Inspirational Media Articles

Excerpts of Key Inspirational Media Articles in Major Media

Below are highly engaging excerpts of key inspirational articles reported in the mainstream media. Links are provided to the original articles on their major media websites. If any link fails to function, read this webpage. These inspirational articles are listed by article date. You can also explore the articles listed by order of importance or by date posted. Enjoy the inspiring articles!

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An eco-friendly fitness trend that started in 2016 is now growing in popularity with its own world championship competition in Italy. Originating in Sweden, when Erik Ahlström began picking up litter while jogging in Stockholm, the term is a combination of the Swedish word plocka, which means "to pick up", and the English word "jogging". The activity of picking up litter while on your outdoor jog, has spread to other countries, and now an estimated 2 million people ‘plog' regularly in over 100 countries. The workout adds bending, squatting, and stretching to the main action of running–with ‘pliking' being the latest offshoot for hikers who want to clean up the trail. The third annual World Plogging Championship in 2023, resulted in approximately 6,600 pounds of litter (3,000 kg) removed from the environment around the city of Genoa. Later this year, a British team will be traveling to the competition with the goal of running the farthest and picking up the most rubbish. Claire Petrie recently kick-started her training with community events in her hometown of Bristol. "I love that you help the environment, the planet and meet new people," said the 48-year-old personal trainer who became passionate about combining health and the environment. "We want to grow plogging in as many cities as possible." During the past year, Claire's group, which plans to expand into other areas in Bristol but currently has an average of 9 people joining in, collected 220 pounds of trash (100 kg).

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Seven first responders from across the US traveled to Mexico seeking a therapy they hoped would transform their lives. Over the course of three days a team would guide them through ceremonies with psilocybin, the psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT and tobacco. The retreat ... offered a chance at healing that had eluded the first responders through years of counseling, medication and meditation. The US is in the midst of a mental health crisis, and it is particularly acute among first responders – including police, firefighters and paramedics – who are at greater risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and suicide. A wide body of peer-reviewed research from scientists across the world has found that supervised use of psychedelics, such as psilocybin, can be a powerful tool to treat symptoms of depression, PTSD and other conditions. During the days-long event, [Angela Graham-Houweling] took psilocybin and later five doses of 5-MeO-DMT, a powerful psychedelic. The ... session was grueling, she said, describing it as one of the most difficult things she'd ever done. She felt a sense of tranquility and a less frantic, reactive brain. "Two weeks [later] I still was able to be calm with [my son] and everyone. I remember thinking: ‘Wow, is this how everyone else gets to feel all the time?'" That sense of peace and the tools Graham-Houweling gained during the retreat, such as practicing mindfulness and staying aware of her emotional state, changed her. She felt better.

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Lee Tesdell walks through a corridor of native prairie grasses and wildflowers. This is a prairie strip. Ranging from 10-40 metres (30-120ft) in width, these bands of native perennials are placed strategically in a row-crop field, often in areas with low yields and high runoff. Tesdell has three on his farm. He points out several native plants – big bluestem, wild quinine, milkweed, common evening primrose – that came from a 70-species seed mix he planted here six years ago. These prairie plants help improve the soil while also protecting his more fertile fields from bursts of heavy rain and severe storms. Research shows that converting as little as 10% of a corn or soya bean field into a prairie strip can reduce soil erosion by 95%. Prairie strips also help reduce nutrient pollution, store excess carbon underground and provide critical habitat for pollinators and grassland birds. Thanks to federal funding through the USDA's conservation reserve programme, they've taken off in recent years. Farmer Eric Hoien says he first heard about the conservation practice a decade ago, right around the time he was becoming more concerned about water issues in Iowa. Hoien says prairie strips offer other benefits close to home. Neighbours often tell him they appreciate the wildflowers and hearing the "cackle" of pheasants. He also enjoys hunting in the prairie strips and spotting insects he's never seen before. The strips are hugely beneficial for pollinator populations.

