An Epidemic of Volunteerism
Polls show that while confidence in America's democracy and government is near an all-time low, volunteerism and civic participation since the '70s are near all-time highs. In 2006 more than 61 million Americans dedicated 8.1 billion hours to volunteerism. Political scientists are perplexed about this. If confidence is so low, why would people bother volunteering? The explanation offered by this T... posted on Sep 13, 2553 reads

Lessons From A Wish Child
15-year-old Estar Hester has chronic lung disease, scoliosis, an immune system problem -- and an indomitable spirit. Written over a period of four years, her first published work, "Tomorrow Will Be a Better Day -- Lessons from a Wish Child" was recently released in e-book form. Its purpose? "My book is mainly to inform people on how to deal with problems that are ahead of them" Hester said. An ex... posted on Sep 14, 2288 reads

Anita Roddick: The Queen of Green
In 1976, long before going green was an international pastime, a small store opened in Brighton. The cosmetics it sold were all-natural, the containers were reusable and its ethos? Creating products that were as good for the earth as they were for your skin. By 2005, Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, had 2,000 stores in 50 countries. But far more impressive than the numbers were the ideals ... posted on Sep 18, 3050 reads

Promoting Peace Through Employment
For Ron Bruder, the tragedy of 9/11 served as a pivot point into active philanthropy. A real estate developer from NY, he was particularly interested in tackling the social conditions that potentially lead to violence -- specifically, the lack of jobs. The time he had spent doing business in Northern Ireland confirmed Bruder's notion that the path to peace and democracy lay not in military interve... posted on Sep 28, 3042 reads

Compelled To Serve
Germain Lubango Kabemba, is a Congolese humanitarian worker. He leads Medecins Sans Frontires-Holland in the market town of Kerfi, now home to thousands of refugees. His job is to provide basic healthcare and services to a population that has been cut off from all other international aid since the rainy season began there in July. Kabemba was the only child in his family to go to university and co... posted on Sep 29, 1486 reads

Pen Pals at the Airport
"A few years ago on a trip home I was waiting in line at the airport gate counter and the agent was frustrated because a customer had inadvertently walked off with her last pen. I opened up my backpack and sure enough there were five pens, so I handed over all five and said, "Keep the change!" She was so appreciative of the small gesture that I began packing 5 pens for every trip." So begins thi... posted on Oct 3, 2465 reads

Manage Your Energy Not Your Time
The core problem with working longer hours is that time is a finite resource. According to this Harvard Business Review article, energy is a different story. Defined in physics as the capacity to work, energy comes from four main wellsprings in human beings: the body, emotions, mind, and spirit. In each, energy can be systematically expanded and regularly renewed by establishing behaviors that are... posted on Oct 4, 4879 reads

Are You Getting Enough Sun?
A spate of new studies suggests vitamin D offers health benefits far beyond strengthening bones. Researchers report that "the sunshine vitamin" may cut cancer risks and help the immune system fight infections. Together these studies raise the possibility that a brief daily dose of sun combined with a vitamin D supplement could help stave off everything from breast cancer to the flu. Although our s... posted on Oct 16, 2588 reads

Social Visionary's Network of Good
According to Bill Drayton, about 25 years ago something dramatic happened in the world. "We could see it," he recalls. "The system was beginning to change. It was like hearing the ice breaking up at the end of winter in a lake. Creak, creak, groan, crash! The need was so big, the gap so huge, the opportunity to learn right before people's eyes. When do systems begin to change? When entrepreneurs d... posted on Oct 15, 2031 reads

Homeless Man is Chess King of Washington
He sleeps on a bench, but he is king of chess during the day at Washington's Dupont Circle, where he dazzles beginners and masters alike with his winning moves on the park's stone chessboards. Tom Murphy, 49, makes what little money he has from teaching his prodigious knowledge of the game to passersby for a few dollars. "He has the title of expert in chess. This is the second highest American tit... posted on Oct 14, 2122 reads

Around the World and Bach
You wouldn't know it by looking at the man in the t-shirt standing on the street corner, but if you listen, it's easy to tell that David Juritz is a world class musician. He's just traded in concert halls for street corners. The violinist left his London home on June 9 and has since traveled the globe as a street performer, raising money to fund music education for some of the world's poorest chi... posted on Oct 26, 2566 reads

Economic Power of Positive Thinking
Optimists are more likely than others to display prudent financial behaviors but extreme optimists tend to have short planning horizons and act in ways that are generally not considered wise. According to new research from Duke University, optimists work long hours, invest in individual stocks, save more and pay their credit card balance on time while extreme optimists work fewer hours, are often ... posted on Nov 11, 2984 reads

Organic Food Is Healthier!
Organic produce is better for you than ordinary food, a four year study in Europe concluded. Researchers found levels of antioxidants in milk from organic cattle were between 50% and 80% higher than normal milk; Organic wheat, tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, onions and lettuce had between 20% and 40% more nutrients.... posted on Nov 24, 1643 reads

