Hey Everyone! Hope you are sliding into the weekend on a good note. Nothing too crazy or noteworthy in my life this week…but I actually like it that way. Boring can be great if you look at it the right way…ya know?
I have been busy cleaning up a few of my blogs this week, so if you happen to notice any minor differences that is why. Nothing major…just some clean up that is long overdue.
Anyway…on to the good news! Here are my favorites for this week. What do you think?
12-Year Old Boy Builds Homeless Shelter From Recycled Trash
12-year-old Max Wallack won Design Squad’s “Trash to Treasure” contest. He built a dome to provide shelter for the homeless and he used plastic, wire and packing peanuts.
The prize for the design contest was $10,000, a Dell laptop, and a trip to Boston. But Max said, “I don’t really care about the money. I care about helping people.”
“When I was six,” Max said, “I won an invention contest that included a trip to Chicago. While there, I saw homeless people living on streets, and beneath highways and underpasses. I felt very sorry for these people, and ever since then, felt that my goal and obligation was to find a way to help them. My invention improves the living conditions for homeless people, refugees, or disaster victims by giving them easy-to-assemble shelter.”
More Teens Volunteer Than Work Part Time
A random national telephone survey released this week found that 56% of teens volunteer to support a charitable cause versus 39% that have a part-time job.
Parents report that 82 percent of the teens in their lives do something to support charitable causes. 46% of the adults surveyed said they volunteer their time.
The survey found that 25% of teens have become more involved in charitable organizations as a result of the economic downturn. Food banks are also benefiting from the increase in teen volunteering.
Art Therapy Helps Breast Cancer Patients
Women undergoing radiation treatment for breast cancer experienced lasting improvements in mental and physical health and quality of life after participating in art therapy.
Art therapy seems to be a powerful tool in rehabilitation of patients with breast cancer and. One might presume this also applies to patients with other types of cancer as well.
Forty-one random breast cancer patients who were receiving radiation treatment were assigned to five once-a-week, hour-long sessions of art therapy. There was also a control group who didn’t receive art therapy. Participants completed surveys about their quality of life and self-image before beginning radiation, two months after radiation treatment began, and six months after the beginning of treatment.
At six months, the women who had participated in art therapy showed significant improvements in their overall quality of life, general health, physical health, and psychological health. The control group only showed improvements in psychological health. The art therapy group also showed gains in their body image, perspectives on the future, and radiation therapy side effects.