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Nine years ago, Cecilia Llusco was one of 11 Indigenous women who made it to the summit of the 6,088 metre-high Huayna PotosĂ­ in Bolivia. They called themselves the cholitas escaladoras (the climbing cholitas) and went on to scale many more peaks in Bolivia and across South America. Llusco takes enormous pride in being an Indigenous woman and always goes up mountains wearing her pollera, a voluminous traditional floral skirt. Her belief in the strength of others, particularly women, is steadfast and reassuring. Though he cannot speak or hear, Asom Khan has so much to say. When I arrived at his shelter in a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, he was quick to dig out his art books so I could see his drawings, to show me the photos he takes with his phone, and to tell me his story through the makeshift sign language he has developed. Photography has allowed Asom to communicate to the world what it is like to live in a refugee camp, where he has now spent almost half of his life. [Human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh's] determination to stand up for victims of injustice in Iran is resolute. For decades she has fought for justice, defending children on death row, child victims of domestic abuse and prominent activists. The government has been relentless in its efforts to crush her spirit, but Sotoudeh refuses to give up hope. Some question how, as a wife and mother, she could risk imprisonment, after she was sentenced to 38 years and 148 lashes for her human rights work in 2019. But her husband and children's support is unwavering: "People say life is precious, don't sacrifice your family life, but human rights and freedom are also valuable and precious."

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Juan Guillermo GarcĂ©s remembers coming face to face with death at age 17. GarcĂ©s and his brother started the fire that nearly killed them to clear a large stretch of land. The brothers survived, but the fire destroyed the little remaining patch of virgin forest on the family's 2,500-hectare (6,200-acre) ranch, nestled along Colombia's Magdalena River. In an attempt to undo the damage he caused in his youth, the 74-year-old created the Rio Claro nature reserve, a 3,000-hectare (7,400-acre) oasis teeming with wildlife. Today, GarcĂ©s's reserve marks him as one of Colombia's most successful environmental protectors. The Rio Claro basin is home to almost 850 species of fauna and more than 3,000 of flora. "More than 100 new species have been discovered in Rio Claro … and counting," says SaĂşl E Hoyos-GĂłmez, a botanical biologist. "It is a very special place – one of the few where you can find this level of biodiversity." His method is simple. He buys plots of land from peasant farmers, often deforested pastures, and then lets them rest. Recovery in the region's hot and humid climate is fast. Left alone, pasture reverts to jungle within decades. About 80% of GarcĂ©s' reserve consists of land reforested in this way. To build his reserve, GarcĂ©s has had to navigate complex relationships with peasant farmers, the government and armed groups. Growing numbers of Colombian landowners are following GarcĂ©s's lead, turning pastures into reserves.

Note: Learn about the logger who fell in love with trees. Explore more positive stories on healing the Earth.

Since their liberation from a dictatorship Dec. 8, Syrians have been in a cheering mood. People in the capital gave a hero's welcome to a grassroots rescue organization widely seen as the country's most selfless, trusted, and impartial group: the Syrian Civil Defense, otherwise known as The White Helmets. This band of some 3,000 unarmed and local volunteers, who wear white headgear, has saved more than 129,000 people during 13 years of civil war. They have rushed to bombed-out buildings to search for survivors – whether they be children, terrorists, or soldiers of the regime. After they served as first responders, they would then clear rubble, rebuild homes, and restore communities. Even though some 10% of them have been killed, the volunteers hold fast to their motto (a verse in the Quran): "Whoever saves one life, it is as if they have saved all of humanity." Its leader, Raed Al Saleh, says the group's neutrality and independence have been an important shield. "We existed before all these armed groups and we continue to exist based on the power of the people," he told Berkeley News in October. Now The White Helmets wants to help Syrians "shake off the dust of war," he said in a video on the social platform X. That effort includes their help in freeing political prisoners, clearing land mines, and preserving documents of the regime's abuses. "The Syria of peace and civilization will return to you," said Mr. Saleh.

Note: Check out our video on transforming the war machine, highlighting the stories of courageous individuals and groups who channel their skills into service and solidarity. Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive healing the war machine.

