Juniors and seniors in Kelly Eichmann's patient-care pathways classes at Clovis East High School are used to going twice weekly to hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and doctor's offices. They help out while learning about the different careers they might have someday. After area schools were closed last month by the...
California Just Finished Its Homeless Count. It's Sure to Be Inaccurate, and Politically Weaponized
By Manuela Tobias, The Fresno Bee and Matt Levin, CalMatters With yellow vests and flashlights, over 200 volunteers fanned out across Fresno to count homeless people on Tuesday night. Along the railway, one group walked by a freight container with a mattress and shoes inside, and past a dirt cot...
World's Largest Volunteer Force Fights Australia's Wildfires
TOMERONG, Australia — The wildfire was behaving erratically last week, and Doug Schutz and his team needed to make a quick decision. So they moved a bulldozer from another job and used it to widen a firebreak. That likely helped prevent hundreds of homes from going up in flames. If...
It Takes a Tech Village to Track Santa on Christmas Eve
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. — Depending on which country they’re from, the kids may ask about Father Christmas, Papa Noel, Saint Nick or Santa Claus. But those who believe all want to know one thing: where in the world the jolly old man and his sleigh full of gifts...
Sanders, Bloomberg Test Different Paths to a California Win
LOS ANGELES — One is spending millions of dollars flooding the airwaves from Los Angeles to Sacramento, highlighting his tenure as mayor of the nation's largest city and commitment to key Democratic causes. The other has hired 80 staff members to knock on doors, organize volunteers and promote his message...
New Technology Helps Search Teams Find People in Wilderness
HONOLULU — Yesenia D'Alessandro loaded a GPS tracking app on her cellphone and trudged into a remote Hawaii forest, joining more than 100 other volunteers in the search for a missing hiker. She climbed through muddy ravines, crossed streams and faced steep drop-offs in the thick tangle of trees and...
Rare Albino Fawn Found, Rescued by Trucker in California
LOOMIS — A rare, all-white fawn has been found and rescued in Northern California by a truck driver who delivered the animal to a rescue center. The Sacramento Bee reported Sunday that the small albino deer with a pink nose and large pinkish ears was discovered sitting in the middle of a...
Kids Day: A Dollar Makes a Difference for Valley Children’s Hospital
Don't forget to have a dollar — or two — in your car Tuesday. Do it for youngsters like Maddox, whose story you can learn about in the video at the bottom of this post. Maddox spent 153 days in Valley Children's Hospital's Level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. He was...
Universal Service Will Put the ‘Us’ Back in USA
“The President of The United States, Greeting: YOUR NAME HERE You are hereby ordered to report for induction into the ARMED FORCES of the UNITED STATES. …” — Draft notice salutation, circa 1968 U.S. District Court Judge Gray Miller in Houston recently ruled the Selective Service System's men-only registration unconstitutional....
Donations and Volunteers Surge at Border Rest Center
MCALLEN, Texas — One by one, around Father's Day, the surge of Amazon boxes containing shirts, pants, underwear and many other items began arriving at an asylum-seeker rest center in the border town of McAllen, Texas. Included in the packages were notes of support. One read: "As someone who has...