Start your day with a good idea. Whether it is a solar powered hearing aid, using a horse to help an autistic boy, or helping the homeless get a shower, the human spirit is making progress. Join me in spreading the word about "ideas that work".
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Eighteen feet above Chicago’s honking city traffic, Mike Repkin stands in a plot of buckwheat, delicate white flowers waving about his waist as an elevated train clatters past at eye level. From this unusual spot, Repkin is farming.
He grows great leafy bunches of kale and chard, stalks of wheat and oats, chubby potatoes, sweet strawberries, and even deep-rooted rhubarb. He grows Jerusalem artichokes for diabetics at the nearby community center and basil to sell at the farmer’s market across the street.
So far, solar carports have been installed at some 75 elementary, high school and community college campuses in California, the majority of them in the San Francisco area.
Roofs made of solar panels are altering vistas and promoting a philosophy of green thinking among the young. Yet the primary driver of the solar roofs is economic.
GetAround is a basic idea -- most of our cars aren't in use during the day. We use them to drive to work, and then they just sit there until the work day is over. What if someone else could be using them when we don't need them? GetAround provides you with a keyless entry system for your car. You can then register it on their site so that someone who needs wheels nearby can find it, and rent it from you. It's sort of like a hybrid of Rentalic and ZipCar.
In 2011 health insurers will have to follow a new set of rules that details how much money they must spend on patients' medical care, according to guidelines the Obama administration released Monday.
The rules are part of the health care reform law, which mandates that insurers spend a minimum of 85 percent of the premiums that they take in on patient care rather than administrative costs or profit (insurers who sell to small groups and individuals will spend a minimum of 80%).
The San Francisco Giants are one of the first teams in the country to play in a stadium partially powered by renewable energy.
When Game 1 of the World Series started in San Francisco’s AT&T Park, the hometown Giants took the field in a stadium that boasts solar panels and was recognized in April for energy efficiency and sustainability by the U.S. Green Building Council. Their opponents, the Texas Rangers, regularly recycle everything from infield grass clippings to cardboard and office paper, according to MLB.com.
Sixteen people received kidneys in the world's largest paired kidney exchange ever accomplished. Georgetown University Hospital coordinated 32 operations, most involving people from Maryland.
On the eve of Thanksgiving, 16 people gave a rare gift to 16 others and nearly all met for the first time that day.
Everyone want to add solar panels to their house but they are too expensive for many families. 1 Block Off the Grid (1BOG) is helping people like Michael Martinez use group purchasing power to reduce these costs, assisting neighborhoods all across the US to band together and go solar.
The original article promotes a summer camp co-op, but since the kids will be out of school over the Winter Break this idea may just save a few of the Moms out there.
If you are looking for ways to save on childcare and day camp over the holiday, consider forming Holiday Camp Co-op through Care.com. By creating your own day camp with other parents in your neighborhood, you can be certain that the care will be affordable, trustworthy, and provide unique learning experiences for your child.
This story has it all, saving older houses from demolition, reducing waste at landfills, creating "green" homes, providing affordable housing and giving the homeless and recently incarcerated folks a job.
Watch the video, read the article and be inspired.
Last Thanksgiving, Phillip Black says most of his belongings were thrown away by the police.
Police told Black they mistook the bags in a Whole Foods shopping cart for trash. "I couldn't even enjoy my Thanksgiving," he says.
Finding a place to safely leave possessions is one of many challenges homeless people face each day, homeless advocates say. Some cities, including Portland, Ore., St. Petersburg, Fla., New York, San Francisco and Chicago are trying to help people in Black's situation by offering free storage space to the homeless.
Proving once again that the best ideas are often the simplest, 23-year-old student/inventor/entrepreneur Emily Cummins has designed a brilliant portable solar-powered refrigerator that works based upon the principle of evaporation. Employing a combination of conduction and convection, the refrigerator requires no electricity and can be made from commonly available materials like cardboard, sand, and recycled metal.
The city of San Francisco managed to divert 72 percent of all recyclable material from the landfill, claiming the highest recycling rate of any city in the country, according to office of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. The percentage inches closer to the city’s goal of 75 percent landfill diversion by 2010 and zero waste by 2020.
Twenty-six years ago, Jane Golden took to the streets of Philadelphia armed with paint, brushes, simple designs, and a small contingent of helpers. Her goal? Wipe out the city's ugly graffiti. Her weapon of choice? Murals.
Since 1984 she has put paintbrushes in the hands of more than 35,000 city kids. The program has brought art to prison inmates and drug addicts, as well as wary stoop sitters. The waiting list for murals to be painted here is 2,000 walls long. Artists far beyond Philly want in on the design work.
The Louisville Leopard Percussionists are a performing ensemble comprised of 60+ student musicians ages 7-12, who reside in 20 different Louisville zip codes and attend 27 different schools in and around Louisville, Kentucky.
The Leopards don't read music; instead they learn new songs by ear. For Diane Downs, their teacher, it's all about the kids' talents and their desire to play music.
Thanks to Leigh and John Nouveaux for sharing this story.