Imagine. You heard the on-the-hour radio news bulletin while you got dressed that morning. You glanced at headlines on your phone on the way to work. You read the paper while you waited for your coffee in a cafe. Each encounter was, typically for the mainstream news, filled with death and doom. But after each snippet, you also heard or read a warning: ‘Too much negative news may cause a distorted view of reality and harm your mental health.' Since the mandatory health warnings for majority-bad news media outlets were introduced, you've been much more aware of balancing your media intake so that you get a wider perspective on problems and progress. For the first time, you've really thought about it. Less doomscrolling, and more conscious solution-seeking. You're surprised at how much you accepted negative news to be normal, and how much better your mental health has felt as a result of the shift. This is the vision of Seán Wood, CEO of Positive News. The news media amounts to, he points out, an overarching shared story of how the world is. "The impact of that is obviously significant," says Wood. "While it's important to highlight problems so that society can course-correct ... Positive News shows that there can be a more balanced way of understanding the world, that keeps us informed, but allows people to engage more because we see a bigger picture, we see potential solutions and opportunities to contribute, we see the human potential."

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MANNA [is a] nonprofit that provides free, medically-tailored meals (MTMs) and education about how nutrition affects health conditions to Philadelphians who need it. Last month, the journal BMC Nutrition released research ... showing that its clients achieved a "significant decrease in malnutrition risk" and meaningful changes in conditions like diabetes and hypertension. "This is the first of its kind," explains Jule Anne Henstenburg, PhD, director of The MANNA Institute. "There has never been research involving an in-depth evaluation of a functioning medically tailored meal program." Of the clients at risk for malnutrition when starting the program, 56 percent experienced a clinically significant reduction in malnutrition risk by program finish; 62 percent of clients with hypertension reduced their blood pressure by five or more units; among clients with diabetes, median hemoglobin A1C dropped from 8.3 percent to 7.7 percent, indicating improved blood sugar control. Body mass index (BMI) remained stable or decreased for 88 percent of clients who started the program with obesity. Clients can be referred to MANNA either by their medical care provider or through their health insurance plan. The majority of MANNA's clients are low-income, a population that often lives in food deserts, where healthy food is already hard to come by, and health literacy (the kind of insight needed to understand medically complex diets) can be low. "I see MANNA as the pharmacy for your prescription diet," [Chief executive officer of MANNA Sue] Daugherty says. "Imagine getting a prescription for your high blood pressure medicine and not having a pharmacy to fill it – that's what happens every day when folks are discharged with complex diets." The top five illnesses MANNA serves are heart disease, cancer, diabetes, HIV / AIDS and congestive heart failure. Originally created in 1990 to provide comfort foods to patients with AIDS, MANNA overhauled its menu and began expanding its reach to anyone with a life-threatening illness 10 years later.

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Portugal has a life expectancy nearly four years longer than the U.S. despite spending 20% of what the U.S. does on health care per person. According to the 2021 Global Security Index, which measures the ability to respond to pandemics, Portugal ranked third out of 195 countries in providing access to affordable health care. The United States ranked 183rd. Portugal has a national health care system, entitling every resident to free or very low-cost health care. It embraces innovative programs such as "social prescribing" that expand the boundaries of what is considered health care, while progressive laws on drug use and treatment have been credited with driving down overdose deaths, even as they rose in the U.S. In the 1990s, Portugal had one of the highest rates of heroin use and fatal overdoses anywhere. In 2001, the country not only decriminalized the use and possession of drugs, but also, in partnership with several non-governmental organizations such as Crescer, created a network of mostly free inpatient and outpatient treatment centers and mobile street teams that seek out drug users to provide medical care, clean needles, and support to enter addiction programs. Two decades later, drug overdose deaths have fallen sharply, from one per day to about 70 to 80 per year. New Jersey, with a smaller population than Portugal, sees 3,000 a year. HIV infection rates have dropped dramatically, too.

Note: Read our Substack to learn about social prescribing and other inspiring remedies to the chronic illness crisis ravaging the world. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and healing our bodies.

