Wangari Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya, in 1940 and became the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate. In 1976, while serving with the National Council of Women of Kenya, she introduced a simple idea: plant trees with ordinary people. That idea grew into the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots effort that helped women plant more than 20 million trees on their farms and on school and church grounds. It spread to other African countries too, as people she trained started their own tree-planting efforts. In 2004 she received the Nobel Peace Prize. It didn’t start with a grand plan to change a continent. It started with a seedling and a willing pair of hands, and then another, and another.
At 12:35 am on April 15, 1912, the wireless operator and first officer of the Carpathia woke Captain Arthur Rostron with news that the Titanic had struck ice and was sinking. Rostron turned his ship around at once. The Titanic was 58 miles away. He called out extra stokers to make all possible speed, while the crew got doctors, blankets, and hot coffee ready. Through the dark they steamed past icebergs, dodging them as they went. The Carpathia reached the first lifeboat at 4:10 am, about three and a half hours after the call. They were too late for many, but more than 700 people were saved because one captain ran toward danger instead of away.
On the morning of December 6, 1917, a French munitions ship caught fire in Halifax Harbour. Train dispatcher Vincent Coleman learned the burning ship could explode. He was worried about the overnight passenger train from Saint John, carrying about 300 people, which was due to pass right by the harbour. Coleman had left his wife Frances and their two-year-old daughter Eileen at home that morning. Instead of running, he went back to his telegraph key and tapped out a warning: “Hold up the train. Munitions ship on fire and making for Pier 6… Goodbye boys.” Moments later the ship exploded, and Coleman likely died instantly at his post. His message stopped the other inbound trains and alerted the railway to the disaster.
In January 1925, diphtheria broke out in Nome, Alaska, and the town needed antitoxin fast. Planes could not fly in the winter conditions, so dog sled teams formed a relay to carry the serum 674 miles from Nenana to Nome. Mushers and dogs pushed through temperatures as low as 85 degrees below zero. They made the run in 127 and a half hours without breaking a single vial. Balto led the final team into Nome and got the statue and the fame. But a twelve-year-old dog named Togo and his musher ran 261 miles, the longest and most dangerous stretch of the trip. Balto’s team ran 55. Faithful work does not always get the credit. God sees it anyway.
In January 1998, six-year-old Ryan Hreljac heard his grade one teacher, Mrs. Prest, explain that people were getting sick and even dying because they had no clean water. Some walked for hours just to get dirty water. Ryan only had to walk ten steps to the drinking fountain. He went home and begged his parents to help. They let him do extra chores, and he worked for four months to earn $70, the amount he thought would build a well. Then he learned a well in Uganda would cost $2,000. He did not quit. He spoke to anyone who would listen, and his first well was built at Angolo Primary School in Uganda. That little project became Ryan’s Well Foundation.