"Anonymous Friend" Gives $100 Million
Mike Batchelor invited the heads of 46 charities into his downtown office for one-on-one meetings to personally deliver the news. Nearby, on a small table, sat a box of tissues. And then he proceeded: A donor had given a staggering $100 million to the Erie Community Foundation, and all of the charities would receive a share. That was when the tears began to flow -- and the mystery began -- in this... posted on Nov 14, 2993 reads

Consultant Becomes Waffleman
A former IBM consultant has shelved his suit and six-figure salary to sell Belgian waffles around the city from a yellow mobile food truck. Thomas DeGeest, 37, of Chelsea, said a heart-to-heart talk with his wife last year made him trade in his corporate life for an apron, a set of waffle irons and a "Wafels and Dinges" truck. "A waffle makes people smile," DeGeest said.... posted on Nov 16, 2926 reads

The Best Dollar I Ever Spent
"I am a resource officer at a school district. Last year I met one little boy in particular to whom my heart just went out. He would talk to me every single day, and always seemed to have a smile on his face. He had a problem with stuttering. It's really hard sometimes to understand what he is saying, although he loves to tell you big tales! Well, this morning, I was talking to a couple teachers... posted on Nov 18, 4030 reads

From Farmworker to Neurosurgeon
The life of Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, a former illegal immigrant, may sound like a movie script, but it is no fiction. Twenty years ago, he hopped a border fence from Mexico into the United States and became a migrant farmworker. From there, to community college to a UC Berkeley scholarship, to Harvard Medical School, 38-year-old Dr. Q, as he is known, is now a neurosurgeon and professor at Johns... posted on Nov 28, 3131 reads

High School's 'Tech Sherpas'
Doran Smestad walks through the empty gym to the office in the back corner. The high school sophomore's mission: to recover an important file that physical education teacher Jim DiFrederico can't seem to open on his new Macintosh laptop. It's a typical call for students known around the halls of Nokomis Regional High School as "tech sherpas." Within a few minutes, Doran has a file open on screen a... posted on Nov 30, 2221 reads

Ancient Wisdom, Modern Living
Don Alverto Taxo of the Atis people of Ecuador is dedicated to bringing ancient wisdom into modern living. He travels and teaches in the United States and Europe, encouraging individuals to bring more heart and intuition to their daily lives. "My invitation is to do it," he says. "We all feel the need to live in harmony with all the manifestations of life," shares Don Alverto Taxo in this inspirin... posted on Dec 12, 2794 reads

The Anatomy of Reasoning
In "Why?" the Columbia University scholar Charles Tilly sets out to make sense of our reasons for giving reasons. Tilly seeks to decode the structure of everyday social interaction, and the result is a book that forces readers to reexamine everything from the way they talk to their children to the way they argue about politics. Malcolm Gladwell, author of bestsellers "The Tipping Point" and "Blink... posted on Dec 20, 2578 reads

The Science of Subtle Signals
Researchers from the Human Dynamics Group at MIT's Media Lab set up electronic devices that analyzed the speech patterns of operators on a call center floor in Scotland, capturing neither the words used nor the logic, but only the variations in tone and pitch. Amazingly enough, they predicted accurately, after only a few seconds of listening, the ultimate success or failure of almost every call. T... posted on Dec 26, 3060 reads

Extreme Philanthropy
The 50% League is an unusual group of people who contribute at least half their income, business profits, or net worth to charity. Members from across the country have been welcomed into an elite circle of givers and asked to share their stories publicly, even if anonymously, to inspire other givers. Many are anonymous philanthropists, and not all of them have great wealth: Some are members of th... posted on Dec 31, 2294 reads

Keeping Your New Year's Resolutions
The top resolutions for 2008 are the old standbys -- get out of debt and save more, lose weight and exercise. Getting organized and spending more time with family also top the list. But according to time management firm FranklinCovey, four out of five people who make New Year's resolutions will eventually break them. Experts say the real problem is that people make the wrong resolutions. The typic... posted on Jan 2, 3918 reads

A 71-Year-Old Web Star
Walter H. G. Lewin, 71, has now emerged as an international Internet guru, thanks to the global classroom MIT created to spread knowledge through cyberspace. A physics professor, who has long had a cult following at MIT, Professor Lewin's videotaped physics lectures, free online on the OpenCourseWare of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have won him devotees across the country and beyond ... posted on Jan 5, 3181 reads

If I Live To Be 100
In 1999 and 2000, veteran radio producer Neenah Ellis spent a year traveling the country, recording interviews with people who've lived past age 100. She listened to their stories about coming of age in the early 1900s, about the Great Depression, about the second World War -- and she listened, she says, "just to the sound of their voices." Her work became a yearlong Morning Edition series, One Hu... posted on Jan 7, 2702 reads