A 2021 study published in Explore suggests that past life experiences have been reported across various parts of the world. Children often begin recalling past life memories around the age of 2 and gradually stop discussing them by about 9, when they're well into their schooling years. Many children describe events, names, families or places from their alleged past life. Many also recall violent or unnatural deaths in their previous life, and about 20% participants mention an "intermission" period between lives, with an average gap of 16 months between a previous death and rebirth. Children can also display skills or behaviors they haven't been taught, such as xenoglossy (speaking a language they've never learned). Research on near-death experiences, published in the Journal of Near-Death Studies, also suggests that survivors sometimes experience past-life memories, similar to those that young children in past-life recollection studies recall. Mr. David Moquin ... was in a coma and hospitalized with double pneumonia. "During that time, I experienced at least two events that felt like past lifetimes. The one that has haunted me for the past 24 years was that of burning to death in an airplane crash. Many years later a psychic told me that in my last lifetime I died landing a fighter plane on an odd single digit day in November 1944. I was born December 21, 1944," Moquin explains. "My daughter, hearing the recording of the reading, googled and found that Captain Fryer was the only pilot that died on an odd single digit day that November, and that he died trying to land his burning P-51 Mustang. My favorite plane has always been the P-51. The model sits on my desk. My daughter asked me questions and I seemed to know the names of my wing commander, squadron commander, mother and father."

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A video game is helping thousands of vulnerable young people turn their darkest moments into moments of creativity and hope that they can pass on to others. Apart of Me is designed to help children and young adults open up about their loss and trauma in a safe and supportive environment. The game, co-founded by Manchester psychologist Louis Weinstock, is now a charity and has helped 44,000 people in the UK, and 160,000 worldwide to understand and process their grief. Created in 2018, [Apart of Me] is designed for 11-18-year-olds who have been affected by a loss which is potentially impacting their mental health. Set on an island, users can play the 3D game anonymously as it introduces characters who each have a grief-related struggle they are finding hard to deal with. It is the user's task to help the characters find a way through and this is done by collecting objects, with each object informing the user about different aspects of grief, Mr Weinstock explains. The game also allows the user to ask questions they may feel scared or uncomfortable to talk about generally. "It gives young people an outlet to have those conversations that otherwise might be difficult to have," he added. Mr Weinstock said the original idea for the game came from young people themselves as "not all want to sit in a room with a stranger and talk about their feelings". He met with young people at a hospice who all expressed the idea of a game to help them with their bereavement.

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A former 'true atheist' has come forward to tell his story of the dramatic near-death experience that made him a believer and left him with a 'deep sense of love.' Jose Hernandez, from Canada, said his journey to the other side began with a brutal accident as an electrical engineer tending to roadside power lines. When his colleague crashed their utility truck on January 6, 2000, the then 46-year-old Hernandez was left with multiple broken ribs preventing him from breathing as emergency medical technicians raced him to intensive care. Despite his disbelief in the afterlife, Hernandez said that he spent those moments of deep physical pain seeking help from a higher power. Hernandez said his consciousness was soon transported through a dark otherworldly portal that led to a mysterious transitional realm of living light and color. He spent three minutes clinically dead, came back but fell back into the same state for another two minutes, which he said felt like hours as he watched his lifeless body in the hospital. [A] spirit-like figure [offered] him words of comfort as he transitioned to 'the other side.' 'I heard the voice next to me say 'Think of the your body as a car, and that car has like five million miles on it, and there's nothing we can do to fix it anymore. So you have to now say goodbye to your body,'' he remembered. This realm allowed him to reconcile with his deceased father. 'It was even more amazing because me and my father had a very hard relationship,' Hernandez noted. 'We had a lot of clashes and I don't ever remember saying to my father in life, 'I love you,' or he to me.' But all that changed when they met again in this realm. When I met my dad on the other side,' he told the podcast, 'I realized sometimes we may not be able to say something here, [but] we're gonna be able to say it somewhere else.'

Note: Watch a video of Hernandes talking about his experiences. Read more about the fascinating study of near-death experiences. Explore more positive stories like this on near-death experiences.