Palo Alto, Calif. – (October 27, 2010) – Better Place, with support from the U.S. Department of Transportation via the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, today announced a commitment to bring a switchable battery, electric taxi program to the Bay Area in partnership with the cities of San Francisco and San Jose to further cement the region’s position as the “EV Capital of the U.S.”
India has come up with the world's cheapest "laptop," a touch-screen computing device that costs $35. India's Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal unveiled the low-cost computing device that is designed for students, saying his department had started talks with global manufacturers to start mass production.
"We have reached a (developmental) stage that today, the motherboard, its chip, the processing, connectivity, all of them cumulatively cost around $35, including memory, display, everything," he told a news conference.
To see the laptop in action select the "Read More" link below:
Tad Agoglia hasn't been to his Knoxville, Tenn., office in three years. That's because the 34-year-old and his four-man team constantly rush to disaster sites, where they open roads and provide other urgent services for emergency personnel.
In February a wound-care team from Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston traveled to Haiti, to help care for patients suffering from the large open wounds that accompany amputations, crushed limbs, and other injuries.
Among the team was MIT graduate student Danielle Zurovcik, who arrived ready to test a device which uses negative pressure to pull bacteria and fluid out of wounds, and was the crowning achievement for her master’s degree thesis project.
“I was walking through Kmart and saw a row of plungers,” she told AOL News. “I just thought, ‘Wow, that’s exactly what I can use.”
It's tough enough for an adult to lose a loved one to cancer. Imagine how devastating it is for a child. To support these children, Philadelphia Phillies pitching great Jamie Moyer and his wife Karen started Camp Erin, nationwide.
Camp Erin is weekend-long overnight camp designed for children and teens, ages 6 to 17, who are grieving the death of someone close to them. It is a traditional, fun, high-energy camp combined with grief education and emotional support. Camp Erin is offered at no charge to participants.
Happy Veterans Day -
Starline Nunley started with the idea of helping her son, Major Parker Frawley, who is a Longbow, Apache helicopter fighter pilot stationed in Iraq. She asked him if he would like a Cooling Vest to help him cope with the typically very hot temperatures encountered there.
His reply was “Mom, I am and we (soldiers) are all right. The military provides for us very well, but dogs have different needs. It is so hot that they are having trouble doing their job and that puts us all in danger.”
To see videos of adorable military dogs "read more"
When Heather Hilleren worked for Whole Foods she noticed they had trouble finding and buying from local farmers.
By 2005, Hilleren had earned an MBA from University of Wisconsin Business School. As one of her class projects, she had developed a plan to use the power of an online interface to facilitate buying between local farmers, distributors, cooperatives, retailers, restaurateurs and even individuals.
Hilleren combined her savings, a $600,000 National Science Foundation grant and $1 million in new investment from O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures in San Francisco and Boston-based Peak Ridge Capital.
She's using the money to get the word out nationally and to continue to build her offerings for her site, which she says has thousands of farmers, distributors and buyers. Hilleren wants to offer electronic ordering services for local grocery store buyers, who can simply go online, check local farmers' inventory and buy what they need. Eventually, she plans to charge a subscription fee--probably $360 per year--to wholesale buyers and sellers.
The site saves the average wholesale buyer about four hours a week, Hilleren says. In addition, it gives farmers a new sales venue, and it offers transparency. "People can actually find out when the product was harvested and what the growing practices were that went along with it," she says. "All products need to be identified, so people know what they're buying and where it came from."
Run, don't walk to your local organic supermarket and ask them if they use this service, if not print out the website and the article listed above and give it to the manager.
Share this information with local restaurants that use locally grown produce.
If you or someone you know farms organically send them this information.
The next time someone tells you the government just wastes our money. Mention that the National Science Foundation supports this site which is creating jobs for local farmers nationwide.
The US government pumped in an additional 2.4 billion dollars to develop high-speed rail projects as it moves toward building the nation's first nationwide next-generation program.
The Obama's administration announced that 54 high-speed rail projects in 23 states will share in 2.4 billion dollars to continue developing the intercity passenger rail service.
"Demand for high-speed rail dollars is intense and it demonstrates just how important this historic initiative is," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. States understand that high-speed rail represents a unique opportunity to create jobs, revitalize our manufacturing base, spur economic development and provide people with an environmentally friendly transportation option," LaHood said.
More than 30 rail manufacturers and suppliers, both domestic and foreign, have agreed to establish or expand their bases of operations in the United States if they are hired to build the country's next-generation high-speed lines, the department said.
That project requirement marks the Obama administration's commitment to help ensure that new jobs are created in the US, it added.
California snared more than 900 million dollars mainly for construction of high-speed rail lines linking Los Angeles to Sacramento, the state capital.
Mention this to friends at work, your local church or a club to which you belong.
Think about this success 3-4 times today and feel hopeful and encouraged
Talk about this article with family and friends and encourage the to mention it to anyone they know in your local government, or the transportation community
Email your local congressman and senator and ask them to support high speed rail in your state
Sister Teresa works with children who, for much of their early lives, only saw their moms a couple of hours a week during visiting hours - at jail.
"I was just moved to think a child was ripped apart from their mom," Teresa said. "The more I talked to the mothers I realized the mothers just needed a chance."