Storytelling That Moves People
Why is persuasion so difficult, and what can you do to truly inspire people? In search of answers to those questions, Harvard Business Review paid a visit to Robert McKee, the world's best-known and most respected screenwriting lecturer. McKee believes that executives can engage listeners on a whole new level if they toss their PowerPoint slides and learn to tell good stories instead. He argues th... posted on Jan 19, 6620 reads

A $10 Assignment in Giving
A Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison did a little experiment with his class, leaving each student $10 to explore giving. Stories unfolded. Katrina Kapetanovic, like everyone else, struggled mightily with what to do with her $10. "It suddenly dawned on me. This $10 serves as a reminder that I need to be doing something for a good cause. This is enough. I'm going to find a picture ... posted on Jan 23, 3045 reads

The Six Myths of Creativity
Teresa Amabile has been grappling with the question of creativity in the workplace for almost 30 years. She has collected nearly 12,000 daily journal entries from 238 people working on creative projects in seven companies in the consumer products, high-tech, and chemical industries. She didn't tell the study participants that she was focusing on creativity. She simply asked them, in a daily email,... posted on Feb 8, 5926 reads

Teen Survivor Pays-It-Forward
"How did this happen to me? Why did this happen to me? What will my future look like? Will I have a future? On May 4th, 2006, I was diagnosed with Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma of my left submandibular gland, or salivary gland cancer. My life was put on hold, and my priorities changed from worrying about my SATs to fighting cancer. Three risky surgeries left me with a six-inch scar tucked under my jaw ... posted on Feb 10, 2990 reads

Today's Change Agents: Social Entrepreneurs
In the '60s, perhaps the most remarkable change agents were the civil rights workers and antiwar protesters. Today the most remarkable young people are the social entrepreneurs, those who see a problem in society and roll up their sleeves to address it in new ways. Take Andrew Klaber, a 26-year-old playing hooky from Harvard Business School, who is an example of the social entrepreneur. He spent t... posted on Dec 11, 2584 reads

A Tax We Might All Benefit From
Dublin -- there is something missing from this otherwise typical bustling cityscape. There are taxis and buses. Every other person is talking into a cellphone. But there are no plastic shopping bags, the ubiquitous symbol of urban life. In 2002, Ireland passed a tax on plastic bags; customers who want them must now pay 33 cents per bag at the register. There was an advertising awareness campaign. ... posted on Feb 12, 3375 reads

12 Minute Cab Ride
""Penn Station," I told the cab driver. The young, heavy-set man peered at me through his sunglasses and motioned me to get in. "I've got to get to JFK airport by 2:30PM. You think I'll be able to get there by train or should I cab it all the way?"" With that harmless question begins a most unusual 12-minute cab-ride and a conversation that demonstrates how every chance encounter in this world h... posted on Feb 24, 5499 reads

An Unusual Punishment
What punishment should be imposed on a man who shot a police officer almost 40 years ago and fled to Canada, but went on to live an upstanding life as a husband and father who worked in a library? There was a rare answer here on Friday: Require him to give $250,000 to a foundation that helps the families of injured Chicago police officers. Joseph Pannell will serve just 30 days in jail and two yea... posted on Mar 5, 3460 reads

Donor Match Over Coffee
Annamarie Ausnes is known for holding up the line at her favorite coffee shop, carefully counting out her coins to pay for her "short drip, double-cupped" daily jolt. Over the years, Sandie Andersen, a friendly barista behind the counter, has taken these morning moments to make conversation, to make friends. And then there was the small talk that day last fall. "She reached over the counter and sa... posted on Mar 7, 2907 reads

A Stroke of Insight
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: one morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. In her TED talk, Taylor shares a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the wor... posted on Mar 14, 5701 reads

A Small Dose of Hope 30 Years Ago
"When I was in my first year of college, I hit a stretch where every area of my life was a disaster, I felt hopeless and alone, and more depressed than I knew was possible.On one such day, I was walking from class across campus to catch my bus home, head down, fighting tears of total despair, when a guy came down the sidewalk toward me. I had never seen him before. Embarrassed at being seen in su... posted on Mar 19, 1705 reads

The Soccer Boy Effect
Brian Mullaney's epiphany occurred back in 1994 in Vietnam. He was traveling as a board member with Operation Smile, a charity that performed cleft-repair surgery on poor children around the world. In a small Vietnamese village near the Chinese border, there was one kid who played soccer every day with the volunteers; they took to calling him Soccer Boy. When the mission was over and Mullaney and ... posted on Mar 22, 3300 reads