Science is revealing that ... giving thanks might be more powerful than we ever imagined. Research shows that expressing gratitude doesn't just make us feel good momentarily – it actually reshapes our brains in ways that enhance our well-being. When you take a moment to count your blessings, your brain releases dopamine and serotonin, chemicals that create feelings of pleasure and contentment. But what's really fascinating is that this isn't just a temporary boost – these moments of thankfulness create a positive feedback loop, training your brain to look for more reasons to be grateful. Brain imaging studies have captured this process in action. When people express gratitude, they activate the prefrontal cortex, the brain's command center for decision-making and emotional regulation. This triggers a cascade of beneficial effects, including sharper attention and increased motivation. Think of it like building a muscle – the more you exercise gratitude, the stronger these neural pathways become, making it progressively easier to access positive emotions. Perhaps even more remarkable is gratitude's effect on stress. When you focus on appreciation, your brain actually dials down the production of cortisol, your body's primary stress hormone. Research conducted at Indiana University found that practicing gratitude can actually change the structure of your brain, particularly in areas linked to empathy and emotional processing. Even simply pausing throughout the day – my favorite practice – to notice and appreciate positive moments can help reshape your neural circuitry.

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When Marco de Kat starts planning his meals, he doesn't need to travel far for fresh food. Right outside his house is an 800 square metre plot with all sorts of produce – apples, pears, peppers, basil, beets and cauliflower, to name a few. Oosterwold, where de Kat has lived since 2017, is a 4,300 hectare (10,625 acre) urban experiment located east of Amsterdam, in a suburb of the city of Almere, where de Kat works as a municipal councillor. The area, which has about 5,000 residents and a growing waiting list, is completely self-sufficient. Residents can build houses however they like, and must collaborate with others to figure out things such as street names, waste management, roads, and even schools. But the local government has included one extremely unusual requirement: about half of each plot must be devoted to urban agriculture. Some, like de Kat, have turned their gardens into an Eden of sorts to provide for their own household unit. Other residents just plant a few apple trees or outsource by owning plots of land on site that are tended to by professional farmers. Others, such as Jalil Bekkour, have been able to capitalise on it. "I never had experience gardening my own food or anything like that," he said. But he taught himself how to garden, and three years ago he opened his own restaurant, Atelier Feddan, where 80% of the food is directly from Oosterwold. His newfound excitement for gardening and agriculture is palpable.

Note: Learn about the community-powered movement that's transforming yards into microfarms in Los Angeles. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and healing the Earth.

When large swathes of invasive seaweed started washing up on Caribbean beaches in 2011, local residents were perplexed. Soon, mounds of unsightly sargassum – carried by currents from the Sargasso Sea and linked to climate change – were carpeting the region's prized coastlines, repelling holidaymakers with the pungent stench emitted as it rots. Now, a pioneering group of Caribbean scientists and environmentalists hope to turn the tide on the problem by transforming the troublesome algae into a lucrative biofuel. They recently launched one of the world's first vehicles powered by bio-compressed natural gas. The innovative fuel source created at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados also uses wastewater from local rum distilleries, and dung from the island's indigenous blackbelly sheep which provides the vital anaerobic bacteria. The team says any car can be converted to run on the gas via a simple and affordable four-hour installation process, using an easily available kit, at a total cost of around $2,500 (Ł1,940). "Tourism has suffered a lot from the seaweed; hotels have been spending millions on tackling it. It's caused a crisis," Dr Henry, a renewable energy expert and UWI lecturer, [said]. The idea that it could have a valuable purpose was suggested by one of her students, Brittney McKenzie, who had observed the volume of trucks being deployed to transport sargassum from Barbados' beaches.

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In a recent Gallup poll, 20% of U.S. adults said they felt lonely "a lot of the day yesterday." While there might be many steps we can take to encourage connection, on both individual andĂź societal levels, a big new study suggests there is one step anyone can take right now to blunt the pain of isolation: giving thanks. College of Charleston researchers James B. Hittner and Calvin D. Widholm collected 26 studies of gratitude and loneliness involving nearly 10,000 people around the world. Then [they] conducted a "meta-analysis" of all the studies together, which can provide stronger evidence for a finding than one study alone. Their results suggest that grateful people tend to be less lonely–no matter their age, their gender, or whether they live in the U.S. or elsewhere. If someone was above average in gratitude, they had a 62% chance of being below average in loneliness. Loneliness, research suggests, is ultimately about how we perceive our relationships and whether they measure up to what we want. And "if one is grateful, then what that should be facilitating are richer, stronger social relationships," says Hittner. One study found that grateful people were more "psychologically flexible," able to nimbly cope with adversity and act in service of their values and sense of meaning in life. Hittner believes that this openness to taking in new ideas, meeting new people, and having new experiences is one good antidote to loneliness.

