If only charitable giving was as easy as buying a Coke at a vending machine. Well, now it is—at least in Japan. A Coca-Cola bottling company in Japan and the country's Red Cross have joined together to enable people to make donations by putting money into a vending machine.
An anonymous donor in Denmark has left nearly $200,000 in a clothes recycling bin outside a charity shop run by the Red Cross. The money was found in a bin liner under piles of donated clothing.
Young American volunteers marked Independence Day by continuing their remarkable clean up on behalf of Japan's tsunami survivors. And, their American-style celebration helped to lift the spirits of the struggling community there.
The sixth annual Happiness and Its Causes conference in Brisbane, Australia featured four days of lectures and workshops featuring some of the world's best known happiness gurus, including the Dalai Lama. The successful conference, attended by 2000 people paying big bucks, is just the latest evidence of the recent boom in all things happiness.
Five years ago, an Evergreen High School custodian was in the middle of bankruptcy when he won the Washington State Lottery's Quinto game -- 3.4 million dollars. But he still lives in a tiny house in Seattle and drives to work in the same car. He splurged on a new track at school.
A freak accident during her bachelorette party left Rachel Chapman in a wheelchair. Despite the upheaval, there was never any doubt the two would get married.Last week Rachel finally got to wear her wedding dress, at an marriage ceremony and reception donated by the folks at 1-800-Registry, who heard their story on the Today show.
A family in mourning over their late son's death has something to celebrate. Four months after his death in a car crash, his bass guitar was stolen from a church where he was a pastor. Two days after the parents issued a public plea for its return, the bass guitar was left on their doorstep.
In Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, six low-income families are moving into houses they helped build themselves, thanks to a remarkable program set up by the Interfaith Housing Alliance. Working collectively as a group, participants build their own homes and the homes of their future neighbors, and only move-in when all of the homes are completed.
Taisia Sidorova, 21, from St Petersburg, was given the last rites after an accident that left half her skull smashed and the damaged left hemisphere of her brain removed. But slowly - with the love and support of her family - she came around, and the artistic right side of her brain began compensating for lack on the left. Even though she'd never been interested in drawing before, she began to display remarkable natural talent.
The descendants of Plessy v. Ferguson, one of the Supreme Court's landmark blunders, which upheld the constitutionality of Jim Crow laws mandating segregation have united to create a civil rights education organization bearing their famous names.
A travel insurance company is looking for the good deeds that turned around some travel nightmares for its new contest, "World's Unluckiest Traveler: The Rescue". Travelers are already posting at the website, stories featuring the kindness of strangers, how a stranger salvaged a mishap or saved an entire vacation. The prize is a $10,000 vacation.
Just two years after losing all four limbs in an explosion in Iraq, Army Specialist Brendan Marrocco was given the keys to a brand new home designed especially with his injuries in mind. The group Building Homes for Heroes built the high-tech home, which is equipped with an elevator, sensors that operate the lighting and front door, and electronic controls that raise and lower the sink, stove, and kitchen shelves.