A Small Dose of Hope 30 Years Ago
"When I was in my first year of college, I hit a stretch where every area of my life was a disaster, I felt hopeless and alone, and more depressed than I knew was possible.On one such day, I was walking from class across campus to catch my bus home, head down, fighting tears of total despair, when a guy came down the sidewalk toward me. I had never seen him before. Embarrassed at being seen in suc... posted on Mar 20, 5093 reads

Laser Monks
In 2002, Bernard McCoy founded an online ink and toner business that today has grown into a multi-million-dollar operation, but contrary to the way most businesses work, his own salary hasn't increased in proportion to the company's profits. "I'm probably the worst-paid CEO in the country," he says joyfully. His annual pay? Zero dollars -- the same as when he started the business. McCoy is a mo... posted on Mar 25, 3102 reads

The Runner's High
The runner’s high: every athlete has heard of it, most seem to believe in it and many say they have experienced it. But for years scientists have reserved judgment because no rigorous test confirmed its existence. But now, researchers in Germany, using advances in neuroscience, report that the folk belief is true: running does elicit a flood of endorphins in the brain. The endorphins are associa... posted on Mar 30, 2944 reads

A Victim Treats His Mugger Right
He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife. "He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Julio Diaz says. As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm." Rather stu... posted on Mar 29, 6506 reads

Strengthening our Willpower Muscle
It is true that research studies have shown that the brain's store of willpower is depleted when people control their thoughts, feelings or impulses, or when they modify their behavior in pursuit of goals. In fact, Psychologist Roy Baumeister and others have found that people who successfully accomplish one task requiring self-control are less persistent on a second, seemingly unrelated task. But ... posted on Apr 3, 4285 reads

Why Aren't We All Good Samaritans?
Daniel Goleman, psychologist and award-winning author of "Emotional Intelligence"(EI) and other books on EI, challenges traditional measures of intelligence as a predictor of life success. In this 20 minute TED Talk video, he asks why we aren't more compassionate more of the time. Sharing the results of psychological experiments, and using personal anecdotes, he explains how we are all born with t... posted on Apr 7, 4897 reads

The Boy Who Gave It All Away
Drew Friend's 5th birthday party had been in full swing for less than half an hour -- and toys, board games, clothes, and stuffed animals were stacked on the dining room table. The pile kept getting bigger as guests poured into his home with armfuls of birthday gifts. But Drew didn't pay much attention to the pile. And a few hours later, he gave all the presents away. He had made an unusual decisi... posted on Apr 15, 3850 reads

The Mowing Mailman
Iron banisters flank the front steps of Jack's little blue house. Two summers ago, they were covered with vines. To get the mail to the front door, mailman Eric Wills had to fight through a jungle. Wills didn't know much about Jack, except that he was old and seldom got out. For weeks, the mailman struggled through the thicket, frustrated with the man's unkempt grounds. One day, he heard a voice i... posted on Apr 17, 3124 reads

A Pianist Like No Other
"When I arrive at Derek Paravicini's home, he is giving a glittering rendition of Cole Porter's "It's De-Lovely" on his shiny, black piano. When I leave three hours later, he is being spoon-fed lunch from a plastic bowl. Derek is 27, blind, has severe learning difficulties, cannot dress or feed himself -- but play him a song once, and he will not only memorize it instantly, but be able to reproduc... posted on Apr 20, 2886 reads

Gift Economy Health Clinic
After 22 years in private practice, Dr. Lorna Stuart found herself frustrated with the number of insurance companies and the rules and restrictions that came with them. "The day-to-day time that I spent on paperwork was increasing, while my patients weren't getting the good care that I wanted to give them -- face-to-face time, one-on-one time," she recalls. "I vowed to do whatever little I could ... posted on Apr 25, 2520 reads

Being the Change & Singing It
In this lovely and listenable new music video by singer/songwriter Kat Edmonson, intentions are set forth one-by-one, hand-scrawled and held proudly aloft on makeshift cardboard banners. A short-order cook seeks to "include everyone." A young boy whose smile betrays a missing tooth says he'll "make friends with the world." A woman kneels in her garden with a sign saying she'll "support small farms... posted on May 5, 2855 reads

Tornado-Hit Town's Green Recovery
A year after it was practically wiped off the map by a tornado, Greensburg is rising again -- and going green, too, with solar panels, wind turbines, tinted windows, water-saving toilets and other energy-efficient technology. Environmentalists and civic leaders have seized on the disaster as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to re-engineer the town."I would never say the tornado happening was a goo... posted on May 8, 3363 reads

A Polio Survivor Serves the Dying
From the neck up, John Welton looks like Santa Claus before his beard turned white. From the chest down, he is atrophied. He walks with crutches, his right leg bearing the weight of his 130-pound body. Welton, 60, has survived polio. And yet, he serves dying patients at Montefiore Medical Center, working there as a Physician Assistant. He does not wear a long white coat because it might tangle his... posted on May 9, 2200 reads