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While praying for world peace and an end to national, ethnic, and religious conflicts is a good start, as Emmanuel Acho and Noa Tishby remind us in their recent book, Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew, actions are more important than words. Getting involved with and supporting organizations that fight discrimination and promote peaceful dialogue can do more to change the world. The Carter Center in Atlanta is guided by the principles and its founders, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, and it has a commitment to human rights as well as preventing and resolving conflicts, enhancing freedom and democracy, and improving health. One of the ways, the Carter Center advances its mission is by observing elections (125 elections in 40 countries so far), and working in countries such as Ethiopia, South Sudan, Uganda, Haiti, and the Middle East. While The Carter Center is primarily focused outside the United States, during the recent polarized presidential election, it created a series of pro-democracy, sports-themed ads that were centered on the idea that we may not like the same teams, but we love the game and believe that everyone should adhere to its rules. The campaign sought to push the message of American unity into unexpected places where audiences might be more open to it, such as in Sports Illustrated, and professional baseball and football programs.

Note: Check out our video on transforming the war machine, highlighting the stories of courageous individuals and groups who channel their skills into service and solidarity. Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive healing the war machine.

On a sweltering summer's day ... a group of people with Parkinson's Disease began rock-climbing on the Carderock Cliffs of Maryland. It's all part of their therapy, says Molly Cupka, the no-nonsense instructor and cheerleader for this community. She started this program, called UpENDing Parkinsons, as a non-profit twelve years ago. "There's a lot of balance involved, mobility involved, strength, cardio, and then there's the cognitive part, where you have to look at the hold, and figure out how to get your body to move to get to that hold," she said. There's no cure for Parkinson's, which usually affects mobility, coordination, balance, and even speech. Some people with Parkinson's, like Vivek Puri, get dyskinesia (involuntary jerking motions). Puri ... was only 38 when he found out he had Parkinson's. "Fine motor skills have kind of really suffered dramatically," he said. "When I don't climb for some periods of time, I get worse." But once he gets on the wall, he calls himself Spider-Man. "Honestly, I climb like a monkey," he said. "I get my finger strength moving, which gets my fine motor skills – maybe not back, but kind of keeps that in motion." Cupka joined forces with Marymount University last year to study patients climbing for the first time. "We have people literally walking and carrying weights, you know, walking and looking, multitasking," she said. The study found that, in so many words, if you climb, you may walk better.

Note: What if the negative news overload on America's chronic illness crisis isn't the full story? Check out our Substack to learn more about the inspiring remedies to the chronic illness crisis! Explore more positive stories like this about healing our bodies.

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds: "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. "When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love." -Rebecca, age 8. "When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." -Billy, age 4. "If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate." -Nikka, age 6. "Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen." -Bobby, age 7. "You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget." -Jessica, age 8. Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."

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When 94-year-old Bob Moore died in February, Bob's Red Mill not only lost its founder but also the face of the company, literally – he's on every package. But in 2010, the natural foods company initiated a process that would help prepare it for Moore's eventual passing. Moore, who founded the whole-grain food company in 1978 and turned it into a global empire, decided to transfer ownership to its more than 700 employees. By 2020, Bob's Red Mill was entirely employee-owned. "By becoming 100% employee-owned, we knew that when Bob passed that we would control our future," Trey Winthrop, the company's CEO since 2022, [said]. Moore said he frequently fended off large corporations that wanted to buy them out. But because of the employee-ownership program, Winthrop, who has worked at Bob's Red Mill for 19 years, said he did not have to worry about an external threat coming in and trying to buy up shares. Bob's Red Mill is one of about 6,500 American companies that operate with an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP. The largest majority employee-owned company in the US as of November is Publix, a Florida-based supermarket chain. Winthrop ... said being employee-owned boosts employee engagement and retention. He said it creates a two-way street of communication, where the company can share financials with employees and workers are given a voice, in part through being active in committees.

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Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.