Her Prom Date? A Football Star!
Joslyn Levell couldn't wait to get to school Monday. The eighth-grader became the most talked-about kid at Suncrest Middle School in West Virginia, after scoring a date with Chicago Bears rookie J.T. Thomas for her end-of-school-year formal dance Friday. "I'm not used to the attention, but I like it," Levell said. Joslyn has spina bifida, a condition in which the spine doesn't properly develop, ... posted on May 27 2011, 4,189 reads

Freedom Rider Named James Zwerg
Looking out the window, James Zwerg accepted his worst fear: He was going to die today. Only the night before, Zwerg had prayed for the strength to not strike back in anger. He was among the 18 "Freedom Riders", white and black college students from Nashville who had decided to take the bus trip through the segregated South in 1961, to desegregate public transportation. In the midst of the ensu... posted on May 26 2011, 4,463 reads

Forgiving Her Son's Killer
It would be easy for Mary Johnson and Oshea Israel to be enemies -- he killed Johnson's only son. But their first face-to-face conversation took a remarkable turn. "You were not that 16-year-old. You were a grown man. I shared with you about my son." At the end of their meeting at the prison, Johnson was overcome by emotion. "The initial thing to do was just try and hold you up as best I can," Isr... posted on May 23 2011, 5,171 reads

Family Finds $45K -- And Returns It
Josh Ferrin picked up the keys to his family's first home last week, and as he opened the attic door hatch and climbed up, he saw a box that looked like a WWII ammunition case. Then he found seven more, all stuffed full with tightly wound rolls of cash -- about $45,000 in all. Ferrin thought about how such a large sum of money could go a long way, pay bills, buy things he never thought he could af... posted on May 21 2011, 7,296 reads

The Impossible Floating Village Football Team
This is the true story of a football team that lived on a little island in the south of Thailand called Koh Panyee -- a floating village in the middle of the sea that does not have an inch of soil. The kids that lived there loved to watch football on TV, and really wanted to play for themselves. Watch this stunning short film on how they used innovative thinking, hard work, and determination to ma... posted on May 18 2011, 17,812 reads

The Man Who Stopped A Nuclear War
Ever heard of Stanislav Petrov? Probably not, even though he saved the world as we know it. Petrov, a former member of the Soviet military, didn't actually do anything, but that was precisely the point. In 1983, Petrov held a very important station: as lieutenant colonel, he was in charge of monitoring the Soviet Union's satellites over the United States, and watching for any sign of unauthorized ... posted on May 14 2011, 8,167 reads

Homeless Man Bails out Banker
A year ago, everything was going right for her: a good job at a bank in the suburbs and a safe home. But last year, she lost that -- and with her 10-year-old, had to move into a truck. Police threatened to take away her son until she found a safer alternative, so she moved into a hotel for a few nights to sort things out. That's when her angel showed up. A man named Curtis Jackson paid her hotel b... posted on May 13 2011, 23,158 reads

Secrets from 17 Years of Silence
In 1971, after the devastating 800,000-gallon oil spill in the San Francisco Bay, John Francis, then a young man, pledged to never ride a motorized vehicle again. Two years later, he added voluntary silence to his vow, spending 17 years in silence as he walked the world and became known as The Planetwalker. The first words that he spoke again were in Washington, D.C., on the 20th anniversary of Ea... posted on May 05 2011, 12,958 reads

Restaurant Chain Displaced By Students
When a 1,300-outlet fast-food chain announced plans to open a branch on the campus of the University of California Berkeley, a group of students protested. Given the nature of the city's resonance with local, seasonal and organic food, this wasn't a surprise. However, the students not only defeated the chain but also took their victory one step further by raising $100,000 to replace the fast-foo... posted on Apr 18 2011, 5,670 reads

Today You, Tomorrow Me
A touching story of a random act of kindness: "During this past year I've had three instances of car trouble: a blowout on a freeway, a bunch of blown fuses and an out-of-gas situation. They all happened while I was driving other people's cars, which for some reason makes it worse on an emotional level. Each time, when these things happened, I was disgusted with the way people didn't bother to he... posted on Apr 11 2011, 10,506 reads