volunteers are talking to him or taking pictures with him, no one’s getting any work done.
He plans to keep up that kind of pace as long as his health will let him.
Navy combat veteran Chris Ring is swimming the entire length of the Mississippi River on a quest to become the first American to complete the 2,552 mile-long span from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.
The veteran has been in the water nearly seven hours every day to bring honor and awareness to his fellow solders killed in battle and their “Gold Star” Families.
After starting his swim on the anniversary of D-Day in June, the veteran is hoping to complete his mission in early December–swimming past ten states on his way to the finish line of the fourth longest river in the world.
Watch the Reuters video below: NOTE* It may take a few moments to load… (Photo used with permission)
Ten years ago, Mark and Tori Baird got a knock on their door from a Marine who’d just returned from Iraq.
The soldier was wondering if they had any jobs around the house that could help him earn $100 which he needed for an electricity bill.
The retired couple offered to give the Marine $100, but he refused the charity.
Five hours later, after doing odd jobs for the couple in the yard and home, the Marine left with a hundred bucks. The encounter sparked the idea for the Bairds to start a job board called “Hire Marines”.
The website took off, and Mark and Tori even got a call from the Admiral of the Navy who asked if sailors could also use the service. The Bairds were thrilled and renamed their web site, Hire Patriots, with the goal of providing work for veterans.
(LEARN more about the job board’s success at Brad Aronson’s blog) – Photo credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images
What started off as a student government project has become a full-scale, full-time resource for students in one North Carolina community who are living with food insecurity.
At Washington High School, this food pantry remains fully stocked with non-perishable goods for students to take if they need it.
People who’ve traded a military uniform for a barista’s smock at Starbucks will now earn more than just a paycheck. They will get free tuition for a family member toward a college degree.
If a Starbucks employee is a U.S. veteran, or still an active-duty service member, the coffee chain will offer four-years of college tuition to their spouse or one of their children through Arizona State University’s online degree program. Because many active duty service members move so much, obtaining an online degree is often a preferable option.
The Seattle, Washington-based company announced the policy Sunday, just ahead of Veterans Day, November 11.
The perk is an expansion of the Starbucks College Achievement Plan begun last year which pays tuition for any employee working 20 or more hours per week. The company pays for four years of online college credits toward one of 50 undergraduate degrees through the Arizona university’s online education program.
The company realized veterans weren’t taking advantage of the program because they already had education opportunities through the G.I. Bill, a set of benefits the U.S. government offers to military service members. So it decided to pass the benefit on to their family members.
Starbucks’ hopes to used the free tuition to recruit more veterans. The company promised in 2013 to hire 10,000 veterans and military spouses by 2018. So far, they’ve hired 5,500 toward that goal.
A former member of the biker gang Hell’s Angels has founded a nonprofit to give severely wounded veterans the opportunity to become heroes once again.
By taking them on mountaineering expeditions that scale the world’s most challenging summits, Tim Medvetz and his Heroes Project has helped them rediscover their strength and sense of pride.
The biker needed such a journey himself, after a motorcycle accident in 2001 left him wondering whether he’d walk again. Turned off by standard physical therapy, he tried to find another way to regain his footing.
“I felt like I was dying,” he said. “I needed a punch in the mouth.”
It turned out, Mount Everest was that punch in the mouth—he climbed it on his second attempt, and threw his pain pills away shortly after.
For the past six years, Medvetz has been sharing his program with hundreds of amputees who are learning that they are still the amazing men and women they always were.
Today, on Veteran’s Day, he is leading a group toward the summit of Africa’s highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro.
Through two different divisions, his Heroes Project helps these veterans regain their own footing.
Climbs for Heroes supports climbing programs for wounded marines, soldiers and veterans, and documents the trips on video to use for advocacy and empowerment purposes. Hope for Heroes works to support and help expand other existing community service programs that support veterans.
(WATCH the video below from 60 Minutes) Photo credits: Heroes Project on Facebook
There has been a vast amount of awareness raised and action taken for children with autism over the past decade—but people over the age of 18 are often left with few options when they age out of “the system.”
Rutgers University is launching a new initiative to help. When it opens in 2018, the Rutgers Center for Adult Autism Services will be offering up to 60 adults with autism the chance to work independently at specific jobs on campus, and giving 20 of those individuals the chance to live on-site alongside college students.
Rutgers President Robert Barchi said the New Jersey university intends to demonstrate how educational institutions can become part of the answer by providing a model that integrates academic research, student training and community inclusion of adults with autism.
“Rutgers has tremendous autism expertise and unmatched services that can be employed to create a model unlike anything that currently exists,” Barchi said. “Ultimately, the findings that grow out of our work will help inform education, intervention and public policy.”
