Dreams for Kids.........

is Doing an event called Embrace Race to raise money for Dreams for Kids.

(from their website) Dreams for Kids was founded by Tom Tuohy, at the request of his mother, Patricia Tuohy. Mrs. Tuohy was a single parent who dedicated her life to raising her four young children and to overcoming any adversity that would stand in the way of their personal welfare and path to independence.

Having given her children the opportunity to achieve their dreams, with one simple request Mrs. Tuohy would create a legacy of dreams come true for future generations of children searching for hope.

Dreams for Kids was born on December 24, 1989, in a small room inside a homeless shelter in Englewood Illinois, in a place called Clara's House.

These people like to have fun and help kids to feel accepted and in doing so change the way they see themselves. A hug can go a long way. So it is only fitting that two of their friends professional Soccer players, Ross Smith and Dean Ruddy will attempt to break the Guiness World Record for number of hugs in a 24 hour period and raise money for Dreams for Kids on June 1-2, 2007 in Chicago. They are challenging celebrities to help out. Here is their dream list of celebrities they want to hug.

Dean's Hug Goals:
1. Michael Jordan 2. Vince Vaughn 3. The Playboy Bunnies 4. Scarlett Johansson 5. Any or all of the Chicago Cubs

Ross' Hug Goals:
1. Rachel McAdams 2. Owen Wilson 3. Tiger Woods 4. Jack Black 5. Natalie Portman

Both want to hug Oprah!

Good Luck guys!

A day as the webmaster.........

What is it like to look for “good news” all day? As the webmaster for http://www.goodnewsnow.com/ that is what I do for about 7 hours a day. The rest of my day is updating graphics and checking web stats answering emails. I like to hear from our readers about news story ideas. I love it when they send photos. The people I tend to hear from are non-profit organizations that want to promote what they are doing. That is something we want to do.

I really like the arts so I would really like to have more stories about people in the arts, especially if they are involved with doing something for others. I like to hear success stories. There is a young musician from Ft Worth I have started to follow. His name is Daniel Hunter. He is 17 and is touring with Warped Tour and had his first CD out. I saw an article in The Star-Telegram last month and then this week Billboard. He just amuses me. I like it that he is doing so well. He reminds me of Johnny Depp in Benny & Joon

I think one of the biggest benefits I am receiving from doing the site is that when I am not amusing myself is how much I get to read and learn about all kinds of subjects. This includes a better understanding of the web and how things work here online. I am getting a great education.
The down side is what I call bad news days. That happens when events like the shootings at Virginia Tech takes place. All attention is on the tragedy and it is hard to find upbeat stories. I try to look for the good in what is going on. Sometimes I just give up and wait for the next day and work on some other aspect of the site or look for new news sources. So looking for good news can be depressing.

Here is my favorite story today. Search led to family, diary and a cause

It is about a man in Nazi Germany who realized he could not oppose the regime in the present so he kept a diary of events and his opinion to bare witness in the future. His grandson is a college professor who has translated the diary and is trying to get it published. They both want people to learn from the lessons of history.

Almost a year old.

Good News Now started up mid June 2006. I haven’t blogged in a month because we redesigned the site late March. The month of April has been sort of a trial month to get the bugs out. We did two things. We went from FrontPage and me having to keep the site up that way to Dreamweaver and a data base. I think we have had fewer problems on the day to day maintenance. I like the database. We plan to add search capabilities sometime in the future so you can search our archives. I am able to search from the back end of the site which is helpful. The second thing we did is made the site interactive. People can post on our forum and comment on the news articles. We have people sign up for the site, but only a few comments. We will be working on that. I plan to spend more time commenting myself so hopefully you will join in.

What we really want to see happen is have people send us their news stories. We have had that happen. I get emails from Iraq a couple of times a week from a few of the military reporters. That is very cool for me. I always post what they write. I am working on a story about a couple who rescues horses. They have a place in Michigan where you can go meet the horses and also a new website. A woman from Denton Texas, Holly Melton writes a daily devotion that we post through her Associated Content site. We are driving traffic to her site which is good for her and she is regularly one of our most read posts each day. If you are a writer I invite you to submit good news related stories, it will help your traffic. Someone on our MySpace site sent us info on an event in Atlanta called 500 Songs for Kids

"It will be a world record if they can pull it off -- and Josh Rifkind, one of Metro Atlanta's top music promoters has a history of doing the impossible.

In one 10-day period, in May, 500 bands will appear at Smith's Olde Bar -- 50 bands a night will only one song each. The songs will be from the top 500 songs of all time, as determined by Rolling Stone Magazine."

I really like hearing about stories like this one.

We are looking for new about events or news about how your church, club, school, organization or business is making a difference and making “good news.” Contact me at ruthieonart@ruthieonart.com. If you need help in writing the article that is OK. Just give us your leads.