December 27, 2009, 11:30pm PST

(Sumaiya Malik, Good News Gazette) Well, despite the economy, it certainly has been a year jam-packed with positive, inspiring news from all around the world.

Susan Boyle inspired the world as she reminded us not to judge a book by its cover. The beauty of her voice has moved many to tears, and a few weeks back this former church worker turned diva held the number one album spot in both the U.S. and U.K., setting records along the way. Dreams do, indeed, come true.

Stories of the amazing healing power of animals abounded in 2009. Therapy cats, dogs and even dolphins and horses helped children, veterans and the elderly on their healing journeys, and in some cases also helped with the rehabilitation of their trainers. Reading programs like See Spot Read are enabling youngsters to improve their reading skills in front of a non-judgmental, furry audience. And tales of odd animal pairings, like Suriya the orangutan and Roscoe the hound and Sasha the Rottweiler who adopted Apple Sauce the piglet intrigued and inspired, and proved that love is truly universal.

Positive news from the worlds of Science, Technology and Health were abundant this year. NASA and its astronauts once again mesmerized the world and reignited our imagination for the possible with a series of spacewalks to repair the Hubble Telescope, which has since provided breathtaking images of the cosmos. Advances in medical science are now enabling a patient’s own stem cells to be used to halt the progression of disease. Case after case of kidney transplants between friends, strangers, and strangers who have become friends, have enabled hundreds of people to live healthy lives away from the encumbrance of regular dialysis treatments.

Businesses, which have often been excoriated during the recession, have stepped up to make a difference in the lives of communities around the world. Yahoo! recently launched its own kindness campaign to encourage its global audience to perform acts of kindness in their communities with the hope of creating a tsunami of kindness around the world as people pay it forward. Social entrepreneur Blake Mycoskie's TOMS Shoes gives a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair sold. French dairy firm Danone collaborated with Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus to launch a new social business opportunity in Bangladesh that helps address malnourishment issues there. Film studio Pixar granted the dying wish of 10-year-old Colby Curtin, who was too sick to see their 2009 movie Up in the theater, by flying an employee with a copy of the DVD to the young girl’s home for a private screening (when the film was still only in theaters). And thousands of small businesses have been able to expand their operations as a result of the continuing microfinance revolution which is creating connections between small-scale lenders and borrowers around the globe, and improving lives in the process.

Despite the continual drumbeat of fear and worry about the environment, progress continues to be made to enable more environmentally-friendly energy sources and reduce our impact on the environment. Zero waste, a strategy being successfully adopted by towns and businesses, highlights changing attitudes and offers a glimpse at how we may be able expand this approach more broadly. Green building techniques are flourishing, enabling homeowners to save money on their energy bills while at the same time reducing their environmental impact. And new businesses are sprouting up to address everything from renewable energy sources to making the trash collection process more energy efficient.

While the tabloids continued to focus on celebrity bad behavior, we, instead, chose to highlight the positive ways in which many of them are making a difference in the world. Artists including Toby Keith and Gary Sinise teamed up with the USO to provide entertainment to troops serving overseas; Stephen Colbert even took his entire show to Baghdad for a week. Celebrities Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt donated $1 million to Pakistani refugees dislodged as a result of fighting between the Pakistan Army and Taliban militants. In addition, Brad Pitt continued to shine a spotlight on the reconstruction of post-Katrina New Orleans. Singer Usher’s ‘New Look’ camp provides youth from around the U.S. with insights into the Sports and Entertainment industries, and encourages them to make a difference. Alicia Keys is helping children half a world away through her Keep A Child Alive foundation, and Jon Bon Jovi is helping to bring new options for affordable housing to Philadelphia and New Jersey communities and also showed solidarity with pro-democracy demonstrators in Iran by recording “Stand by Me” with Richie Sambora and Iranian singer Andy Madadian.

