A 9-Year Old's Vision: Hoops of Hope
When Austin Gutwein was 9 years old, he tried out for his school's basketball team, and didn't make it. But he did rebound in an unlikely and inspiring way. Austin's disappointment dissolved when he learned about the millions of children in Africa orphaned by AIDS. "I really started to think about what it would be like if I lost my parents," he says. Austin decided to raise money for these childre... posted on Dec 23 2006, 2,676 reads

Teen Returns $24,000 Found in Theater
Imagine stumbling upon $24,000 in cash. What would you do with the money? The untraceable wad of $100 bills, rubber-banded together inside a zippered bank pouch, tumbled unnoticed from the purse of RoseMarie Limoncelli, a business owner, as she sat in a theater with her 8 year-old daughter. On the way home, she realized what had happened. "My heart stopped," she said. "My whole body was shaking." ... posted on Dec 21 2006, 1,826 reads

93-year-old Becomes an Actress
Mae Laborde is not your average 97-year-old. While most people her age struggle to just maintain their activities, Laborde continues to push the bounds. She is a working actress, with a steady flow of jobs in commercials, TV shows and film -- not bad for someone who just broke into the business at the age of 93. It’s not that Laborde has a perfectly fit body either: she took a fall several mont... posted on Dec 18 2006, 2,629 reads

Nine-Year Old's Courage and Composure
Remaining calm and level-headed in moments of crisis is a challenge -- particularly when you're only nine years old. But when second-grader Jimmy Steven's mother fell unconscious behind the driving wheel, he knew just what to do. Jumping onto his mother's lap he steered the car to the side of the road, put it in park and dialled 911. For the next eleven minutes he calmly directed paramedics to the... posted on Dec 15 2006, 2,451 reads

Finding Freedom In Captivity
John McCarthy's life changed dramatically on April 17th 1986. The 29-year-old British journalist was ambushed in Beirut and imprisoned in a tiny cell, and it would be 5 years before he stood in daylight again. His companion in captivity was Irishman Brian Keenan. A recent film, "Blind Flight," powerfully dramatizes the story of their shared incarceration, and how they endured through the horrors o... posted on Dec 13 2006, 2,616 reads

A Rocket Scientist's Odyssey of Good
47-year old Jim Fruchterman, a 2006 MacArthur "Genius" is a rocket scientist turned social entrepreneur. His idea: Take existing technology and transform it into products for those with disabilities or other disadvantages. Fructerman’s early work involved the production of a reading machine for the blind using optical character recognition. His non-profit, Benentech, created Bookshare.org -- th... posted on Dec 12 2006, 2,041 reads

Fearless Teen Inspires Pro Footballers
Bobby Martin bench presses 200 pounds, and runs a 40-yard dash in 5.8 seconds -- good accomplishments rendered mind-boggling considering that he has no legs. This remarkable nineteen-year old was born with a condition called Caudal Regression Syndrome, but didn't let that stop him from trying out for and making it onto his high school football team. His quickness, fearlessness and proximity to the... posted on Dec 11 2006, 1,807 reads

A 19 Year Old's AIDS Diary
Thembi Ngubane was 19 when she first met radio producer Joe Richman in Khayelitsha, outside Cape Town. She was among a group of South African teenagers living with AIDS who he had interviewed in 2004. Richman gave her a tape recorder, and for a year, Ngubane recorded an audio diary that brings listeners into her home, among her family, to witness her daily struggles and triumphs. Throughout the di... posted on Dec 09 2006, 1,994 reads

Not an Ordinary World Cup
The soccer ball sounds like the clatter of a rattlesnake's tail, fans are barred from cheering too loudly and the sidelines are clear plastic walls meant to keep the players in-bounds -- clearly not an ordinary World Cup. Save for the goalkeepers, all of the athletes are legally blind. Welcome to the fourth World Championships of Soccer for the Blind. Spectator Marcelo Gonzalez, who coaches blind ... posted on Dec 07 2006, 1,508 reads

A Man Who Sees Beauty In Lepers
Born in a village in 1914, Baba Amte spent formative years with Gandhi, Tagore, and other luminaries, using those experiences to dive into a colorful odyssey -- to conquer his own fears and expand the notion of justice and peace through innovative experiments. Much of Baba Amte’s life has been dedicated to the care and rehabilitation of leprosy patients at a time when the disease was incurable. ... posted on Dec 02 2006, 1,625 reads