Three Good News Stories

Most good news in America is buried--buried in a back room at the Library of Congress, buried on the inside pages of some of America's least read newspapers.

In the sprit of Thanksgiving, CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman visits the Library of Congress to try and find three stories the mainstream media completely overlooked--three positive stories that we could all be thankful for.

It wasn't easy, Hartman explains, as he stumbles across stories of rare ferrets in Colorado and a narcoleptic dog in Idaho. Eventually, though, he finds three tales sure to make anyone who reads or hears them smile.

THE GOLDEN CARROT

At Seven Hills Elementary School in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hartman finds a cafeteria renowned for its great-tasting, healthy school lunches.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine awarded the cafeteria for overhauling the way they prepare food. Translation: they tossed out the deep fryer.

One worker was asked how the foods are fried and replied, "We don't fry. We bake."

And you know what that means: the food has less fat, of course, and there's less salt and sugar, and everything's cooked from scratch using organic meats, vegetables and whole grains.

"Some of the things we have here, I can't even pronounce," says one kitchen worker.

In short, every child's nightmare.

"Scary healthy. That's what I'd call it," says a boy student. A girl classmate adds that on one particular day, "All they had is like healthy Gorgonzola cookies."

They don't really serve gorgonzola cookies, Hartman learns, but that doesn't mean the menu isn't unusual.

Some of the diet-friendly dishes include: Moroccan meatballs with couscous, salmon with lobster sauce, chicken parmesan and lemon tilapia.

The really weird part: the kids like it.

The kids credit one man for bringing out their golden palates: Jimmy Gerhardi, a celebrated local chef, who began working at the school last year.

"The better the ingredients, the less you have to do to it, the less fat you have to add," Gerhardi says. When asked if it seemed odd to lavish children with such intricate dishes, Gerhardi adds, "They're not just kids. They're customers."

And those happy, healthy customers are making the school's bean counters happy too. Sales are up and, because the cafeteria doesn't serve any processed, packaged foods, costs are down.

"This could be taken to any school within a week's time," Gerhardi declares.

If it's that portable a program, Hartman ponders, why isn't it implemented at more schools? "It's a mindset," Gerhardi says.

"Once we break that mindset and learn to throw a chicken in a pot again, so we're making real food. It's pretty simple I think," Gerhardi says.

Light-Up For Safety

Portland, Ore. has more bike commuters than any other city in America. That is fine by day, but dangerous come night.

The problem, Hartman reports, is that many bicyclists don't have lights even though it's Oregon law.

Normally, riding without lights would be a $94 citation, but not long ago, traffic division Sgt. Bill Sinnet had a bright idea.

"For a while we're going to go ahead here and do something like this and try something different to raise awareness about safety issues, something more than just giving someone a ticket," Sinnet says.

He issued cops a new tool in their battle over bike lights.

He issued them bike lights.

Even the batteries are included.

On the first night of the program, officer Ron Hosely installed six sets of lights on five bikes.

It's really a win-win, even for taxpayers. The lights cost just $10 a set, a fraction of what it would cost to litigate a citation and the public relations value is immeasurable.

DOG'S BEST FRIEND

From a purely practical standpoint, of all the dogs at the Massachusetts chapter of the ASPCA, Stephanie Long's first choice was the worst choice: a clipped German shepherd named Nikki who needed a $5,000 double hip replacement.

The 6th-grade basketball forward had been begging for years to get a dog and although she really liked that sad, old shepherd, her mother, Tracy, says Stephanie was realistic.

Instead, the Longs ended up adopting an adorable boxer/Labrador mix.

But as Hartman finds out from Stephanie, the story was far from over. Stephanie says she just couldn't get that shepherd out of her head.

"We didn't adopt her because she had that so why would other people adopt her," Stephanie says referring to the shepherd's hip problem. Shaking her head, she adds that she was worried over the dog's fate.

Stephanie only had about $8 to her name. She would need another $4,900-plus to save Nikki. So she went door to door and eventually raised a total of $26 bucks.

"We knew we weren't going to collect like $5,000," Stephanie admits.

So what was her next move? Stephanie called the Salem Observer and the Eagle Tribune. Told that a newspaper article doesn't make any money, Stephanie replies, "If people find out about it, it will."

And it did.

Jill O'Connell from the MSPCA says Stephanie's one-girl publicity campaign raised the whole $5,000.

"People ended up going onto our Web site and making donations on our Web site and they just kept rolling in," O'Connell says and quips that Stephanie has a job in public relations waiting for her when she graduates.

Stephanie's goal never was to keep the dog for herself, she says. All she ever wanted was to help Nikki find a home, which she did.

Nikki now has a family, and a yard, and no doubt a friend for life in Stephanie Long.

Hartman reflects and concludes, a selfless child, an original idea and an appreciation of Tilapia.

These are the stories, Hartman says, that get tucked away in newspapers and never talked about on TV. But as we enter the holiday season, maybe it's important to remind ourselves of all that's worth celebrating.