The stories of people helping people, making a difference by doing good, were the most inspiring, heart-warming news items of the year. A chance meeting at a funeral brought the quiet generosity of Tom Eggers, a secret sandwich-maker to the homeless, to light. Veterinarian Joel Locketz could not have anticipated the impact that his act of kindness 20 years ago had on Elaine Franczak and her daughter Alisha. Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone is helping eliminate the achievement gap for math between average black students and white students in New York City, and Gunnar Swanson is helping to connect American children with kids in Iraq and Afghanistan through his non-profit War Kids Relief.

Amidst this cornucopia of good news, a handful of stories stuck out. Here are Good News Gazette’s top 25 good news stories of 2009:

25. Kindness of American Saint Nick remembered

A small town in Luxembourg once destroyed by fierce fighting remembers one of the bright moments in the dark of Work War II -- a visit from Saint Nick. For Dick Brookins, a U.S. soldier standing in for an absent Saint Nicholas, it was to change his life also and help him find some meaning for the war in Europe.

24. A 12-year-old agent of change

(Olivia Stren, Globe and Mail) Bilaal Rajan can't meet tomorrow, his mother, Shamim Rajan explains, as he has a previous engagement: He has to go to the zoo. He can, however, squeeze in a late dinner interview at his favourite Toronto restaurant, Richtree Market. (He loves the potato rosti and schnitzel.) Just prior to our rendezvous, Bilaal's assistant sends me a list of suggested talking points. Apart from the fact that Bilaal has braces, arrives to the interview with his mother and an exchange-student friend, Sam, and manages to consume an Everest-worth of rosti with the appetite and velocity of, well, a 12-year-old boy, I might as well be meeting an elected official. Bilaal, who cites Gandhi and the Aga Khan as his heroes, is an activist, Unicef children's ambassador and motivational speaker. He has raised funds of nearly $5-million for causes that range from the victims of hurricane-ravaged Haiti to HIV/AIDS orphans.

23. Never Mind the Pity: How a dying teenager’s dream turned into the making of a miraculous album

(David Amsden, New York Magazine) Woodstock, Halloween night, 2008. The town’s main streets, a quaint cluster of earthy boutiques and cafés, are closed to traffic, allowing the teenagers of the Catskills to take part in an annual tradition known as the Shaving Cream Rave. With dance music pumping from massive speakers, kids gather at the triangle where Tinker Street merges with Rock City Road, impish grins on their faces and cheap metallic cans of shaving cream in hand. Then chaos: shaving cream shooting into the air, covering the streets, slathered and slapped on bodies, rendering all costumes unrecognizable, obsolete. Among those looking forward to this bit of community-sanctioned madness is a 15-year-old boy named Killian Mansfield, lanky, sardonic, inquisitive-looking.

22. She finally has a home: Harvard

(Esmeralda Bermudez, Los Angeles Times) Khadijah Williams stepped into chemistry class and instantly tuned out the commotion. She walked past students laughing, gossiping, napping and combing one another's hair. Past a cellphone blaring rap songs. And past a substitute teacher sitting in a near-daze. Quietly, the 18-year-old settled into an empty table, flipped open her physics book and focused. Nothing mattered now except homework. "No wonder you're going to Harvard," a girl teased her. Around here, Khadijah is known as "Harvard girl," the "smart girl" and the girl with the contagious smile who landed at Jefferson High School only 18 months ago. What students don't know is that she is also a homeless girl.

21. Abandoned piglet is lost and hound: Giant farm dog saves baby pig's bacon by adopting it as one of its own

(Liam Miller, Daily Mail) A giant farm dog and a tiny piglet cuddle up as if they were family after the baby runt was dismissed by its own mother. Surrogate mum Katjinga, an eight-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback, took on motherly duties for grunter Paulinchen - a tiny pot-bellied pig - and seems to be taking the adoption in her stride. Lonely Paulinchen was luckily discovered moments from death and placed in the care of the dog who gladly accepted it as one of her own.

20. Radical kindness: the banker who gave it all away

(Katherine Kizilos, The Age) On the face of it, kindness doesn't sound like a radical idea, just as Philip Wollen, at first glance, does not look like a radical. Wollen is a former merchant banker. He was a vice-president of Citibank when he was 34, and a general manager at Citicorp. Australian Business Magazine named him one of the top 40 headhunted executives in Australia. But about 1990 — he is not exactly sure of the year — Wollen decided to give away 90 per cent of his capital, a process he describes as "reverse tithing".

