Human Interest Archive: May 2009
How words can last a lifetime
(Bob Greene, CNN) The enduring moments of our lives, the ones that stay with us the longest, don't necessarily make the headlines. The other afternoon I was talking with a woman by the name of Virginia Florey. She's 80 years old; she has lived in Midland, Michigan, all her life. She was telling me that when she was 11 years old, she and her best friend, Charlotte Fenske, would walk to school together every morning. At the corner of East Carpenter Street and Haley Street, across from a Pure Oil filling station, there was a small grocery -- Thompson's grocery store, it was called.
Teens with special needs get a prom to remember
(Larry Lazo, CNN) Going to the prom is a highlight in many teenagers' lives. But attending a prom isn't always an option for some young people, including those with special needs. That's where Helen McCormick comes in. "We are dreaming for children who are excluded from their proms, and ... you're going to see people walk through the doors who are going to be just absolutely mesmerized," said McCormick, president of a Virginia-based nonprofit called The House, Inc. For the past four years, McCormick has organized a prom specifically for children with special needs.
Customer, cabbie arrive at friendship
(Meghan Irons, Boston Globe) She finishes his stories for him, even the ones he doesn't like to tell. He jokingly grouses about the trouble she puts him through, like carrying her walker in the rain. Christina Fadala and Robert Karasinski are a most unusual pair. She is a disabled woman. He is her regular cabdriver. Ride after ride, day after day, from one year to the next, they have formed a friendship, over the whir of the engine and the occasional whoosh of windshield wipers, that has become a fixture in each of their lives. It also has touched the heart of this city.
When a giver was about to give up
(Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times) As she neared the end of her rope, Sylvia Franklin found some good Samaritans. "I have a serious, painful and hopeless problem," the letter from Sylvia Franklin began. "I'm in extreme need of a dentist." It's routine in my line of work to hear from people who are sick, lonely, angry or afraid, especially in this economy. Although there's not enough time in the day to take up every cause, some cries are impossible to ignore.
Random Acts of Kindness: A vanished ring makes its way back
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) My story begins 10 years ago. My husband and I were in the process of beginning our lives. We didn't have much, so what we had meant a lot to us. We both had graduated in 1994, so we both had class rings from our high schools. Mine was from South Park and his was from Duquesne. I kept them both in a jewelry box, mementos of our high school years. One day I was surprised to find that both rings had gone missing. I searched my entire home, and could not locate them.
Kids all smiles after getting free bikes
(Jeremy P. Meyer, Denver Post) A tradition started by a guy who just likes bikes is focused on changing the lives of the youngest students at the poorest schools in the metro area. Every kindergartner at Alsup Elementary School in Commerce City got a brand new helmet and a red Huffy Rockit bike Friday — the last day of school — courtesy of the nonprofit Wish for Wheels, started five years ago by Brad Appel. This is the fourth year Appel has distributed bikes at Alsup.
Boyfriend Designs Dress For Prom Date
(Stephanie Watson, KDKA) For Abbey Niklaus, her prom at Avonworth High School this year is not only special; it's making headlines and is the talk of the school. "Not only did I go as a freshman, but my boyfriend made my dress," said Niklaus. Not only did her boyfriend make it from scratch with no sewing experience, but Mike Simmons is also a star football player.
Colombian kids stand tall, thanks to surgeon
(Claire Osborn, Austin American-Statesman) One woman walked eight hours to the hospital with her paralyzed son in a wheelbarrow. Another boy arrived with an unusual disease that required doctors to reinforce the weakened bones in his neck. Another child had a tuberculosis infection that paralyzed him. These are the kinds of cases that keep Austin spine surgeon Dr. Matthew Geck, 38, returning to Cali, Colombia. "If I fix the children, I can give them a more productive life," he said. "It makes me feel good, and it's a unique opportunity to be able to participate in people's lives."
Couple create Flickr pictures together to bridge 4,000 mile divide
(The Telegraph) Rosie Hardy, 18, of Buxton, Derbyshire, and Aaron Nace, 25, of North Carolina, USA, met through the photo sharing website. Before they met in the flesh they used a computer programme to fuse themselves together in a series of pictures as if they were a 'real' couple. In some they are shown embracing, while in others they reach out for each other through photo frames. Miss Hardy, an A-level student, said the process of making the pictures brought them closer.
Brothers to climb Kilimanjaro before one of them goes blind
(Janice Crompton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) Brian Hart of Washington has one goal these days: helping his brother see a sunrise over Mount Kilimanjaro before he goes blind. The 39-year-old civil engineer for the state Department of Transportation and father of two has been endurance training for months in preparation for the early August climb of the tallest peak in Africa. "This is all about my brother," he explained.
