Hello! And Good News

This week on the podcast to talk good news is guest Naomi Villa! Naomi is on the UCB Harold Team “Dirt”. She also produces one of the very best indie shows in town Boss Jr. Presents with her team Boss Jr. She has a great podcast called “Let’s Fall In Love”. You can find it on itunes or wherever you like to download your podcast. This week Hannah and Naomi talk about, • Three high school girls who invented a drinking straw that can detect the date rape drugs! • A family that won millions in the lottery and used their earnings to start a foundation dedicated to helping others. • 100 Suits for 100 Men, a non-profit in New York City that is dedicated to helping formerly incarcerated individuals, homeless individuals, former gang members and survivors of domestic violence navigate to a place of economic freedom. Their core service is to provide free business attire to men and women who are in the job search process. • Shelter House, a homeless shelter in Ontario, Canada received a $10,000 donation from a form

Episode guest Edgar Momplaisir (UCB Theater, Against The Grain Podcast) joins Hannah to talk some good news. We start by answering the question that has been brought up in other episodes about Salt Lake City and their resolution to chronic homelessness. Unlike what has been said in past episodes, Utah has not actually successfully solved this issue. Hannah goes over an in depth article she found about why Utah got so much publicity in 2015 and what the real facts are. On the good-news side of things however, we talk about what Utah is doing right that may be helpful nationwide. We dive into the rest of the episode with: • The Amani Women Center, a non-profit in Clarkston, GA that helps refugee women resettle in America. They work with the women by educating and empowering them using culturally sensitive tools that contribute to their overall well-being. One of the programs they recently started is called The Sewing Room Project, which aims to provide the women with the skills and guidance to make something pr

This week’s episode guest is Hailey Faust! Hailey is a graphic designer, animator, printmaker and stylist based in Missoula, Montana, which could very well be the heart of the Rockies. Check out Hailey’s blog The Lovely Wild, which celebrates slow living and all things seasonal. It’s really so beautiful. You can find her on instagram as well @the.lovely.wild. Hailey and I talk about some really great stuff this week! • After his wife lost her eyesight, Mr. Kuroki spent two years planting a sea of flowers outside of their house to bring her back from her depression. He realized that flowers can be enjoyed with more than just sight and worked to fill their property with the fragrance of flowers. • Springfield Partners For Community Action is an amazing non-profit in Massachusetts that serves low-income individuals and families in Springfield and the surrounding communities. They work to help people become financilally self sufficient and productive by ensuring that basic needs such as healthcare, shelter, foo

This week on the podcast we have Zander Frost! Zander is hilarious and a joy. You can find him performing around Los Angeles with his UCB Mess Hall team Trish. This week Zander and I talk about: • Two lifelong friends, Justin and Patrick, who just travelled the 500-mile long European trail, Camino de Santiago. What makes this story amazing is that Justin is in a wheelchair and has lost the ability to use his arms and legs. The two didn’t let Justin’s disability stop them from achieving his dream of seeing the trail and Patrick pushed him on foot the entire way! • The cutest pair of elderly twins who celebrated their 100th birthday with the best photo shoot ever! • An amazing woman, Alyce Knaflich, who founded a non-profit to house homeless women veterans. Alyce is a veteran herself who servd for 19 years. She suffered from PTSD after her service and spent 10 years struggling with homelessness. Now she is opening Aura Home in North Carolina to help other women in need. There is currently a gofundme to help

This week’s guest is James Mastraieni. James is on the UCB main stage team Outside Dog. James is also a fellow podcast host! He has a great podcast I listen to all the time called I’m Too Effing High. He brings on fellow comedians and tries to answer the question each week, are comedians funnier when they’re high. And I will give a hint. It’s very, very funny. James and I talk about a lot! • A police officer of the Atlanta Police Department ended up truly protecting and serving when he got a shoplifting call. A 12-year-old girl had been caught stealing a pair of shoes for her sister, because her family couldn’t afford them. The officer drove her home, bought the family-of-seven dinner, and started a clothing and food drive for the family. • The San Francisco non-profit Tipping Point just announced that they have started a 100 million dollar initiative to help with the homeless and poverty levels in the Bay area. • A non-profit of Toronto called the Institute for a Resource Based Economy works toward la

This week we have Jessica Svendsgaard from the musical improv team Adele Dazeem. We talk about: A family whose truck went down in a flood and the strangers who saved their children’s lives. We may be moving towards a less disposable economy! People are making more and buying less (outside of the US of course). There is some good news about product packaging! And the company Braskem from Brazil is working towards creating a sustainable economy and researching renewable resources. The fundraiser of the week is on indiegogo and puts forth the idea of collecting illegal guns from non-violent criminals in exchange for bail. This is being developed as a way to reduce violent crimes and get illegal firearms out of the streets. Jessica is from Danville, CA and an art exhibition is opening up showcasing art from members of the Down Syndrome Connection. Jessica loves birds and I have a great animal corner about a man who has created a retirement home for birds. Follow Jessica on Twitter @svendsgaard Follow Je