The school in New Brunswick is raising funds to be able to construct two buildings that will make the opportunity possible.
The first, which is slated to open in the fall of 2018, will house a program that offers office employment to people during the week. Conference rooms and computers will be used to conduct “life skills training”. A second building nearby will house 20 adults with autism spectrum disorder. 20 Rutgers graduate students will also live there in apartments, each equipped with kitchen, dining room, living room and laundry room.
After eight very sick individuals volunteered to be flown to the Amazonian jungle to try a holistic treatment approach, five of them came back remarkably improved.
A film called The Sacred Science documents their 30 days of encampment during which each serious illness was turned over to the power of plants, herbs, indigenous wisdom, and mental and spiritual exploration.
Though it first debuted in 2012, the film is an enduring resource touting the benefits of going beyond modern medicine. Now, it is available for free to view online, and offers lessons about how ancient medicine can potentially cure modern illnesses–from Parkinson’s and Crohn’s Disease, to a variety of cancers and diabetes–and how something as simple as a plant can have healing powers.
Filmmaker Nick Polizzi embarked on the project in 2011, putting out a call for applications from seriously ill patients who wanted to immerse themselves in alternative healing concepts on the border between Brazil and Peru. He received over 400 applications within 48 hours.
“I wanted to use real patients, and I wanted them to be more desperate than average patients, willing to journey into the middle of the Amazonian jungle, thousands of miles away from a modern hospital, and put it all on the line to find ‘a cure’,” he told Good News Network.
The combination of different wellness modalities, plants, herbs, diet, and spiritual work that each patient experienced was unique to their respective situation. Beyond just the consumption of the plants themselves, the external environment was also seen as critical to the healing process. So, the patients stayed in jungle huts a mile away from any other patients, spending much of their month in “the solitude of nature.”
This, Polizzi said, helped foster the crucial, spiritual component of the journey.
“If you ask a shaman or a medicine woman which plant cures cancer, there’s no one answer. You can’t sit in a hotel room and drink herbs,” he said. “If you look into ancient folk medicine from indigenous cultures, all the way to ancient Chinese medicine, they looked at the entire situation, the deeper parts of who you are in your soul.”
5 Patients Reported Remarkable Improvement
After the journey was completed, five of the patients experienced significant improvement in overall health. Two were disappointed with the experience and one person with a terminal disease, who was only expected to live a week before arriving in the jungle, ending up living two pain-free weeks before passing away there.
Though the subject matter may seem controversial and ripe for criticism, the documentary earned the respect of doctors from around the world at multiple film festival screenings.
“They would warn me, ‘Those are some top doctors in the front row,’” Polizzi said. “But nobody really challenged what they saw. I think having doctors involved on our end had something to do with that.”
While everyone may not be able to fly to South America to cure what ails them, they can come to understand that medicine is not just about treating symptoms.
“Acupuncture and yoga both seem simple enough, but you look at the roots of these practices–more than movement or needles in your body, it’s about your energy that links to that,” he said. “The Sacred Science team is on a mission to bring awareness to the medicinal value of these traditions and help preserve these fragile cultures from extinction.”
The film offers insight about how to use specific native nutritional practices to “turbo-boost” your body’s healing power and how to take a fresh look at the “root cause” of disease—the cause that lies deep within us—and how to find and heal it. Watch the trailer below, and also get a free screening of the full documentary at this link.
The pictures may have been meant to announce a couple’s wedding day, but their jealous little dachshund made sure the photo shoot was all about him.
Megan Determan and Chris Kluthe of St. Paul, Minnesota decided to include their dog, Louie, in their engagement photos. It was supposed to be a set of charming, family pictures.
But Louie stole the show, photobombing the couple and completely blocking Chris in a wacky series of shots.
We love it when couples include their pets in engagement photos.... but maybe this guy was having too much fun : )
After next year, SeaWorld will no longer be exhibiting its orca, or “killer whale” shows at the San Diego park in California.
Instead of the animals doing tricks, there will be a new orca attraction planned for 2017 that will convey a “conservation message inspiring people to act” to protect the environment.
Just last month, state regulators approved the park’s request to expand the size of its orca tanks, but on the condition that it shut down its captive breeding program statewide.
That effectively meant an eventual end to the whale shows at the San Diego park, since there could be no new whales added in the future.
The theme park’s attendance plunged 17% last year in the wake of publicity following the 2013 release of “Blackfish,” a documentary critical of SeaWorld’s orca shows.
“What we’ve been hearing in California (is) they want experiences that are more natural and experiences that look more natural in the environment,” SeaWorld CEO Joel Manby told the San Diego Union-Tribune.
A positive attitude during a chance meeting has raised nearly $40,000 for a homeless man and his two-year-old son.