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Woman rows off on solo sea journey
(Rob Shikina, Honolulu Star-Bulletin) Roz Savage knows her biggest challenge to completing a 2,600-mile solo row from Honolulu to Tuvalu in the South Pacific will be crossing the equator. "There's a really tricky current there," Savage said on the dock yesterday before stepping into her carbon fiber rowboat at Waikiki Yacht Club. She said another rower had difficulty crossing that current and ended up in Papua New Guinea, about 1,700 miles away from his target, Australia. Savage, 41, departed yesterday on the second leg of her three-part journey to become the first woman to row solo across the Pacific Ocean.
Dodgeball tournament benefits young girl with leukemia
(Amanda Luevano, Orange County Register) Memorial Day turned into "Avery Day" in Fountain Valley as dozens gathered to raise money for Avery Koland, a 4-year-old Huntington Beach girl battling Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. The event was held Monday morning at Newhope Gymnastics in the Los Caballeros sports village, and was highlighted by a dodgeball tournament, raffles, entertainment and vendors. Avery and her family arrived at the club in a limousine filled with toys and balloons. There, they were greeted by dozens of volunteers and vendors, all wearing "Avery Bravery" shirts.
Students "shop" for donated books
(Steve Mayer, Bakersfield Californian) If you've ever thought kids care more about video games than books, a visit to Pauly School in south Bakersfield might change your mind. By midmorning Thursday, more than 1,500 children's books were arranged on long tables spanning the width of the school's cafeteria. There were mysteries and fantasies, fiction and non-fiction, picture books and chapter books. Generously donated by area residents through "My First Library," a book drive organized by The Californian, the carload of books was about to be snatched up and devoured by more than 500 students hungry for reading.
Next stop: Love! Gent proposes at Grand Central
(Samantha Strong, John Lauinger, and Leo Standora, New York Daily News) Frazzled holiday commuters were stopped in their tracks at Grand Central Terminal by the power of love - an old-fashioned proposal in the historic transit hub. "Amanda Gunning, please report to the information booth to meet Brian Steed. He wants to ask you to marry him," a voice intoned over the public address system Friday.
Frisco couple face wife's Lou Gehrig's disease together
(Jessica Meyers, Dallas Morning News) Neither the scratchy recording nor the heaving ventilator could mar her sultry voice. She sang in Spanish, Mexican folk ballads he couldn't understand then and comprehends only slightly better now. Dewie Quortrup dropped her head almost imperceptibly to the right as she listened to herself and smiled. Pete Quortrup blushed. He didn't used to respond so viscerally when she beamed that Cheshire cat grin that friends say is her trademark. They wouldn't have sat like this even two years ago – simply enjoying the presence of each other, sharing shelved memories. Now, moments like these are their sustenance.
Phoenix woman solves 20-year adoption puzzle
(Mary Beth Faller, Arizona Republic) Kathy Suszczewicz will no longer have to look into every new face she meets for clues to her own identity. After years of dogged and resourceful searching - she even used Scrabble tiles to decipher misspelled names - the 43-year-old Phoenix woman has found her two brothers. The three met for the first time in March, the emotional culmination of two decades for Suszczewicz.
Volunteers' generosity has saved the school system millions
(Joe Callahan, Ocala Star-Banner) They call him "The Dude," the iron man of volunteer hours. At age 90, retired schoolteacher Henry Duda is not only the oldest volunteer in the School District, he donates three times more hours than most every other volunteer, helping the county save millions of dollars. This school year alone, Duda has spent 1,500 hours filing records at the student assignment office, and doing minor janitorial duties and shredding documents. In 29 years, he has spent 35,000 hours volunteering, most of them at Ward- Highlands Elementary School.
8-year-old Jack Letts sees his dream of getting bicycle fulfilled after not winning a raffle at his school, Clark Elementary, last week
(Gabriel Baird, Cleveland Plain Dealer) Eight-year-old Jack Letts clasped his hands together and prayed as nearly 30 bikes were being raffled off Saturday at the bike-a-thon at his school, Clark Elementary in Cleveland. Couldn't he please win one? Nope. He walked home without a set of wheels to call his own. But the next morning, a picture of him praying as names were called during the raffle appeared in The Plain Dealer. Thursday afternoon, the school principal, Amanda Rodriguez, Police Commander Keith Sulzer and Jack's mom, Jovone Wilson, were waiting for him outside the school's main office.
