Friday’s Odds and Ends

Since the news from Japan continues to be so depressing, I thought I would focusing on positives this week…

A Methodist church in Lewisville, Texas has recently opened a drop-in teen shelter for kids who are homeless and need a place for support. At the shelter teens can get tutoring, mentoring for college applications, Internet access, and a permanent address for college correspondence.

What a wonderful idea, and good for that congregation for stepping up to help teens who want to go to college but see no way of accomplishing even the first steps toward making that happen.

Ebby Halliday, the founder of one of the largest and most successful real estate agencies, recently celebrated her 100th birthday in Dallas. According to all reports, she is still spry, sharp, and well-connected to family and friends.

I’m sure her good health, long life, and wide circle of friends and family mean as much to her as the success she has had since she started as a merchant in 1945, selling hats in Dallas.

Parents in Dallas can now access information about their child’s school assignments, tests and attendance via a “parent portal.” The portal is up at 50 campuses in the DISD, with plans to eventually have it district wide.

What a great way to use the advances in technology to help parents be more involved in their child’s education.

And speaking of using technology in a really positive way. I just read an article by Trudy Rubin, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer about how the recent revolution in Egypt was organized in large part by using Facebook. Young people created a Facebook memorial page called “We are all Khaled Said” in honor of the blogger who was beaten to death by police for protesting police corruption in his blog. They then connected with an Egyptian youth organization and a political group supporting the presidency of opposition candidate Mohammed ElBaradei – both on Facebook.

The connecting continued over several months while planning the massive protests and demonstrations on January 25th that toppled the Egyptian regime 18 days later. I guess we can never underestimate the power of Facebook to do more than just let us post our daily status.

And finally, kudos to the brave men and women who are working in the nuclear power plants in Japan, trying to save their countrymen. What an amazing act of courage.

What good news have you run across this week?