James Moss and his son, Zhi, left New York for a job and new residence in Colorado.
Both of those opportunities fell through as the little family arrived. They had no food, shelter, or car — and his bus tickets back to New York had been stolen.
Wandering down a street in Denver, Mr. Moss just happened to run into a UK television host shooting a show about random acts of kindness called #GoBeKind.
Host Leon Logothetis captured a moving and inspiring interview with the young father, who could have been bitter or depressed, but was neither.
“I guarantee in a month’s time, I’ll make anything that I need to happen, happen,” James said. “You have to be brought down to your humblest point, so you can appreciate other things that are waiting for you.”
Logothetis was so touched by Moss’ attitude, he paid for a week’s stay in a hotel for the father and son and gave them $1,000.
But, indeed, there were “other things waiting” for the optimist.
A stranger in Kansas who saw the interview on YouTube started a GoFundMe campaign for the New York pair, and in only a week, it has raised $39,000 for the family.
The money should help Moss and Zhi move out of a homeless shelter and even buy a car to get to his new job. That’s right—after the video aired, Moss landed a new job as a barber in Denver. It’s only been a week, but his guarantee of a “month’s time” is coming true, thanks in large part to a chance meeting on a Colorado street.
(WATCH the GoBeKind video above – and the Latest UPDATE from KMGH-TV, below)
By the time the day was done, not a single animal on the adoption floor was left behind bars.
“This is my dream…that all dog pounds will be empty some day,” Volunteer Macee wrote on Facebook. “Thank you SCAC, their volunteers and the dogs, for staying the course. We will miss each of you.”
All these extra rooms mean more space for a new set of animals that need a second chance.
(Photos by allen watkin, CC; Summit County Animal Control on Facebook)
For the past eighteen years, inmates at Mike Durfee State Prison have been restoring old bikes in a huge workshop – tearing them apart and rebuilding them, a metaphor for what they hope to do with their own lives.
Broken bikes are brought in by the hundreds each year to the South Dakota Department of Corrections for its program, called Pedal Power from the Pen.
After each bicycle is neatly repainted, repaired, and reupholstered, they are given away at the end of the year– more than 1300 bikes– to underprivileged children around the state of South Dakota.
For the past decade, the police department in the city of Mitchell, alone, has regularly contributed 100 unclaimed or abandoned bikes every year.
With all sizes available, some are distributed to children of inmates who have no wheels of their own. Most are given back to law enforcement agencies or social service groups at an annual dinner, ensuring they end up in communities that need them most.
Eye drops that have partially reversed cataracts in lab tests could one day restore sight for millions of people around the world.
While operations to remove cataracts are common in developed countries, there are millions of people, blinded by cataracts, who have no access to the surgery.
A chemical treatment that could be administered with little training has been the “holy grail” of eye doctors for years and these drops offer new hope. Something researchers are calling “Compound 29” is the first liquid that is soluble enough to form the basis for an eye-drop alternative to cataract surgery.
Cataracts form on proteins called crystallins in the lens of the eye. Crystallins are essential for the eye to focus and they have to be transparent so you can see through the lens.
But the body never replaces crystallins — the ones you are born with are the ones you have your whole life. Other proteins, called “chaperones” keep crystallins clear for decades. However, they can lose their effectiveness over time, leaving the crystallins to fold over on themselves, harden, and cloud the lens.
Scientists at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) identified a new chemical that rejuvenates crystallins. It effectively “melts” the folded crystallins, making them soluble within the lens, restoring their transparent qualities.
Starting with more than 2,400 different compounds, the researchers narrowed their research down to one — Compound 29. Used three times a week, for five weeks, it partially reversed cataracts in elderly mice. It also worked in the lab on human cataracts that had been removed through surgery.
They took Brycen’s hands and walked him back from the coin toss to where the junior varsity team had assembled. They all removed their helmets at once to reveal shaved heads–in solidarity with the sophomore’s hair loss due to chemotherapy.
“Now you wear it proud, we’re all the same,” the team captain shouted to Bryce over the laughter and cheers.
“His teammates were very affected” after doctors found 3 brain tumors in August, said Anne Pickard, who works for the school. “The whole sophomore class has really rallied around him.”
She said they all have been dropping handwritten notes into a box installed to collect encouraging messages, so Brycen can read them at home anytime he needs a lift.
“This is a great story about young men helping one of their teammates even when he’s too sick to be out there playing,” Miles Himmel, the local radio producer who shot the video, told Good News Network.
And to top off the night, the Cathedral Dons won the game 33-0, and dedicated the win to Brycen.
(WATCH the video below from the Mike Slater Show on AM 760) – Photo: CCHS, Facebook