Readers pitch in to help homeless honors student
(Michael Mayo, South Florida Sun-Sentinel) Duane Harris, 49, an honors student at Keiser University in Fort Lauderdale, snapped his perfect attendance streak on Tuesday. He skipped his computer programming class to visit another school, Winston Park Elementary in Coconut Creek. Cecilia Trotter's second-grade class sat at their desks, looking at the impeccably dressed man by the blackboard. "Do I look like a homeless person?" Harris asked. "No," the kids said. "Homeless people don't always have a bottle in their hands; they're not always dirty and wearing baggy clothes," Harris said. "You can still look nice." When Trotter's class read about Harris' situation, they wanted to do something to help. So I arranged for a visit. When I profiled him earlier this month, he was making straight A's by day, sleeping in his car by night. But now, thanks to caring readers, much has changed.
One big hero
(Mark Young, North Platte Telegraph) A quick-thinking North Platte 6-year-old is credited with helping to save his dad's life after he noticed that his father, Phillip Mains, had passed out while driving due to a diabetic episode on Sunday evening. Tustin Mains, a local kindergartner, reacted quickly from the backseat, jumping between the two front seats of the vehicle to grab the steering wheel of his father's Chevy Avalanche and climbing atop his father's lap in order to see out of the window.
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Old man and the gym: 82-year-old trainer still going strong
(Sam McManis, McClatchy Newspapers) Don't call Richard Commins "spry," that condescending adjective frequently attached to any older adult who is ambulatory enough to get out and do something. OK, so what do you call an 82-year-old who - when not working in his lush yard or repairing the roof of his home - is pumping iron, puffing away through push-ups and pull-ups, revving up the elliptical machine, working those core muscles and maintaining balance on a trampoline? Answer: personal trainer. No records are kept, but Commins might be the oldest personal trainer in the nation. He gained accreditation in 1985 after completing classes at California State University, Sacramento, following retirement as a longtime middle school industrial arts teacher.
Clean and sober Chesco lawyer commended for helping addicts
(Kathleen Brady Shea, Philadelphia Inquirer) In the 1960s, booze emboldened the quest for justice of a brash young lawyer born during the Depression in a West Philadelphia taxi. But heavy drinking and drugs also threatened to derail John J. Duffy's legal career, sometimes blurring the distinction between himself and the criminal defendants he represented. On more than one occasion, Duffy said, he ended up in handcuffs on charges ranging from drunken driving to reckless endangerment. Last week, Duffy, 76, who lives and practices law in West Chester, received a standing ovation in a packed Chester County courtroom for his work helping others to beat their addictions. He has been sober for 35 years, he said.
Millvina Dean: 'In the lifeboat, my mother found she had me but not my brother'
(Fionola Meredith, Irish Times) There’s a long, long lifetime reflected in Millvina Dean’s hands. Although gnarled and age-spotted, they are elegant and exquisitely manicured. These hands are strong and expressive too, flying around as she speaks, grasping a pen as she signs her autograph, a little wobbly but very determined, for the umpteenth time. Now aged 97, Millvina is the last living link to the most famous ship in history. Millvina Dean was the youngest passenger on the Titanic . A nine- week-old baby in her mother’s arms when it set sail from Southampton on April 10th, 1912, Millvina was so tiny that when the ship struck the iceberg, she had to be lifted into a lifeboat in a postal sack.
The road is home for family traveling USA in their RV
(Craig Wilson, USA Today) Tom and Mary Claire Wahl are homeless. Well, kind of homeless. They don't have a house. Or a hometown. What they have is a 41-foot recreational vehicle that they are driving around America, joined by their three children: Joe, 12, Anna, 10, and Sam, 7. In the past eight months they have traveled almost 16,000 miles, visited 26 states, stayed over at 29 national parks and clipped at least seven trees. They're about halfway through their journey. Sometime in the next six months, they'll pick a new hometown, buy a house and settle down.
Terminally ill race fan sees his car on track at National Trail Raceway
(Holly Zachariah, Columbus Dispatch) The thousands of people at National Trail Raceway fell silent yesterday as the race-car drivers approached the ambulance one by one to say goodbye to a sick friend. No sounds came from the grandstand, no power tools whirred in the pits. Even Eddie Blankenship, announcer for the 17th Annual Chrysler Classic at the Hebron racetrack, was quiet. "There didn't seem to be anything I could say," he said. On a gurney in the back of the ambulance parked at the starting line was 52-year-old Michael Rolfes, a concrete-truck driver from Johnstown.