19. Girl grants elderly people their dying wishes

(Lori Basheda, Orange County Register) Thoughtful? Check. Pleasant? Check. Well spoken? Check. Grants elderly people's dying wishes? Check. Am I on Candid Camera? I'm sitting in the Laguna Beach home of Helen Kronberg on a Sunday evening. Helen is under the covers, in bed with lung cancer at the age of 89. And nearby, serving her a gourmet Chinese meal is thoughtful, pleasant, well-spoken Caitlin Crommett, who just turned 16. "Here's your first course," she tells Helen, smiling politely as she hands her a bowl. "I have soup for you." "It's marvelous," says Helen, propped up on pillows. "You hear about all the bad things kids are doing and never the good things."

18. The 'youngest headmaster in the world'

(Damian Grammaticas, BBC News) Around the world millions of children are not getting a proper education because their families are too poor to afford to send them to school. In India, one schoolboy is trying to change that. At 16 years old, Babar Ali must be the youngest headmaster in the world. He's a teenager who is in charge of teaching hundreds of students in his family's backyard, where he runs classes for poor children from his village. The story of this young man from Murshidabad in West Bengal is a remarkable tale of the desire to learn amid the direst poverty.

 

17. Every kid needs a teddy bear

Six-year-old Justin Martin is on mission to make sure every kid has a teddy bear. CNN's Jonathan O'Bierne has the story.

16. Viewers make a difference in Afghanistan

Andisha Farid is making a difference in a dangerous place, providing a safe haven in Afghanistan. NBC Nightly News viewers responded by generously donating to support her cause. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

15. Music Class Is Hit With Kids, Online Viewers

(Sharyn Alfonsi and Wonbo Woo, ABC News) Watching Gregg Breinberg effortlessly settle down 60 high-spirited fifth-graders is enough to leave you in awe. But when he cues his class to open their mouths again, you can't help but be left speechless. Meet the choir of P.S. 22 from Staten Island, N.Y. Who knew fifth-graders had so much soul?

14. Still in love after 80 years: The couple who met aged five that have been together ever since

(Daily Mail) They met as five-year-old schoolchildren in 1929 and have been together almost constantly ever since. But in a union that has spanned nine decades and survived the Second World War, Jim Hadwin and his wife Moira have managed to stay the distance. Retired firefighter Jim, 85, said: "We have been rock-solid since the very first day, we always knew it was going to last. We have spent our lives together but I wouldn't change a thing. We still make each other laugh and we are still grateful to have spent our lives together."

13. Malik's 'miracle' recovery

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta follows the recovery of Malik, a 2-year-old Afghan boy who suffered a massive brain injury.

12. Daddy-daughter day at ballgame is no throwaway

What happens when you give your toddler that precious foul ball you caught at the baseball game? NBC's Ron Allen reports.

11. Beluga whale saves drowning diver's life

(The Sun) A beluga whale saved a drowning diver by hoisting her to the surface, carrying her leg in its mouth. Terrified Yang Yun thought she was going to die when her legs were paralysed by crippling cramps in arctic temperatures. Competitors had to sink to the bottom of an aquarium's 20ft arctic pool and stay there for as long as possible amid the beluga whales at Polar Land in Harbin, north east China. But when Yun, 26, tried to head to the surface she struggled to move her legs.

10. From homeless to the NFL: Oher's journey to draft unique

(Jarrett Bell, USA Today) He was two years old, maybe, he figures. They were walking alone, dangerously on the side of a highway. Just Michael Oher and his brothers. He has no idea where they were headed, or their condition when they arrived. Details are fuzzy. But he swears it happened. Oher still sees the cars speeding by, a snippet in the back of his mind. It is the earliest memory of his life.

