A Los Angeles-based fashion designer is starting an urban garden revolution in his neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles. Instead of vacant lots -- the city owns miles and miles of these in LA county -- Ron Finley wants to help residents to plant a million tomato plants. He is co-founder of LA Green Grounds, a company that plants gardens at low-income homes as a part of a recovery system to transform neighborhoods.
A former landfill in a Rio de Janeiro slum has been turned into a park thanks to a group of dedicated volunteers. People came here to get rid of old refrigerators, stoves, tires and even their dead dogs, said Mauro Quintanilha, a musician and craftsman who started the initiative to create a green oasis out of the pungent garbage dump.
Planting begins this month for a group of students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who are pioneering a sustainable solution for campuses across the country. The UMass Permaculture Committee is transforming a 12,000 square foot conventional grass lawn into a sustainable permaculture garden for supplying fresh food to its campus community.
By the time Cesar Gutierrez was 16, he had already gone to jail twice, experimented with gang life, sold drugs and ran away from home. Today, the 22-year-old works at a popular Manhattan restaurant as a sous chef and has cooked with renown chef Daniel Boulud.
The National Football League began reopening for business after player union leaders announced a new 10-year collective bargaining agreement with the league owners Monday. Meanwhile, NFL players, knowing the lockout took a toll on their fans, contributed to a thank you video for fans.
Ted Komada, the music teacher who started a chess club nine years ago at Killip Elementary School, hoped to help the mostly low-income students build confidence. Now, his chess team heads to the national finals, after having won five consecutive state championships in Arizona.
Creators of a podcast for video gamers were shocked after their illustrator suffered a shoulder injury and her insurance company refused to pay. With her drawing ability in jeopardy, the show's creators humbly asked their viewers for donations and in two days had already collected $64,000 -- more than four times their original goal.
The word 'Hope' engraved on wooden blocks is on display alongside food items in several Budgens grocery stores as an innovative way to raise money for charity. Shoppers can place the blocks in their carts for the cashiers to collect £1 for each one scanned in support of local people affected by dementia.
Tim Harris, owner of Tim's Place, is the country's only restaurant owner with Down's Syndrome, and the joy he gets from serving people good food carries over into his diner's most famous export: hugs.
While sailing off Newport Beach, California, James Gilkinson and his niece got the surprise of a lifetime when a sea lion cub jumped onto their boat. The young mammal seemed tired but also became quite affectionate, rubbing against the captain and angling for pats on the head for an hour or more.
Mr. Dennehy and nine of his friends have spent the past 23 years locked in a game of Tag. It started in high school and has been pulling them closer ever since. Nowadays, their wives and co-workers are trained to keep a lookout so they can avoid being tagged by other players.
We can learn a lot by looking back on the fifth anniversary of the Amish schoolhouse shootings, to the striking actions of the Amish community following the murders when they immediately expressed forgiveness to the shooter's family.
Fighting back tears, the father of a 6-year-old killed in Friday's school shooting shared with reporters some surprising words of sympathy for the gunman's family.
A team of conservationists have uncovered a hidden population of around 200 of the world's rarest Bornean orangutans in Malaysian Borneo. The Sarawak government has pledged protection.
A decree recently signed by the Turkmen President ordered government ministries to plant 3 million trees in 2013 with the aim of transforming the desert Central Asian nation into a blooming garden. Radio Free Europe reports that 465,000 public-sector employees, including those working at schools and universities in the country, took shovels in hand on March 10 and spent the day planting 755,000 trees.
A new project featuring Grover, Elmo, Cookie Monster and the gang aims to explain concepts related to the importance of earning and saving money. "For Me, for You, for Later," explains financial fundamentals in a way that preschool children can understand. The best part, DVDs and videos are available online and for free at PNC banks.
The European Union has scored a series of mini-victories in recent months and is ending 2012 in perhaps the best shape of the past four years.
A new type of financial instrument is challenging the idea that giving and investing are separate and distinct. The social impact bond (SIB) is an experimental hybrid that applies a profit motive to some of the most intractable social problems. The government of Canada added itself to a short list of agencies around the world considering SIB programs, which can be seen as an alternative to charitable donations -- great for investors looking to place capital in a way that will generate economic and social value at the same time.
U.S. stocks closed out 2012 with their strongest day in more than a month. Not only that, the S&P 500 ended the year up 13.4 percent since January 1 of last year, its best performance since 2009. The Dow Jones average added 7.3% for the year and the Nasdaq jumped 16%.
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment aid hit a five-year low last week, and residential construction surged in December, the latest signs that the U.S. economic recovery remains on track.
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