First-time prom for teen injured by land mine
(Erika I. Ritchie, Orange County Register) Beloved Jefeti waited until the last minute to get fancy for his first-ever prom. Just an hour before the 18-year-old Zimbabwean – whose facial reconstruction has drawn worldwide attention – was due at the pre-prom dinner, he and his host family raced around Mission Viejo looking for someone to style his hair. The exuberant teen wanted it just right. Trevor Tinney, 14, his host brother, suggested cornrows or a big Afro but Beloved settled on gel to give his hair shine and dimension. He got it after hitting at least three shops. Beloved threw on a black tux – something he says only gentlemen in Zimbabwe wear – and Trevor convinced him not to wear a skate T-shirt that threatened to show through his white dress shirt.
Boy, 11, on trek to help homeless kids
(Emily Bazar, USA Today) The first five days of walking are the toughest for Zach Bonner, 11, no matter how hard he trains. The Florida boy's feet ache, his tummy rumbles, his legs stiffen. But the young philanthropist is on a mission to help homeless children, and after several days of walking at least 11 miles per day, he loosens up and the pain subsides. "I want to help other kids that didn't have the same opportunities," he says. Zach, who founded the Little Red Wagon Foundation in 2005 to help homeless and underprivileged children, started a 668-mile hike from Atlanta to Washington, D.C., last week. Along the way, Zach is collecting letters from children that he hopes to give President Obama in July.
Lake Forest charity does 70 surgeries for free
(Erika I. Ritchie, Orange County Register) In less than two weeks Operation of Hope volunteers have fixed the faces of 65 children. The Lake Forest-based nonprofit – an all-volunteer medical team that donates surgeries to children in developing countries born with facial deformities – is back at work in Zimbabwe. Since early May the 12-person team – including founder Dr. Joseph Clawson, a retired ear, nose and throat specialist – repaired 36 cleft lips, 33 cleft palettes and started reconstructive work on the face of a child blown apart by a landmine. Volunteers come from Orange County, Northern California, Oregon, Washington and Texas.
Mystery singer brightens people's day at Wegmans
(Rochester Democrat & Chronicle) If you're lucky, this could happen to you. You're shopping at the Wegmans store on Hylan Drive in Henrietta. A stranger — a small woman who uses a walker — stops you and says: "I'm going to sing you a song." Baffled, maybe even suspicious, you stay where you are and the woman begins to sing in Polish. Her sweet voice washes over you. You don't know what the words of the song mean, but that doesn't matter. For a moment at least, time has stopped.
Mad about MAD, LA man builds a dream out of CDs
(John Rogers, AP) It's always been a mad MAD world for Neil Cuadra. The 55-year-old Internet entrepreneur has photographed a portrait he made of MAD magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman's head using junk mail CDs and DVDs and sent it to the magazine, a feat that landed him in the magazine's 500th issue, published in April. "You just blew our mind. You used junk mail from AOL to create a piece of art that became junk mail to us," the magazine's editors said in a footnote to his letter.
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Nun to run Florida Keys 100-mile marathon
(Cammie Clark, Miami Herald) Sister Mary Elizabeth Lloyd is asking people to pray for her this weekend: She's running the entire Florida Keys island chain -- 100 miles over 43 bridges -- in her calf-length black habit. "I'm like Johnny Cash," she said. "I wear black to draw attention. And when people ask me: 'Why in God's name are you doing this?' I can say, 'For the orphaned children.' "
Opera helps visually impaired kids find their voice
(Tristan Smith, CNN) As little Tatyana Larbi, aka Little Miss Muffett, sings about selling her cotton and twigs to the "sister pigs," you can tell the young girl is enjoying her moment in the limelight, even if she can't see the audience's response. The set and costumes are pretty basic. Most were made by parents and volunteers. But that doesn't matter to the beaming mothers, fathers and grandparents in the audience. The fact that these 10 children are performing this day is enough for them. All of the actors in the Pumpkin Pickle Pop Cookies Opera are visually impaired 4- and 5-year-olds. Two are blind, and the others have varying degrees of sight. All are students in Atlanta's Center for the Visually Impaired BEGIN program. But today is their last day here, and performing this 20-minute opera is their "thank you" to their families.
Mom connects families to feed the hungry
(CNN) In 2002, Pam Koner was flipping through the The New York Times when a photograph stopped her in her tracks: an 8-year-old girl laying across her torn, barren mattress in Pembroke, Illinois, forking pasta and a boiled chicken bone into her mouth. The girl's image signified the deep-rooted poverty in her rural community. The picture moved Koner to tears and inspired her to take action. "When I read about a community so profoundly poor that women and children were not eating the last week of the month, I walked into my living room where my daughters were and said, 'We're going to do something as a family,' " recalls Koner, a 57-year-old single mother of two living in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. In the seven years since, Koner's determination to help families in Pembroke led to the creation of Family-to-Family, a nonprofit that connects more than 600 sponsor and recipient families in 13 communities nationwide.