This weeks guest is the very funny Oscar Montoya from The UCB Harold team Nomi Malone and Maude Night's The Summer Of . He is a comedian and a dancer, a mover, a shaker, really the only thing he's not is a calendar maker.This episode has a lot of stories that are hat tips to previous episodes! We've got: A tutu protest promoting acceptance and solidarity with the LGBTQ community across the state of Wyoming (including Hannah's hometown!) A young boy who found $2,000, returned it, and received an outstanding citizens reward! Planes trains and automobiles! Another baby was born on mass transit! A Metallica cover band had all of their equipment stolen, and Metallica themselves stepped in to replace all of it! The Gofundme of the week features Goats of Anarchy, a non-profit for special needs goats, which was featured in a past episode with Jonathan Harris. They are expanding and opening up a second location! Oscar’s hometown is Palmira Columbia, and while looking for good news, Hannah found a great list

This week’s guest is Mary Holland! (HBO’s Veep, Seeso’s Shrink, The Largo Theater, UCB Theater) We talk about:• A Tool Library in Minnesota, which allows you rent any tool that you need for up to 7 days. The best part is that most of the tools were donated by a local senior David Merry. • A dad who showed up at school and saved his daughter from embarrassment in the best way and also maybe the worst. • A caterpillar that eats through plastic and might just be the answer to ridding our Earth of waste piles in an environmentally friendly way. • Britain went without coal for a full 24 hours for the first time since the industrial revolution and several other countries have made great environmental strides. • The gofundme of the week is an indiegogo.com fundraiser for Yoots, a ride service that provides underserviced kids with rides to school programs and activities. There goal is to broaden the reach of every non-profit and school by shifting the burden of finding and paying for transportation. • Writ

This week’s guest is Jake Sprague from the UCB Harold Team Rococo!Jake and I talk about so many things. The episode is pushing an hour and a half because we cover eight, EIGHT, good news stories. And that’s an exact number. Here’s what we cover: • A great-grandmother (you’d never guess it from her photo) whose roof blew off of her home, and the two strangers who have volunteered to build a new one for her. • The California sun, which is apparently so strong that the solar energy it creates is putting the cost of electricity into the negatives. • In place of a gofundme of the week, I discovered that a cool way to support education in your community is to a) go to www.edbacker.com and/or b) go to your local schools and pay off some school lunch debt! Every year schools go into debt from providing lunches for the the students who don’t have them. Austin Independent School District just had a great fundraiser on Ed Backer to help pay off theirs. • Awaken Arts is a non-profit in Los Angeles that uses Art Thera

This weeks guest is Scott Thiede! Scott is an improviser and a sketch writer. You can see him at the Clubhouse every 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month with the show Goosh at 7pm. He also has a show coming up at UCB Sunset on Earth Day- The Earth-Gina Monologues, which is in the style of The Vagina Monologues, except it's all about the terrestrial experience and how man has suppressed the land and sea for far too long. It features a killer cast giving monologues as our very own Earth. During our time on the big red couch we go over: A woman who gave birth mid-flight on Turkish airlines at 42,000 feet! She and her baby are both healthy and well back on land. Pope Francis has opened a free laundromat for the homeless people of Rome. He also plans on adding showers and a barbershop to the facilities. It’s possible I have already showcased this business, but Muzzicycle is a Brazillian company that recycled plastics to make bicycles. They use almost 16 tons of wasted plastic a year! That’s 5 tons of C02 emissions t

This week we’ve got comedian Natalie Benedict. You can see Natalie at the shows Parker Posey and Side Coach every fourth Wednesday of the month. Natalie and Hannah sit down on her big red couch and talk about: Chelsie Hill (25), a dedicated dancer who was in a car accident at 17 and paralyzed from the waist down. She hasn't her new life in a wheelchair stop her from doing what she loves and she started a wheelchair dance group called the Rollettes! The Forgiveness Project and the F Word exhibit, a non-profit that aims to heal through forgiveness in order to stop the cycle of vengeance. The exhibit in the UK uses photographs and written word to feature incredible stories of hardship and overcoming anger through forgiving. The Forgiveness Project works with families and individuals who have been hurt by others, but they also have programs working with inmates who have committed crimes. The GoFundMe of the week brings something we should all probably educate ourselves a little more on, (it’s obvious from how

This week’s comedic guest is the very funny and talented Jillian Dunn! (@hippiejill) She performs at UCB with Parker Posey and Side Coach as well as the Pack Theater house sketch team Turncoat. Hannah tells Jillian about hydropowered trains and fricken Elon Musk and his hyperloop plans. They discuss a couple of octogenarians who were life long bug hunters and recently donated their collection worth $10 million to ASU. A homeless man named Victor was able to get back on his feet with the help of a woman who took the time to see him. He now has a facebook page that his community started for him. You have to check it out. The GoFundMe of the week features another good news source! This kickstarter is getting a printed newspaper dedicated to bringing positive news to peoples doorsteps in the traditional way. Jillian is from Flowood, Mississippi and the hometown news Hannah found for her features an 8 year old girl who has started a successful business and gives back to her community. Animal Corner pulls at

