A Child's (Lemonade) Stand Against Cancer
Alexandra Scott was diagnosed at age one with neuroblastoma, a form of cancer. Undergoing treatment at age 4, she decided to run a lemonade stand to raise money for the hospital, an idea she came up with entirely by herself. When her parents set up the fund, Alex wanted to support cancer research not just for "her" cancer but for other kinds of childhood cancer -- because "those kids want to get b... posted on Nov 30 2006, 1,574 reads

Kansas City's Secret Santa
For 26 years, a man known only as Secret Santa has roamed the streets every December quietly giving people money. He started with $5 and $10 bills. As his fortune grew, so did the gifts. In recent years, Secret Santa has been handing out $100 bills, sometimes two or three at a time, to people in thrift stores, diners and parking lots. So far, he's anonymously given out about $1.3 million. It's bee... posted on Nov 19 2006, 3,639 reads

What our Youth Believe
Taking a page from NPR’s “This I Believe” essays, The Global Youth Fund (GYF) -- a youth-driven initiative to create the world's first democratic fund -- is compiling the collective wisdom of youth (ages 15-25). Focused on personal philosophies, core values and beliefs that serve as a day-to-day guide, these essays reflect what young people have to say about our world's most critical challen... posted on Nov 15 2006, 2,097 reads

Trading In PhDs For Village Life
Dhirendra and Smita were both professors of engineering who traded in their classroom careers for a shovel and hoe. In 1983, the couple moved to a small tribal village in India and built a new house and lifestyle. No electricity, no vehicles, no running water. Instead they would work on farms, eat fresh, pesticide-free produce, drink their own cow's milk, and live with the rhythms of nature. Event... posted on Nov 02 2006, 2,289 reads

Modest School Teacher Wills Millions To Charity
Roberta Langtry spent most of her career in Toronto working as a speech therapist specializing in helping children with autism. When she died, at the age of 89, she willed a stunning $4.3 million to the Nature Conservancy of Canada, a charity that buys environmentally sensitive land and turns it into nature reserves. Her gift turned out to be the largest donation ever received by an environmental ... posted on Oct 24 2006, 2,607 reads

New York, Melting Shot
New York City may not be the center of the world, but NYChildren, a new photo series, is beguiling proof that the Big Apple sits at the world's crossroads. With 192 countries out there, the project aims to capture an image of a child from each. The caveat? All the children must now live in New York. When it started, the project, headed by photographer Danny Goldfield, was about the pictures. Now D... posted on Oct 19 2006, 1,506 reads

Disabled Cyclist Inspires Ghana
In Ghana, West Africa, babies born with disabilities are routinely poisoned or left to die alone; those who survive face a lifetime of begging on the streets. Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, however, had a different plan: born with a malformed right leg, he shined shoes for $2 a day and refused to accept his country's superstitious shunning of the disabled. On a bicycle supplied by the California-based Cha... posted on Oct 15 2006, 1,521 reads

A Father's Remarkable Quest For A Cure
John and Aileen Crowley had three beautiful children, a new house, and great jobs. Then doctors diagnosed their two youngest children with Pompe disease, and overnight everything changed. But Crowley refused to accept this death sentence -- and in the absence of other options, made his own. Determined to find scientists who could develop a replacement enzyme that would keep the disease at bay and ... posted on Oct 13 2006, 2,300 reads

When Death Comes: A Poem About Life
Award-winning poet Mary Oliver has been writing for over three decades now. An intense and joyful observer of the natural world, Oliver focuses on the luminous particularities of experience, savoring the simple and the astonishing occurrences of the natural world for the wisdom embedded in beauty, and for the mysteries hovering just beneath the surface. The Christian Science Monitor archives conta... posted on Oct 12 2006, 2,660 reads

The Blind Photographer
It wasn't until after Pete Eckert went blind that he really started to see things. When the 48 year old former carpenter went blind from Retinitis Pigmentosa six years ago, he did the first thing he wasn't supposed to be able to do. He became a photographer. Eckert was 28 when he was deemed legally blind; he spent the next decade earning several degrees, including one each in sculpture and ceramic... posted on Oct 07 2006, 2,814 reads