Watch out, Emeril! TV chef, 5, wants your toque
(Mike Celizic, TODAYshow.com) Watch out, Bobby Flay. There’s a new chef on the chopping block, and he’s ready for a throwdown. His name is Julian Kreusser, and while he’s new to the television-chef game, he’s already got the magic ability to make every woman who watches him wield his whisk want to grab him and hug him and not let go. But Chef Julian’s charm has nothing to do with five o’clock shadow or a dimpled chin, and everything to do with his age.
Father records every day of children's lives
(The Telegraph) Munish Bansal has amassed 8,500 digital images of daughter Suman , 12, and her brother Jay , 10, since the day they were born. He has enough pictures to fill 600 albums and displays them on a website he created to showcase his two "delightful kids". Mr Bansal, 36, an accountance from Gillingham, Kent: "It started when I took a picture of Suman on the day she was born. I did the same the following day, and the day after, and the day after that. Before I knew it, she had turned one and I had 365 images. It seemed a shame to stop, so I kept going - and did the same when Jay came along."
Happiness is a warm blanket
(Ben Aaronson, Lincoln Journal) The children at For His Children (FHC) orphanage will be a little warmer this winter thanks to Cecelia Charrette. This March, the Lincoln fifth-grader visited the orphanage in Quito, Ecuador to hand-deliver hand-made blankets, which she sewed with the help of her after-school sewing group and her church. Cecelia traveled to Ecuador’s capital city with her mother, Annie Charrette, a professor of physical therapy at Northeastern University, who, along with colleague Lorna Hayward, led 14 doctoral students on a service trip to FHC.
The Kindness Factor
(Doug Dickerson, Salem-News.com) In his writing, Perhaps I Am, Edward W. Bok shares a story of kindness involving Herbert Hoover and Polish premier Paderewski. Here is an excerpt from the inspiring story Bok shares. There were once two young men working their way through Leland Stanford University. Their funds got desperately low, and the idea came to one of them to engage Paderewski for a piano recital and devote the profits to their board and tuition. The great pianist's manager asked for a guarantee of two thousand dollars. The students, undaunted, proceeded to stage the concert. They worked hard, only to find that the concert had raised only sixteen hundred dollars. After the concert, the students sought the great artist and told him of their efforts and results. They gave him the entire sixteen hundred dollars, and accompanied it with a promissory note for four hundred dollars, explaining that they would earn the amount at the earliest possible moment and send the money to him. "No," replied Paderewski, "that won't do." Then tearing the note to shreds, he returned the money and said to them: "Now, take out of this sixteen hundred dollars all of your expenses, and keep for each of you 10 percent of the balance for your work, and let me have the rest." The years rolled by--years of fortune and destiny...
7 of 10 winning Chicago-area teachers are surprised with Golden Apple Awards
(Azam Ahmed and Lisa Black, Chicago Tribune) They call her the "Queen of the Round Table," though the impact Gloria Moyer has on her students' lives reaches far beyond the small brown table where she teaches visually impaired children at Otis Elementary School in Chicago. The veteran educator advocates for special needs children and fiercely believes they should be looked at the same way as every other student: capable of achieving anything. Moyer's students and colleagues know this, and now the public does too. On Tuesday, she won a Golden Apple Award, an honor bestowed annually on 10 educators for excellence in teaching. Six others in the city and suburbs got the award Tuesday; the final three will be surprised Wednesday.
Woman has sight restored after 46 years of blindness
(Mary Minihan, Irish Times) For 46 years, Jenny O’Connell was afraid to hope her sight could be restored but yesterday she saw her family for the first time. Doctors at a Dublin hospital partially restored her vision with a rare treatment. Ms O’Connell from Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, lost her vision at the age of 11. After a complex procedure to insert an artificial cornea at the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, she was yesterday able to see again with her right eye. "What a shock. I just can’t believe it actually happened . . . it’s all my dreams together, but at the same time I wasn’t hoping for it, you know. I was afraid to." Ms O’Connell, who had never seen her husband Seán or her son and daughter before, was resting in hospital last night after being visited by family members.