9. Peanut Butter Plan to feed the homeless spreads

(Steve Rubenstein, San Francisco Chronicle) The world is getting better, one peanut butter and jelly sandwich at a time. It's also getting messier, but that can't be helped when a dozen do-gooders get together on Valencia Street once a month, laden with peanut butter, jelly, bread, sandwich bags and those flimsy plastic knives that aren't much good for the serious work of spreading peanut butter and changing the world. It's called the Peanut Butter Plan. Like many of the best plans, it's simple: Strangers get together, make peanut butter sandwiches and immediately pass them out to homeless people. No federal subsidy, no foundation, no vouchers.

8. Facebook-driven $93 campaign hoping to grow to $93,000

(Lisa Fernandez, San Jose Mercury News) Ninety three dollars isn't enough. Carolee Hazard's once-modest goals have ballooned into something much bigger since a random act of kindness over a lost wallet in a Peninsula grocery store. The 43-year-old Menlo Park woman wants to ramp up the initial $93 donation she sent to Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties this summer and enlist others to help her raise $93,000 by Dec. 31. The volunteer effort has become almost a part-time job, and Hazard's been making use of social media as well as traditional news coverage to get the word out.

7. One Million Acts of Kindness

(Sumaiya Malik, Good News Gazette) One million acts of kindness in a lifetime. That’s Bob Votruba’s mission, his own personal kindness movement that he is taking out into the world. He wants to encourage others to commit one million acts of kindness in their lifetimes and has gone on the road to promote his powerful message.

6. Delta Flight Attendant Serves Up Journals for American Troops

(Sarah Netter, ABC News) In between keeping her passengers safe and comfortable, Delta flight attendant Robin Schmidt tends to another mid-air mission -- passing journals among the rows so passengers can help her thank American troops. Over the last five years, Schmidt has filled hundreds of passenger-written journals and sent them to the troops she "adopts" in Afghanistan and Iraq. Not connected in any way to the military, Schmidt said, "This is just part of who I am. This is what I do."

5. Blind Iraqi girl Shams Kareem finds new hope in London

(Hala Jaber, Times Online) Occasionally, something good comes from the carnage and misery of war. Yesterday, at Heathrow airport, a kind of miracle occurred when a three-year-old girl, blind, burnt and disfigured by a terrorist bomb, arrived on a flight from the Middle East for specialist medical treatment in London that her family never believed she would receive. Thanks to the remarkable generosity of Sunday Times readers who donated more than £127,000 after reading her tragic story in the paper eight weeks ago, the first essential step has been taken: Shams Kareem has left the grimness of Iraq behind to be the recipient of some of the finest medical treatment available for blind people in the world.

4. On Elephant Sanctuary, Unlikely Friends

(Steve Hartman, CBS) When elephants retire, many head for the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn. They arrive one by one, but they tend to live out their lives two-by-two. "Every elephant that comes here searches out someone that she then spends most all of her time with," says sanctuary co-founder Carol Buckley.

3. Family finds dog, and can't live without him

(Lane DeGregory, St. Petersburg Times) Yolanda Segovia heard a knock on her door one morning, just before 8 a.m. Her neighbor was on the porch, with a dog and a story. Stacey Savige had found the little dog in front of an elementary school. He wasn't very big, looked like some sort of terrier. Burrs clung to his belly. His honey fur was caked in mud. He didn't have a collar. Stacey had taken him to the vet and he didn't have a chip, either.

2. Ex-thug repaid deli owner who helped him

(Kieran Crowley, New York Post) A Long Island deli owner who held a robber at gunpoint, then let him go after giving him $40 and a loaf of bread, says he got an anonymous letter from the crook that included a $50 bill and a thank-you for saving him from a life of crime. The mysterious writer apologized to his would-be victim, Mohammad Sohail, saying, "First of all I would like to say I am sorry at the time I had [no] money no food on the table no job and nothing for my family."

1. What really happened aboard Flight 1549?

Less than 5 minutes into its ascent, US Airways Flight 1549's trouble began. "Brace yourself for impact," the pilot told 153 passengers as he maneuvered the crippled plane toward the Hudson River for a water landing. Dateline's Dennis Murphy has the details on the "Miracle on the Hudson."