We all have good intentions…well, at least most of us! If you’re like me, every year you plan on doing some charity work. You’re not quite sure what - maybe you’ll work in a soup kitchen this Christmas or donate some more time to a senior citizen’s home. But something happens and…well, nothing happens. We’re all too busy nowadays. But busyness doesn’t change the needs of others and there are ways you can help, even with limited time or a tight budget.

Gimundo has these suggestions for the well-intentioned person with little time or money to spare:

The Hunger Site
(thehungersite.com)

This site features click buttons for six different causes: hunger, child health, breast cancer, literacy, the rain forest, and animal rescue. The concept is simple: Just click the button for each cause once every day, and the site’s sponsors will make a charitable donation on your behalf. If you purchase an item from the site’s online store, they’ll donate even more. It takes just thirty seconds a day to make a difference in someone’s life without spending a cent –make this site a daily stop. Better yet, make it your home page, so you won’t start a single day without chipping in.

Ripple
(ripple.org)

Ripple works exactly the same way as the Hunger Site, funding clean water, food, education, and a $100 loan with your daily click. Ripple also features a Google-powered search bar, which makes a donation every time you use it. To get all your friends in on the giving act, add Ripple’s “give” buttons directly to your blog or Facebook page.

Free Rice
(freerice.com)

We’ve written about this one before, but it’s such a great concept that we had to bring it up again. The site features a vocabulary game, where every correct answer you choose donates 20 grains of rice to an impoverished country. Play as long and as often as you like – you’re bound to pick up a few SAT words while saving the world.

Free Poverty
(freepoverty.com)

Have you ever played the Facebook staple, Traveler IQ, where you score points by locating cities and landmarks on an unmarked map? This game is just like that, but better – with every correct answer, the site donates 10 cups of water to a poor country on your behalf. It might make you feel like an idiot for the first few rounds when you realize you can’t even locate the Statue of Liberty, but the fact that you’re making a difference should soften the blow a bit.

GoodSearch
(goodsearch.com)

Are you passionate about fighting poverty? Want to save the whales? Are you committed to curing breast cancer?

No matter what your cause is, you can find a way to support it through the philanthropic search engine tool, GoodSearch. Simply type in the name of the organization you want to support, and GoodSearch will donate 50% of its advertising revenue to your charity of choice. With 54,000 organizations already registered, you’re bound to find a cause that you believe in. Once a few people hop on board, the funds add up fast: If a charity has 10,000 supporters who each use the search tool twice a day, that can add up to $73,000 in donations for the year.

Best of all, GoodSearch recently added a GoodShop tool, which allows you to donate a percentage of the cost of your purchases to the charity of your choice. The store choices include all the big names like Amazon, Best Buy, and Travelocity, so be sure to click through from the site whenever you’re planning a new purchase – you’ll finally have an excuse to feel good about shopping!

There is positive news that surrounds us daily. Sometimes its hard to find but often it can be a small gesture or a kind word. Once in a while, positive news is monumental in size and scope.

Today, we celebrate positive news of enormous proportions - ground-breaking, revolutionary and truly amazing. Our world sighs a collective breath, knowing there is promise in in the air.

The first African American, Barack Obama is elected as President of the United States.

His victory speech says it all:

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America – I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you – we as a people will get there.

Barack Obama - America's New President Elect

Congratulations, world. Today is a day full of positive news and tremendous possibility!

Many of us are creatures of habit. We drive to the grocery store, even though its a ten-minute walk or 5-minute bike ride. We forget how simply taking our bike to work wakes our bodies up and enlivens us in addition to helping the environment. And while fuel prices are at an all-time high, we still often jump in the car for the simplest of tasks.

When Tian Harter started his “Don’t be Fuelish” campaign as a way to promote bicycle commuting, he never knew it would become such a huge success.

“I just wouldn’t have predicted a few years ago when I started producing my bumper stickers that I’d be seeing $4/gallon gas so soon.” he comments.

He soon formed an allegiance with the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition as a way to promote “Bike to Work Day”. Together, this group of bike afficianados set up close to 50 stations (called “Energizer Stations”) which provides the bicycling commuters refreshments, give aways and plain old encouragement.

Every year in California’s Santa Clara County, this group of bike enthusiasts sets up nearly 50 “Energizer Stations” to provide free refreshments, give-aways, bicycling information, and encouragement to thousands of bicyclists on their way to work in California’s Santa Clara County.

His philosophy is to make everyone who breaks free from the fuel trap feel special and noticed on a community level. Local businesses are happy to donate as well, so the prizes these bicyclists receive are often quite substantial, like a free dinner or discounted sports equipment.

In addition, Tian and friends work with local heavyweights like Google and Yahoo as well as major government and community agencies, whom also help foster a “bike approach” with their employees.

“Bike to Work Day,” which started 14 years ago in San Francisco, has now spread nationwide. Bicycle friendly cities from across the U.S. participate, increasing the public awareness and importance of moving away from fuel-reliance.

“Whether you drive or ride, please remember…share the road!”

http://www.bikeleague.org

http://www.sfbike.org

Bikes Save Fuel

Our world cannot continue to live off of fossil fuels. Whatever your political stance, we all agree that there’s a limit to how much Mother Earth can provide. The United Kingdom recognizes this very real fact and has big plans; plans to convert every home to wind-power by 2020.

Even wind-industry proponents seem skeptical but the government is determined. It’s plan detail that every home will be powered by off-shore wind farms in a little more than a decade. Currently, the UK powers only about 2% of the country’s electricity via wind power.