Dancing Dreams become reality
(Denis Hamill, New York Daily News) These kids will make you wanna put on your dancing shoes. Joann Ferrara is a former gymnast and ballet dancer with 25 years of experience as a pediatric physical therapist who works with physically disabled kids, many with cerebral palsy. Most of these kids will never be able to walk. But a few toe-tapping weeks back, Ferrara had 30 of the kids from her Dancing Dreams program on a stage at the Mary Louis Academy in Jamaica Estates, dressed in ballet slippers, tutus and poodle skirts, wearing makeup, feathers and glitter, putting on a lollapalooza of a song and dance recital - "Shall We Dance." In the audience, 500 relatives, teachers, friends and classmates hooted and cheered and gave standing Os and leaked tears of pride and joy for these gutsy, life-loving young people who were making their dancing dreams come true. If that doesn't make you want to jump up and boogie, then it's time to turn in your membership card to the human race.
Bellevue women adopt from China, raise daughters in tandem, become family
(Nicole Tsong, Seattle Times) In February 2002, Kelye Kneeland and Jenet Carter had met just once before. But the moment Carter opened a hotel room door in Guangzhou, China, and saw Kneeland, she cried. The two women were there for the same reason — to adopt a Chinese baby. Introduced by a mutual acquaintance, Kneeland and Carter had talked regularly from their homes in Bellevue and Fairbanks, Alaska, respectively, about adopting as a single parent. It seemed almost cosmic when they were assigned babies from the same orphanage.
State's Safe Haven Law Helps Desperate Mothers And Couples Looking To Adopt
(Kathleen Megan, Hartford Courant) They called her the Christmas miracle baby and there's no doubt she was a miracle. But Hannah Lynn's arrival in the home of Holly and David Desimone was also the result of a more prosaic process — the work of legislators and child advocates and a law that the Desimones had never heard about. Hannah Lynn's birth mother knew about the law, however, and that made all the difference. On Dec. 24, 2007, about an hour before midnight, a blond woman in her late 30s arrived at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford.
'Miller Girls' Linked by Friendship, And a Man
(Theola Labbé-DeBose, Washington Post) Patty Miller cried last year when she learned that Gail Miller, her friend of more than 25 years, was in the hospital. She called Gail's daughter several times a day for updates. Once Gail got home, Patty offered to straighten up Gail's new apartment, even though by then she had her own medical issues. "I really knew in my heart of hearts I couldn't be of much help, but I just wanted to be a support," said Patty, 66, a retired nurse. The friendship that they forged over the decades grew out of a potentially awkward common bond: Patty is married to Jeff Miller, Gail's former husband. "We call ourselves 'the Miller girls,' " said Patty, who lives in Alexandria.
People making a difference: Anna and Phina Mojapelo
(Scott Baldauf, Christian Science Monitor) Preschoolers scamper around in the courtyard of the Orange Babies Pre-School, vaguely aware that their teacher is mouthing the words of a song they should be singing, and certainly aware that there is an audience of adults and older children watching them with broad smiles on their faces. That these children – residents of the New Jerusalem orphanage north of Johannesburg, and some of them HIV positive – can attend a preschool is in itself a minor miracle. Few South African children, let alone orphans, have the means to attend school before first grade. But Anna Mojapelo, cofounder of this orphanage, says all children deserve to have a good start in life.
Groomed to lend a hand
(Mike Tolson, Houston Chronicle) The bachelor party kicked into gear a bit early, just after 6 p.m., for the most practical of reasons: There was still plenty of light outside. When you’re looking for homeless people, you need to catch them before they slide into the bushes or hunker down in an alley for the night. The group of eight men gathered Thursday evening in honor of 32-year-old Chilobe Kalambo, who is getting married today. "Party" would have been a stretch by any definition. The traditional evening of bawdy excess and excessive drinking had been replaced by doing what Kalambo often does on a Thursday night — combing the streets and underpasses as a SEARCH Homeless Services outreach volunteer, sitting face to face with people much of the world hates to even look at.
Man who wouldn't walk again finishes marathon
(CNN) British soldier Phil Packer was told a year ago that he would never walk again, but on Saturday he finished the London Marathon. He completed the race 13 days after it started, walking on crutches for two miles a day -- the most his doctor would allow -- in order to raise money for charity. Flanked by cheering soldiers and supporters, an obviously emotional Packer had defied medical opinion after his lower spine was badly injured in the aftermath of a rocket attack on his base in Basra, Iraq, in February 2008.
Man honored for humanitarianism
(Sarah Eidemiller, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) Charlie Cunningham was going to work one winter morning and found a young woman in a nightgown and three children in pajamas waiting to get inside the Christian Laymen store in Greensburg. "They had been waiting there for three hours," he said. "It was 20 degrees outside. She told me her boyfriend had kicked her out, so we gave her some clothes and other things." That kind of situation isn't unusual for Mr. Cunningham, who founded Christian Laymen Corps, a thrift store that funds services for the needy in Westmoreland and Fayette counties and out-of-state areas of Appalachia.
