There are many second chance stories in progress. Some people
have just realized that they have received a second chance. Others are
in the middle of doing something productive with them. Some have had
success and are finding ways to give back. All are inspiring in their
own ways.
Yael Hanover with her daughter, Adelle Shayna, who passed away from SIDS and her son, Menachem Mendel .
A child dies of SIDS, despite conscientious parenting. Here is a mother's personal account of how she learned to live and give again.
Yael Hanover lives in
Manhattan with her husband and son. She founded The Shiny Project as a way to overcome
the loss of her daughter, Adelle Shayna (Shiny) who was almost five
months old when she passed away. The Shiny Project was started to honor her
legacy of love and joy.
From Yael's blog on The Shiny Project, she writes: "Do one simple thing to inspire countless other simple things and bring the greatest thing. Your act of kindness can bolster the faith of someone else and prompt him to do the same. You can show others that they are not alone. Prove to those around you that compassion is a living being - consuming, breathing, - and reproducing. ..."
Mark Mocha, ex bank robber, paying it forward after jail
Mark Mocha - Powerful slide show of51 year old bank robber turned
substance abuse counselor.
He spent 12 years in prison after robbing banks in
NY. This father of 3 is paying it forward and working on finding a life after incarceration. He spent time working as a volunteer with the
homeless, has a strained and difficult relationship with his children, and now works with addicts and alcoholics helping them to avoid the extreme behavior of his past.
Watch the powerful slide show from the NY
times from the "One in 8 million" series.
Note: when you get to the site, go to:"Browse
Collection", then "Series Index", then "Mark Mocha: The Ex Bank Robber"
Liver transplant patient thrives and gives back in support groups
Jeff Rahilly is
a former University of Tulsa center who played in the 1980s. Rahilly, now 45,
and a liver transplant recipient has survived, thrived, and given back.
Every month, Rahilly meets
with a support group for transplant survivors and potential transplant
recipients.
For the Tulsa World Sports Extra article, Rahilly said: "Just a couple of years ago, I was one of those people with
that yellow look and that deep eyeball look - your eyes are sunken
back."
"Spread the word," he said. "One person can save two or three lives."
The work Rahilly does in the support group may save a life, but it has also helped to save his.
Khadijah
Williams, with a huge smile is going to Harvard University from Los Angeles, California. She graduated from Jefferson High School, fourth in her class. She had been there only 18 months, with 12 schools in 12 years under her belt. Smiling, despite her life without a steady roof over her head and garbage for meals, she put education first.
Extraordinary story of a determined girl to take each day as a second chance through education to make the most of her life. See her life through photographs from LA Times.
The world is being given a second chance to save the edible salt water fish population from extinction
Conservation ecologists and fisheries management scientists are working together to find ways to safely harvest salt water fish. They have shown that extinction is not guaranteed, although it was predicted that if we do nothing, many edible salt water fish will be extinct by 2048. If we act now, we can save the fish population for the future.
As reported in a NY Times article, "In the end, the scientists concluded that 63 percent of saltwater
fish stocks had been depleted "below what we think of as a target
range," Dr. Worm said.
But they also agreed that fish in
well-managed areas, including the United States, were recovering or
doing well. They wrote that management techniques like closing some
areas to fishing, restricting the use of certain fishing gear or
allocating shares of the catch to individual fishermen, communities or
others could allow depleted fish stocks to rebound."
From Walter Reed Army Medical Center, volunteers from Calvert County took more than 50 wounded soldiers on a fishing trip on the Chesapeake Bay. Read this article from the Washington Post.