So how can they pick up the pace…and pretty quickly? Buy purchasing more wind turbines. The “big picture” plan is to procure more turbines, likely American made, since favorable exchange rates should work to their advantage.

This is positive news for an entire country who realizes drastic plans need to be prioritized to change our reliance on fossil fuels and make our lands cleaner.

The banning of smoking worldwide is quite an interesting story. It started off small but spread like the cancer it creates. At first, it may have appeared as an infringement on our civil rights. Say what you will about smoking, but it is ultimately your choice. But as the world became a cleaner place to live in, where second hand smoke didn’t jeopardize others lives, we began to breathe a collective, clean sigh of relief.

Croatia was one the most recent places to ban smoking in public areas. The law also restricts any smoking-related media campaigns. 13,000 people die of smoking-related deaths in Croatia each year. These political steps may prevent unneeded deaths and increase overall health.

Look at Italy: a ban enforced in Italy in 2005 has led to a sharp fall in heart attack rates, by 11 percent, researchers said.

Of course, encouraging an entire nation to quit smoking - or at least cut down - is no easy task. These countries have embedded views on smoking and old habits die hard, literally.

Mate Vrkic, 49, owner of a small cafe in an open air market in Zagreb, is concerned:

“Business is already pretty thin. At least half of my guests smoke and if I lose another 20 regulars, I’ll stop making any profit. I have never smoked so when everyone lights up in here, the smoke is killing me. But for business, it will be a disaster.”

So just as an individual struggles to quit smoking, we as a world nation have our struggles with it as well. But its positive news to see a healthy choice being enacted around the world, in obvious and more challenging locations such as Croatia. It shows that we can all be on the “same page,” at least as far as the dangers of smoking.

“It’s the magic of dogs,” says Karen Shirk, who runs a nonprofit called 4 Paws for Ability which has placed 319 service dogs with people with disabilities since 1998.

One group receiving considerable help and love from our canine companions are children who suffer from autism.

“I’m sure there’s some sort of scientific explanation,” she says. “But I call it magic.”

Shirk started the organization when her own handicap left her bound to a wheelchair. When she went looking for a dog that could contribute to her life in both a practical and psychological way, she was met with resistance. Trained dogs would be of no service to her, she was told.

That’s when she began her own plan, where people like her could reap the many, many benefits of man’s (and woman’s!) best friend.

“We don’t discriminate against anyone who has a need,” she says.

Many agencies often have age restrictions, so Shirk specializes in providing dogs to children with a variety of issues, including autism.

“I knew autistic children connected to animals,” she remembers. “I knew that service dogs would be able to help.”

Of the 300+ dogs that Shirk has placed, nearly 70 percent have been partnered with autistic children.

“The biggest problem that’s faced by families that have children with autism is isolation. They actually quit going out because they can’t keep their child safe,” says Shirk. “For our children with autism, their dog might be the only friend that they have.”

People help out in all sorts of ways, some of which are distinctly original. JR Hildebrandt is one of those out of the box thinkers, that’s for sure. Mr. Hildenbrandt took carving pumpkins to a whole new level when he made his into a boat. That’s right, a 760-pound pumpkin boat, with a chair, a small heater and room for himself.

He is making an 8-day trek to raise money for a charity that provides special needs children with memorable trips. What better way to raise money for this cause than having a memorable trip oneself?

“We’ve sent children to Disney Land or Disney World. We’ve sent them to NASCAR races, we’ve even sent one little girl to Jamaica on a cruise and I wanted to take it a step further,” he said.

Believe it or not, Mr. Hildenbrandt has an extended history of pumpkin mobility. He won Wisconsin’s Nekoosa Great Pumpkin Race where he took around 10 minutes to paddle a 300-yard course.

He does admit the smell can be a troublesome element to his longer treks.

Lesson learned? We often think of charity in very linear ways. What’s something unusual you can do today to help your fellow human? Or animal? Or environment?

Not your average Cinderella!

Send us your positive news or comments!

Anne Jennings of Libertyville High School ’s is a Queen, both inside and out. And her schoolmates feel the same way. She dances down the halls and hugs her friends excitedly. Her school voted her Homecoming Queen and since then, she has been dancing on air.

“Once you mess around with nature – if you remove something from the food chain – that space isn’t reserved for it to come back,” says Mr. Mark Kurlansky, author of “The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell. “It’s very difficult to reverse these things because the absence has had all sorts of repercussions in nature.”

James Cervino, a professor of marine biology at Pace University in New York City, recognizes this fact as well. In College Point, Queens, in New York City, Professor Cervino displays his idea to help reverse the trend of damage we’re doing and have done to the waters of New York City.

He calls it “the electric oyster reef project.” He’s installed a series of spiral-shaped bands of metal in the shallow water. At low tide, they jut from the water like giant strands of DNA. The end result will be water that is habitable for oysters, at least for a certain proximity.

Oysters filter the water. That’s their job. When they are removed from an ecosystem because of pollution or over harvesting, the water becomes polluted and dangerous. Cervino’s idea is a way to reintroduce nature’s natural janitors into damaged water systems. So far, it’s proven to be a success but there’s a long, long way to go.

“If we recreated oyster reefs, we’d clear the water.” say Cervino.

It’s good news for all of us when ingenious people like Professor Cervino dream up ways to clear up our waters.

Please send us any positive news - big or small - we’d love to hear from you!