Wife: Double Hand Transplant Recipient 'Excited,' Keeps Looking at Fingertips
(AP) Valarie Kepner was so excited at learning last fall that doctors might be able give her husband new hands that she called the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center without telling him first. Jeff Kepner, 57, had lost his hands and feet a decade ago to sepsis that developed from a strep infection. On Monday, he became the first person to undergo a double hand transplant in the United States and the second person to undergo a hand transplant through the hospital's new hand transplant program. "I really wanted him to regain his independence," Kepner said in an interview Thursday at UPMC.
Nurse's humor is the best medicine
(Cindy Schroeder, Cincinnati Enquirer) As a long-time critical care nurse who got his start in an inner city emergency room, Terry Foster's seen it all. There was the guy who stepped on a rusty nail and requested "a technical shot," the girl who complained, "I'm hurting in my semi privates," and the patient who boasted, "I'm so crazy I'm tripolar." For years, the Taylor Mill native tracked all the funny stuff that happened at work on a yellow legal pad. As his workplace humor expanded to several notebooks, then a jump drive, Foster began using tales from the ER in classes he taught medical personnel. Before he could say, "pelvic shazam," the man who's made it his mission to teach stressed-out medical professionals how laughter can make them better caregivers was fielding national offers for his hospital humor.
Tonic's 50 Most Beautiful People
(Lisa Germinsky, Tonic.com) This week, People magazine published its highly anticipated 50 Most Beautiful People issue. Well, over here at Tonic we’ve compiled our own list -- a celebration of 50 men and women, who, in their own generous ways, make the world a more beautiful place. Whether providing a good free laugh, preserving the planet or improving the lives of those less fortunate, these 50 are beautiful where it really counts -- on the inside -- deep souls, warm hearts and brilliant minds. And ironically, they’re all pretty darn good-looking. We hope they all inspire, arouse and entertain you, as much as they did us.
Disabled Hollywood man bicycles way out of bitterness
(Bob Pool, L.A. Times) For a dozen years after a 1987 motorcycle accident cost him his left leg, Felix Hackenberg was bitter that he was no longer physically active. "My idea of fun had been to get out and run six miles to the top of Mt. Hollywood and back," he said. "Losing my leg was emotionally devastating. It didn't make sense that my life should continue." But during a 1999 appointment with a prosthetist Hackenberg was asked if he had considered riding a bicycle. No, he replied, but he was willing to try. "I thought I'd have to put a mattress on my left side in case I fell," he said. "But I got on the thing and immediately had balance. I could ride it."
Little Jasmina, fighting leukemia, shows that goodness surpasses greed
(Michael Daly, New York Daily News) This bank of golden spirit is the national bone marrow donor registry, the electronic repository for 7 million people ready to help save a life should they happen to be a match. Among the 6,000 in dire need of a transplant is 6-year-old Jasmina Anema of Manhattan. She was diagnosed with a deadly form of leukemia in January, a time when the whole city feared Wall Street greed had left us on the brink of ruin. Wealth of another kind materialized in the form of 7,000 people inspired by her story to get swabbed and tested as a possible match.
Blanketing needy youth
(Gabriella Boston, Washington Times) Some are pink, some are blue; some are fluffy, some are smooth. They all look different, but they share a common goal: to comfort and console a child in need. We're talking about blankets made by the tens of thousands of "blanketeers" - volunteer blanket-makers - of Project Linus, a national nonprofit that aims to "provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans, the mission statement says. So far, the 14-year-old group, named after the Peanuts character who uses his blanket to shield against verbal attacks, has made and delivered more than 2.7 million blankets to needy children nationwide.
Two bone-marrow matches found for Jasmina Anema, 6-year-old leukemia victim
(Rich Schapiro, New York Daily News) There's finally hope for little Jasmina. After thousands of people flooded bone-marrow donor drives, a pair of near-perfect matches have been found for the 6-year-old leukemia victim who has captivated the city. The incredible news came just a day after test results showed Jasmina Anema's cancer cells to be in remission, clearing a critical hurdle in her quest to receive a life-saving marrow transplant. "I am just thrilled," Theodora Anema, Jasmina's mother said Tuesday. "I've never lost hope. I always expected a miracle, and this is like finding a miracle."
When a boy with a rare disease finds someone like him, distance is no obstacle
(Rita Price, Columbus Dispatch) Parents of sick or disabled children seek one another out for comfort, help and knowledge. The urge is primal, but technology makes it easier to fulfill: Just type the diagnosis in an Internet search box to find a dizzying array of links to advocacy clubs, chat boards and support groups. Don Hopkins and his wife, Patricia Evans, were no different in their desire. Every day, they tried to find someone with a child like their Austin. "We'd punch in Pollitt syndrome over and over," Hopkins said. "There was no one."
No slowing down for Special Olympian
(Rob Shikina, Honolulu Star-Bulletin) Robert Yuge plans to play softball until his legs "give up." And that shouldn't be for a few more years, says Yuge, who celebrated his 80th birthday yesterday on a Hawaii Kai baseball diamond. More than a dozen teammates and volunteers helped Yuge party with cake and gifts of chocolates and T-shirts. He is the oldest member on his team, which is preparing for the Special Olympics state softball championship later this month. He is also the oldest Special Olympian currently competing in Hawaii, said President Nancy Bottelo.
What Really Makes People Happy
(Jessica Winter, Oprah.com) It was a dreary afternoon not long ago, one of those days when the sunlight is wan and somehow sooty, flattening everything into a halfhearted pencil sketch. Sitting at my desk, I quit staring at my cuticles long enough to open a YouTube link from a friend—a newsclip about Jason McElwain. You might remember Jason, the autistic high school student from Rochester, New York, who scored 20 points in four minutes during his one-and-only stint in a game with his school's basketball team. In the clip, the coach gets choked up retelling Jason's story; tears sprang to my eyes, too. As I watched the elated home crowd rushing the court after Jason's final three-pointer, I felt borne aloft on a wave of happy pandemonium. I started forwarding the video, hoping my friends would feel what I felt: awe, surprised delight, teary joy.
Watch the video of Jason McElwain's remarkable game here
Young genius hitting his stride
(Michael Booth, Denver Post) Deep in a gadget-littered warren of CU-Boulder's aerospace lab, Ryan Kramer labors toward a senior thesis deadline that tends to be a great leveler of humanity. Young or old, male or female, brilliant or merely super-smart, everyone here is short on sleep and long on self-doubt. Ryan Kramer, at age 18, is a nanometer from graduating one of the most difficult science programs in the nation. Other students his age are booking a prom limo, while he ponders offers from aerospace grad schools at the University of Southern California and Duke. But Kramer, who entered the University of Colorado at age 14, has added modesty to his many accomplishments.
Homeless Soccer Team Roots for New Life
(Julie Bosman, New York Times) The scruffy players in brick-red jerseys and secondhand shoes hailed from Haiti, Togo, Mexico, Honduras and Harlem. The fresh-faced team in black had neatly trimmed hair, new gear and degrees from Carnegie Mellon, Syracuse, Pace and universities in China and Australia. Most of the players in black work together at the Royal Bank of Canada, bonded by the financial cloud hanging over their industry. The reds, too, are united by financial circumstance, sharing a temporary address, 1 Wards Island: a homeless shelter.
For fidgety crowd, yoga can be elementary
(Megan DeMarco, Philadelphia Inquirer) It may seem impossible to take 11 excited, fidgety third graders on a Friday afternoon and calm them down until they're almost meditating, but yoga instructor Jill Cummings can do it. Cummings teaches both child and adult classes at her studio in Collingswood. Once a week, she visits a Camden school to teach children, a therapeutic experience she thinks is invaluable to any child, but especially to inner-city children. "They have so many external challenges," Cummings said. "They can learn to find some sort of relaxation."
Mo. man treats mental illness with self-awareness
(Angie Hutschreider, Jefferson City News-Tribune) When he was 14, Jacob Zagorac was diagnosed as being bipolar and having attention deficit disorder. That was his first mental health diagnosis. During the next 14 years, nine more would follow. He was diagnosed with conditions including having multiple-personality disorder, having adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, social anxiety disorder, major, severe and chronic depression, general anxiety disorder and dissociative disorder. His treatments included 17 medications and six hospital stays over 15 years. Then, Zagorac said he got tired of being so unhappy and looked for an alternative means of treatment. "I finally realized I had to take responsibility for my feelings," he said.
The Ilkley woman who is making a business out of happiness
(Andrea Hardaker, Ilkley Gazette) When asked what they want out of life, most people will give the same old mantra – ‘I just want to be happy.’ But what is it that constitutes true happiness? Many will argue that money equals happiness, perpetuating the age-old myth that material wealth is all that is needed to wash away the woes. But according to businesswoman and healer Kimm Fearnley, true happiness has nothing to do with money. She believes that true happiness is achieved from within which is why she has recently opened a Happiness Centre in Ilkley to offer a clearer insight into how to achieve an inner balance of peace.