"Hour Children" meets moms in some of the toughest jails in New York. They offer women a fresh start.
On one block in Queens, Fitzgerald, or "Sister Tesa" as she's called - provides free housing and daycare, and thrift stores where former inmates can work and shop.
Next door to the store, there's computer training and job placement.
One of the main goals is making sure the women don't end up back behind bars. In New York state, more than 30 percent of female ex-convicts get arrested again. But the rate for Hour Children's is only 4 percent.
Dress for Success promotes the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.
Since 1997, Dress for Success has served more than 550,000 women around the world. Each year they reach more than 50,000 women in the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, Mexico, Poland and the West Indies.
On her initial visit a woman receives a suit appropriate for the industry in which she is interviewing and, if available, accessories. After a woman finds a job she returns to Dress for Success for additional clothing that can be mixed and matched to make several outfits, providing her with the foundation for a professional wardrobe.
Another way in which Dress for Success supports women joining or returning to the workforce is through Steps to Success, an initiative that focuses on the crucial first 30 days of employment, during which newly-hired women face many potential challenges.
Tired of watching women pick themselves apart in front of the mirror, 24-year-old blogger Caitlin Boyle scribbled a note on a Post-it — “YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!” — and slapped it on the mirror of a public bathroom. With this one small act, a movement was born. Women of different ages, races, lifestyles and geographic locations began posting encouraging notes of their own. The messages are chronicled in Boyle’s new book, “Operation Beautiful: Transforming the Way You See Yourself One Post-it Note at a Time.”
This excerpt from “Operation Beautiful” highlights the damaging effects of “Fat Talk” and explains how to break free from it.
SolTech Energy makes an innovative roof tile that harvests solar energy with a traditional looking glass tile. The glass tile is heated by the sun and redirected for use by the central heating system. The system works with air-based and water-based heating systems, including, for example, a ground source heat pump, air heat pump, pellet boiler, oil boiler, or electric boiler.
SolTech Energy expects to bring the system to market in the U.S. sometime in 2011.
The system has a natural aversion to snow, what with the shiny tile surface and heat reflected from an absorption fabric below the tile. The tiles are UV resistant and last longer than conventional clay or concrete roof tiles.
Over 70 teachers from 25 public and private schools around the Bay Area joined Tony Blair, Founder and Patron of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation US, at the launch of the Face to Faith program in San Francisco yesterday. They engaged in a live video-conference with Tony Blair and two Face to Faith schools; Brighton High School, a public school in Utah and Edmund Rice College in Melbourne, Australia.
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation US’ Face to Faith global schools program enables high school students to become true global citizens, dedicated to peace-building and harmonious co-existence. Face to Faith connects students aged 11-16 from different schools in 15 countries across the world via video-conferencing and a secure website. The program aims to break down stereotypes and broaden horizons by engaging students of different cultures, religions and beliefs in discussing global issues from different perspectives. In the United States, schools in Utah, California, New York, Washington and Georgia are already active members of the global program.
Times are tough and, in many families, money is tight. But no matter what the state of the economy is, girls want a beautiful gown for the prom. There are programs throughout the country that allow folks to donate their used formal wear, jewelry, and shoes so that everyone can go to their prom.
One of the most amazing educational resources on the Internet. Over 1800 free online videos and thousands of practice problems all produced by one man -- Salman Khan: Teacher to the World
The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.
Sal has videos on YouTube covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, biology and finance which have been recorded by Sal at his home.
The Academy also has an "exercises" section which allows you to solve problems online, find out if you answered correctly and get hints if needed. After you have correctly answered 10 problems you are prompted to move to the next level.
Sal received his MBA from Harvard Business School where he was president of the student body. He also holds a Masters in electrical engineering and computer science, a BS in electrical engineering and computer science, and a BS in mathematics from MIT where he was president of the the Class of 1998. While at MIT, Sal was the recipient of the Eloranta Fellowship which he used to develop web-based math software for children with ADHD.
Tell all the Math teachers you know about this resource.
This week, if you only have time to visit one link from my blog and watch one video, this is the one. Get the kleenex.
Kaziah Hancock is a Utah artist who paints portraits of fallen American heroes at no cost. She was driving home in early 2003 and heard the story on the radio of a fallen soldier from Utah. It was at that point she decided she would do a portrait of every fallen soldier.
Linda's 2 cents:
One of the purposes of this blog is to find stories that give folks hope. Another is to find areas on which we agree regardless of our politics. I believe Liberals and Conservatives alike feel that loosing a child is a parent's worst nightmare. This artist brings comfort to families who are hurting and she has my deepest admiration and support. I hope she also has yours and that you will take the time to comment on this article in the comment section below.
If you or someone you know has lost a loved one in the war, I encourage you to contact this program.
Sixteen people received kidneys in the world's largest paired kidney exchange ever accomplished. Georgetown University Hospital coordinated 32 operations, most involving people from Maryland.
Tad Agoglia hasn't been to his Knoxville, Tenn., office in three years. That's because the 34-year-old and his four-man team constantly rush to disaster sites, where they open roads and provide other urgent services for emergency personnel.
Happy Veterans Day - 