This week on the podcast is actor/ writer/comedic performer Eric Feltes, and he and Hannah discuss quite a bit of good news:A pastor who found a giant, and I mean, GIANT diamond and donated it to his country instead of keeping the profit. Spring Break is upon us and Grid Alternatives is a non profit that provides little to no-cost solar power for low income families. Over 200 college students from all over have signed up for their volunteer Spring Break program and will spend their vacation installing solar panels across California, Colorado, and Washington DC. Political tensions have been tight as we are all too aware of. But an awesome Facebook live stream shows two opposing Texas congressmen who had to take a road trip together after their flight to D.C. was cancelled. The congressmen become buddies and realize that they agree on more things than they thought they would. An artist has turned billboards into landscapes that perfectly line up with the mountains they are blocking and it’s beautiful. The g

A special “Good Newser” episode featuring Our Front Porch! Our Front Porch is a startup organization based out of Denver, Colorado and they provide long term support to families and individuals who are victims of disaster. The coolest thing about Our Front Porch is that they really are in it for the long haul. They help families relocate to affordable housing, they provide counseling and emotional support as well as community aspects, and their long term goal is to actually have a housing complex specifically for families recovering from disaster that will provide all of these things on site. So in this episode I am speaking to the founders of the company Maggie Babyak and Heather Korth and Social Media Director and volunteer, Erin Stotts. You can follow @OFP_Denver on twitter for all of their updates. Check out their website, http://ourfrontporchl3c.com/ for more information on their organization and partners, and if you are interested in donating or investing you can do so there.  See acast.com/privacy for

Katy Karns visits from Oakland, CA for a great episode. We talk about renewable energy and the slow crawl to save the environment. (Costa Rica is operating on 98% renewable energy!) The gofundme of the week is incredible, check out the facebook page and https://www.gofundme.com/AnaheimWhiteHouse. Katy is from Davis, CA and we talk about some great hometown news! Davis is completely pulling out of their city bank, Wells Fargo, as a protest to the Dakota Access pipeline! The animal news in the episode is also pretty great, it features a Viking funeral for two classroom goldfish. I loved this episode so much. Check out Katy on the instagram @askewed_view she has some great shows coming up. Women Getting Witty, March 24th and Comedy Chop April 21st, at the Purple Onion!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week Hannah has actress and improviser Jen Cascio over. They briefly revisit the best Girl Scout cookie seller of all time from Charlie’s episode with some more accurate numbers. Hannah tells Jen about Baltimore’s Mr. Trash Wheel, the adorable googley-eyed, solar powered, trash eating bug that works hard to keep the harbor clean. (@MrTrashWheel) They also talk about Austin, Texas and the city’s amazing initiative to become a waste free city by 2040! The grocery store In.Gredients is well on their way, creating only 3.74lbs of trash each month! The Go Fund Me of the week features a community working hard to help an artist get back on his feet and recover from homelessness. We then move over to Kenya and talk about Nancy ‘Chela’ Chelagat Cherwon, who is one of female street artists in the country. She lives with other artists and makes a living with her skills. She also works to impact the community around her by sending positive messages through her art, particularly in violent or crime filled areas. T

Hannah has on guest Rose Arscott (@posle and @posledraws). We talk about Tippy Talk, an app created by a father who's daughter has autism and is non-verbal. He developed Tippy Talk as tool to help those who are non-verbal effectively communicate using a system that is unique to them. We touch on The Mainichi newspaper in Japan, which is a newspaper that is turns into a plant instead of trash! Marvel has created a new comic book character, The Unstoppable Wasp. The Character's name is Nadia Pym. She is a scientist and at the beginning of each issue she receives letters from other real women in science. Marvel wants to support women in science and is also supporting STEM. The Go Fund Me of The Week encourages a melting pot and hate free environment. This week's small town (now hometown news) is the birthplace of an amazing magazine and solution oriented news source "Positive News". And as always we end with animal corner, which features a goat in love with a UPS driver and it is the cutest. A little more abo

A very special long distance guest episode! Hannah has actress Oakley Boycott on the show all the way from NYC. The two talk about the non profit Beautify Earth and impact that art can have on a neighborhood. They talk about politics and the balance between raising your voice for what you believe in while still having empathy. And they talk about a squirrel who chases a robber out of his house.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charlie and Hannah talk about how it's the small things that really matter, unconditional love and empathy. Hannah also discovers what Charlie's true crowd sourcing nightmare would be.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This weeks episode features guest Steven Ray Morris (My Favorite Murder, The Purrcast, Mother May I Sleep With Podcast.) The two cover even more good news stories than usual, local government, how much the ACLU kicks butt, and also things like flying reptile tidbits and craigslist hacks.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices