"Friends" producer Kevin Bright takes on a new role - this time it's teaching kids at Perkins School for the Blind how to become filmmakers - and the students abilities and creativity blow him away.

WATERTOWN — Kevin Bright was going around the table telling each of his film students what he thought of their work on the homework assignment, which was to get comfortable using their new video cameras. He turned to 19-year-old Laurie Cherry-White, whose clip had a serious technical glitch.

“When you woke up at 2:30 in the morning and started shooting, I thought that was really cool,’’ Bright told her. But, he added, “What was the one thing you didn’t do?’’

“Turn the light on!’’

“That’s right, baby!’’ The students burst out laughing.

Here’s why they laughed: They’re all blind.

Bright, the Emmy-winning producer of the smash sitcom “Friends,’’ is involved in a groundbreaking partnership with the Perkins School for the Blind. An executive artist in residence at Emerson College, Bright has developed a filmmaking course for blind students, teaching them how to shoot, light, direct, and produce. His students just completed their first short film, “Seeing Through the Lens,’’ about the friendship between three teenage girls at Perkins.

“Just because they can’t see the final product doesn’t mean they can’t express their feelings or write a script,’’ said Bright, 55, who is thinking about producing a reality TV show by and about Perkins students. “It just came to me: Film and television are unique art forms because they require collaboration. A blind person needs a sighted collaborator. But there’s no reason for there to be any limit to their potential.’’

It was serendipity that brought Bright not just to Perkins, but to Boston. Three years ago he was living in Los Angeles — weary, discouraged, and looking for a way to recharge himself after more than 30 years of producing and directing comedy shows such as “In Living Color,’’ “Dream On,’’ and “Friends.’’ In 2006, around the time that his “Friends’’ spinoff, “Joey,’’ bombed, Jacqueline Liebergott, Emerson president, invited him to spend a semester teaching at his alma mater. One semester has stretched into three years.

Bright, who divides his time between LA and Boston, was at a Celtics-Lakers game at TD Garden a year ago when the choir from the Perkins School sang the national anthem. He was so moved he slipped a $1,000 check into a donation envelope, which led to a thank you call from Perkins and an invitation to tour the school.

Lynette Johnson of Soulumination captures the spirit, hope and resiliency of kids through her camera lens...

In 1996, Lynette Johnson, a professional photographer, was approached by her sister-in-law Sally Elliot with a difficult request.  Elliot’s daughter and Johnson’s niece, Lanie, had been stillborn and Elliot wanted Johnson to take a picture of her before her funeral.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Johnson, 59, based out of Seattle, Wash., told FoxNews.com.  “But I’m so glad I did it.”

The memory of the experience stuck with Johnson, and a few years later, while shooting pictures for a wedding, the bride mentioned to Johnson that she worked for the palliative care unit at Seattle Children’s Hospital.  Johnson immediately thought back to her niece and offered to come by the hospital to take pictures for the patients’ families.

“I just blurted out I would do this free of charge,” Johnson said. “It seemed like the least I could do to give back to the community.”

What started as a small favor quickly blossomed into a thriving non-profit photography initiative called Soulumination.  Through the enterprise, Johnson and other volunteer photographers take professional photographs of children under the age of 18 who are facing life-threatening conditions, providing families with lasting keepsakes and “an enduring, positive record of the child’s life.”

Initially, Johnson was the non-profit’s sole photographer, taking photographs of children in the greater Seattle area.  But since Soulumination’s inception, the organization has now grown to encompass more than 40 photographers and over 120 community volunteers, who help serve families across the country.

“We don’t just take their photos; they get beautiful handmade albums too,” Johnson said. “But every person who is at the shoot gets their own personal one.  The mother even gets a bracelet with the child’s photo she can wear.”

Johnson has now photographed hundreds of patients, including children with terminal cancer, heart disease, issues stemming from premature birth, Tay-Sachs disease and severe seizure disorders.

When she first started Soulumination, Johnson said many of her friends and family would express amazement at how she was able to surround herself with such grief and pain.  But while it’s been emotionally difficult at times, she and the others continue the project without hesitation.

Today's Good Newsz Quote of the Day...

80 year old Yuichiro Miura becomes the oldest person to reach the top of Mount Everest...

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — An 80-year-old Japanese mountaineer on Thursday became the oldest person to reach the top of Mount Everest — although his record may last only a few days. An 81-year-old Nepalese man, who held the previous record, plans his own ascent next week.

Yuichiro Miura, who also conquered the 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) peak when he was 70 and 75, reached the summit at 9:05 a.m. local time Thursday, according to a Nepalese mountaineering official and Miura’s Tokyo-based support team.

Miura and his son Gota called them from the summit, prompting his daughter Emili to smile broadly and clap her hands in footage on public broadcaster NHK.

‘‘I made it!’’ Miura said over the phone. ‘‘I never imagined I could make it to the top of Mt. Everest at age 80. This is the world’s best feeling, although I'm totally exhausted. Even at 80, I can still do quite well.’’

The climbers planned to stick around the summit for about half an hour, take photos and then start to descend, his office said.

Nepalese mountaineering official Gyanendra Shrestha, at Everest base camp, confirmed that Miura had reached the summit, making him the oldest person to do so.

The previous oldest was Nepal’s Min Bahadur Sherchan, who accomplished the feat at age 76 in 2008, just a day before Miura reached the top at age 75.

Woman takes a ride - courtesy of a Great White shark...Researcher Kimi Werner, who is from Hawaii, trusted instincts shark wouldn't harm her, grabbed dorsal fin.

With so many shark attacks being reported these days, the last thing you’d expect to see is video of a freediver swimming with a great white shark. Yet that’s what we have in the above video entitled Variables, which features Kimi Werner grabbing the shark’s dorsal fin and taking a ride.

Werner, who is a longtime spearfisher, was on a research expedition to study great white sharks off Mexico when the encounter occurred.

Photo of Kimi Werner riding great white shark is screen grab from YouTube video

On Tuesday, Hawaii News Now posted Werner’s story behind the great white shark encounter, as well as her video that has since gone viral.

“My instincts responded before my thoughts did and I swam toward the shark,” Werner told Hawaii News Now. “By the time my brain caught up, I realized that this shark was being mellow. Curious, but mellow.”

Werner, who is from Hawaii, explains on the video how the encounter unfolded.

“I had my head out of the water and was fixing my mask as my buddy Morgan slipped in after me. He immediately started shaking me and warning me. I knew what I was going to see before I even looked. Three feet away from me was the head of the biggest great white I had ever seen.

“To my surprise, I let out a squeal and starting swimming toward her. All of my years spent hunting [spearfishing] taught me how to read a fish’s body language. The way that she was moving, the way that the fins were out, all of it just showed me that she wasn’t looking at me as prey.”

As the shark approached, Werner dropped down, reached out her hand, and connected with the dorsal fin.

“I think it’s healthy to have a bit of fear for the unknown,” Werner told Hawaii News Now. “But it’s also healthy to trust your instincts and to not panic, and that’s simply what I did.”

And, fortunately, lived to tell about it.

Doctors use 3-D laser printer to create and airway tube to save the life of Kaiba Gionfriddo of Ohio

In a medical first, doctors used plastic particles and a 3-D laser printer to create an airway splint to save the life of a baby boy who used to stop breathing nearly every day.

It's the latest advance from the booming field of regenerative medicine, making body parts in the lab.

In the case of Kaiba (KEYE'-buh) Gionfriddo, doctors didn't have a moment to spare. Because of a birth defect, the little Ohio boy's airway kept collapsing, causing his breathing to stop and often his heart, too. Doctors in Michigan had been researching artificial airway splints but had not implanted one in a patient yet.

In a single day, they "printed out" 100 tiny tubes, using computer-guided lasers to stack and fuse thin layers of plastic instead of paper and ink to form various shapes and sizes. The next day, with special permission from the Food and Drug Administration, they implanted one of these tubes in Kaiba, the first time this has been done.

Suddenly, a baby that doctors had said would probably not leave the hospital alive could breathe normally for the first time. He was 3 months old when the operation was done last year and is nearly 19 months old now. He is about to have his tracheotomy tube removed; it was placed when he was a couple months old and needed a breathing machine. And he has had not had a single breathing crisis since coming home a year ago.

"He's a pretty healthy kid right now," said Dr. Glenn Green, a pediatric ear, nose and throat specialist at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where the operation was done. It's described in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Independent experts praised the work and the potential for 3-D printing to create more body parts to solve unmet medical needs.

"It's the wave of the future," said Dr. Robert Weatherly, a pediatric specialist at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. "I'm impressed by what they were able to accomplish."

So far, only a few adults have had trachea, or windpipe transplants, usually to replace ones destroyed by cancer. The windpipes came from dead donors or were lab-made, sometimes using stem cells. Last month, a 2-year-old girl born without a windpipe received one grown from her own stem cells onto a plastic scaffold at a hospital in Peoria, Ill.

Kaiba had a different problem — an incompletely formed bronchus, one of the two airways that branch off the windpipe like pant legs to the lungs. About 2,000 babies are born with such defects each year in the United States and most outgrow them by age 2 or 3, as more tissue develops.

The annual Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby spawns the "American Heroes Fishing Challenge" a National Geographic documentary about the resilience of the men and women in uniform battling back from injury.

Last October, less than three months after Army 1st Lt. Nathan Rimpf lost both his legs while patrolling the dry hardscrabble hills and deep valleys of Afghanistan, he was fishing for bluefish and striped bass in the clear blue waters surrounding Martha's Vineyard.

For five days, Lieutenant Rimpf and nine other soldiers wounded in the service of their country enjoyed all the Martha's Vineyard hospitality that grateful Islanders could offer. They also joined more than 3,000 fishermen competing in the 67th Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby.

The soldiers, all new to the Vineyard and in at least one case, the ocean, likely had little notion of just what they were joining. For the uninitiated, the Derby, as it is known on the Vineyard, may appear to be simply a fishing contest. It is not.

It is a state of mind, a sense of being in which time is measured by tides and the single-minded pursuit of Derby glory dominates. Those who have stood on East Beach casting to breaking blues, or navigated the churning rips off Gay Head in search of a 50-pound striped bass, and enjoyed the camaraderie of the month-long fishing contest, know that.

For these ten soldiers, eight men and two women who ranged in age from 19 to 55, then recuperating at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital in Virginia and Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland, Derby fishing provided the perfect venue to forget, if just for a moment, their current battles far removed from the front lines of war.

That Derby fishing trip and the resilience of the men and women in uniform battling back from injury are the subjects of "American Heroes Fishing Challenge," a National Geographic documentary produced by Vineyard seasonal residents Bob and Sarah Nixon and Todd Wendel that has its television premiere at 10 pm, Monday, Memorial Day.

Today's Good Newsz Quote of the Day...

Injured at the Boston Marathon 7 year old Jane Richard leaves Boston Children's Hospital and is on the road to recovery-she's been a source of inspiration and strength for the entire family.

Jane Richard, the younger sister of Boston Marathon bombing victim Martin Richard, has been released from Boston Children’s Hospital, the Richard family said this afternoon.

“While we remain devastated over Martin’s death and all that has happened to us, Jane’s determination for getting better is an inspiring source of strength for the entire family,” the family said in a statement.

The 7-year-old girl had spent 39 days in the intensive care unit. She underwent 12 surgeries. The family said the little girl, whose left leg was severed below the knee in the bomb attack, is “in good spirits and looking forward to beginning the next phase of her recovery.”

She has been transferred to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, where she will undergo rehabilitation to “regain her strength, balance and stamina. Jane and her body will ultimately dictate the timeline for her stay at Spaulding,” the family said.

A love story on Martha's Vineyard between Howard Attebery and Cynthia Riggs...reconnecting after 60 years apart.

In a home known for fostering literary talent and housing traveling artists, conversation at the Cleaveland House has been consumed lately with talk about place settings, tablecloths, decorations and flowers. A how-to book on marrying at an older age lies on the entry table amongst works of great authors.

“We’re hoping the lilacs will last but we don’t know,” Cynthia Riggs said over lunch at her family home last week. “I think just those quart jars will be fine for vases.”

The lavender blooms are set to decorate her home and backyard this weekend when Ms. Riggs, 81, marries Howard Attebery, 91. The wedding is Saturday at the West Tisbury Congregational Church.

The flowers will match the blue, purple and green paper table cloths Ms. Riggs purchased from Shirley’s Hardware last week. There are also corresponding ribbons from the Heath Hen in Vineyard Haven.

Joining her at lunch were Lisa Belcastro and Catherine Finch, members of her Wednesday writers group, her niece Libby Fielder and Mr. Attebery. Ms. Belcastro has taken to coordinating much of the wedding details and Ms. Finch helped organize a Buddhist ceremony for the couple earlier this spring.

“All right, are you ready?” Ms. Belcastro asked as she took out a long list. She asked about the status of the guest book, securing tables from the West Tisbury church, calling the town police to help with traffic, and the cake cutter and serving utensils.

Mr. Attebery commended the group for helping with the plans so far.

“I’m very happy that such a wonderful group is doing this,” Mr. Attebery said. “They’ve only left me a few things to do, like find elegant port-o-potties.”

Mr. Attebery moved to the Vineyard at the end of March. Ms. Riggs and Mr. Attebery first met in the summer of 1950 while working at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. They struck up a friendship working at the laboratory, sorting and counting plankton, and passed secret messages to each other through cryptograms. Ms. Riggs returned to Antioch College in Ohio that fall and the two fell out of touch. She returned to the Vineyard, married and had five children. Mr. Attebery remained in the San Diego area and married and had children of his own.

13 year old Claire Fraise starts Lucky Tails Animal Rescue, a non profit dog rescue, in order to help give dogs a second chance...

Some teenagers may dream of helping animals when they grow up, but how many take their passion and start their own nonprofit animal rescue? That's what Connecticut teen Claire Fraise did. The 13-year-old started a nonprofit organization called Lucky Tails Animal Rescue.

The eighth-grader was inspired to start Lucky Tails after adopting her first dog, Tuggles, whom she found on Petfinder.com and adopted through a rescue. Tuggles had a rough start, roaming the streets as a puppy, at which time he was hit by a car, causing an injury that required a plate and screws inserted in one of his legs.

Soon after Fraise adopted Tuggles she realized something was wrong when he began favoring a leg. After taking him to a vet, she discovered that the previous surgery was not done properly.

"Of course, we got it all fixed, and he's now living happily," Fraise says, but the research she'd done prior to adopting Tuggles and the experience she had with him after bringing him home made it clear to her that she wanted to do more to help other dogs like Tuggles. "Researching rescue dogs and adopting a homeless dog ... made me realize how many dogs need homes and just how many are going to be killed," Fraise explains.

Pizza 4 Patriots gets in the Guiness Book of World Records for the largest pizza delivery - the recipients our troops in Afghanistan

A pizza mission to U.S. military service members in Afghanistan has made the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest pizza delivery.

Pizza 4 Patriots, a 501(c)3 registered non-profit based in Illinois, has been sending pizzas to military service members abroad for the last five years.

Last summer, Pizza 4 Patriots and shipping company DHL organized their biggest delivery yet: 30,000 pizzas to service members in Kandahar, Bagram and Camp Bastion in Afghanistan in celebration of Independence Day. The delivery began June 21, 2012. DHL donated its services (pictured above) and loaded the pizza shipments at a service center in Chicago.

Ian Clough, CEO of DHL Express U.S., said he was grateful to Pizza 4 Patriots and proud of DHL's "dedicated employees."

"Feedback from U.S. troops who received the care packages has been heartwarming as they truly appreciate the recognition for their valuable service," Clough said in a statement.

Mark Evans, the retired Air Force master sergeant who started Pizza 4 Patriots, said he has been working with Guinness since last summer for the record. After the necessary affidavits from witnesses were on record, Guinness officially recognized the delivery in April and notified Evans this month.

Evans said he is "completely pleased and overwhelmed."

"The world record is secondary to taking care of our soldiers and sending them a slice of home," Evans said.

The 12-inch pizzas were made by Great Kitchens, Inc. in Illinois with some donated ingredients and funded by various donors.

Earlier this year, Pizza 4 Patriots sent 21,000 pizzas to military members serving abroad during the Super Bowl. Next up, Evans has a goal of raising enough money to send 25,000 pizzas to troops across the world for this Independence Day.

Today's Good Newsz Quote of the Day...

High school drop-out David Karp hits it big to the tune of over $275 Million after teaming up his company Tumblr with Marissa Mayer and Yahoo

Behind the news of Tumblr’s sale for $1.1 billion (£723 million) to Yahoo there lies the story of David Karp, its 26-year-old founder, who has now become one of the world’s richest technology entrepreneurs.

Prior to the sale his estimated net worth was $200 million, with some analysts now suggesting that Karp’s 25 per cent share of Tumblr will have earned him up to $275 million.

The combination of Karp’s wealth and youth places him firmly into the 21st century’s most exclusive clubs – the young millionaires who made their money online - yet Karp’s public profile is surprisingly discreet, especially when compared to the archetypal cyber-tycoon, Mark Zuckerberg. Although perhaps Karp is just lucky that Aaron Sorkin hasn’t taken an interest in his life.

Although Zuckerberg and Karp seem to have much in common, the companies that made their names speak to different instincts of internet-user. Both men talk about their websites in evangelical terms (Karp describes Tumblr as “a platform for creativity” and Zuckerberg preaches Facebook’s “mission’ - “to make the world more open and connected”); but while Zuckerberg is often portrayed as coldly pragmatic, expanding Facebook’s influence at the cost of users’ privacy, Karp ethos seems gentler and more patient.

Texas mom Erica Nigrelli dies, delivers her baby and comes back to life to enjoy her happy, healthy, baby Elayna...

MISSOURI CITY, Texas -

A Missouri City high school teacher’s heart wasn’t beating when she delivered her baby, but three of her co-workers are credited with saving her life and her newborn’s.

Erica Nigrelli, an English teacher at Elkins High School, collapsed in a co-worker’s classroom when she was 36 weeks pregnant. Now three months later, her baby, named Elayna, weighs nine pounds and doctors said she is getting healthier and could be taken off oxygen as early as next week. 

"She's just a baby," said Erica.  "A normal baby."

Proud mom and dad carry on their daughter Marina Keegan's legacy and mission by helping to get her play "Utility Monster" produced on the world stage

On the night before the first anniversary of the death of Marina Keegan, the 22-year-old writer who was killed in a car crash on Cape Cod days after graduating magna cum from Yale, her play "Utility Monster," will have its world premiere at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, not far from where she spent vacations at her family's summer home.

"It's a very emotional project for us," says Dan Lombardo, the artistic director of the theater, who is also staging the play that has previews on Thursday and Friday and opens Saturday.

Keegan, an English major, was a columnist for the Yale Daily News and her inspirational essay "The Opposite of Loneliness," published in a special graduation edition of the newspaper, created a buzz about the young writer. She was about to begin working as an editorial assistant at The New Yorker when she died in the crash in Dennis, Mass. on the Cape. The Wayland, Mass. native was planning to move with friends to Brooklyn last June.

"I can't think of a better way of memorializing my daughter than by having her vision and voice shared,' says Tracy Keegan, Marina's mother.

Lombardo learned about the work last summer when Keegan's father, Kevin, shared a DVD of his daughter's musical, "Independents," which had a posthumous production at New York International Fringe Festival.

"I loved it but it was a big production and would be expensive to produce," says the Hartford-born, Wethersfield-raised Lombardo. "I asked what else she had written and that's when he sent me the play. As soon as I started reading it I knew I wanted to do it. It was also right for the theater, that produces works that push envelopes, that are political and that asks fresh, hard questions.

"Utility Monster" is a five-actor, 33-scene play that centers on two New York City 15-year-olds, who decide to launch a fund-raising campaign to help starving African children after they discover more than 35,000 children die of starvation every day.

"These kids take their ideals seriously," says Lombardo. "They ask big questions: Why are we alive? Why do we spend $10 at Taco Bell when the same amount of money could literally save children's lives? And Marina is also askling how do compare the value of art to the value of human life."

"Utility Monster" was written over a two-year period, first for the Yale Dramatic Association (DRAMAT) — it was the first student show in four years — and then further developed at the Midtown Manhattan International Playwrights Festival and at Firework Theater in Brooklyn.

"That's where it really became a finished product," says Kevin Keegan, 56, a Greenwich native who went to UConn. "My daughter's writing always has the underlying message of trying to make a difference. In producing this work we are able to honor her and get that message out, to remember her passion for the arts and for her causes."

Lombardo, who got his start in theater at Hartford's Open Stage Company, calls the play "moving, charming and hysterically funny. She was very passionate about social justice and the theater and she combines both in this play. It's a tremendous honor to premiere this deeply felt work in a community where she lived."

A collection of Keegan's writings is expected to be published next year by Scribner. Proceeds will go to creating a foundation for causes aligned with Keegan's passions. Yale established the Marina Keegan Award for Excellence in Playwriting and named the Saybrook reading room on campus after her.

Helen Mirren steps in as understudy for the Queen to fulfill 10 year old Oliver Burton's wish of meeting Queen Elizabeth II and having tea at Buckingham Palace

Oliver Burton, ten, may have just weeks to live after being hit by cancer for a third time.

Visiting the Queen at Buckingham Palace topped his list of dream activities — but his family was told a meeting would not be possible.

So Dame Helen stepped in, bringing him in a limo to see her West End show The Audience — in which she plays the Queen — then taking him backstage to meet her corgis.

The actress, 67, even KNIGHTED the excited schoolboy “Sir Oliver” during his visit, telling The Sun: “It was a pleasure and a privilege to meet such a brave young man.”

His mum Catherine, 29, and dad James, 32, said Oliver, who also has Down’s syndrome, truly thought the actress was the real royal deal.

Ex-Coldstream Guard James, now a full-time carer for his son, said of the visit: “She stayed in character for the whole thing and had a butler.

"She was really lovely.”

Oliver, from Leicester, was first diagnosed with leukaemia in 2006, aged three.

He recovered but in 2010 the cancer returned — and once again he pulled through.

Then last Christmas he was diagnosed with cancer in his spine and bone marrow — and this time intensive treatment is not possible, so he returned home with his mum, dad, and brother Ethan, six.

The family have raised £10,000 for special trips for Oliver through the National Children’s Tumour Leukaemia Cancer Trust, which arranged the visit with Dame Helen.

Today's Good Newsz Quote of the Day...

Her name is not Angelina Jolie, but Patricia Brett is doing wonders to make breast cancer survivors feel good about themselves again after surgery with her Veronica Brett Swimwear line...Brett herself has undergone a double mastectomy after learning she too had the BRCA1 gene.

Frustrated with the lack of fashionable swimsuit options for women who have undergone breast-removal surgery, Patricia Brett started Veronica Brett, a cross-functional swimsuit line designed specifically for the needs of breast cancer survivors.

Brett -- who spent most of her professional life as an architect -- hopes her suits will help women feel comfortable again in a bathing suit post-mastectomy. "I wanted to create a really beautiful, high-end product that not only met the needs of breast cancer survivors, but was also a really beautiful line in its own right," says Brett. "I wanted it to be fashion."

Brett's family has a long history with the disease. She lost three aunts to breast cancer, including her father's sister, Veronica, for whom the brand is named. Her sister was diagnosed when she was 41, and in 2002, Brett tested positive for the BRCA1 gene, a genetic mutation that greatly increases a person's chance of getting breast cancer. Faced with the overwhelming prospect of diagnosis, Brett decided to have a double mastectomy to minimize her own risk.

Several years later, Brett's niece had decided to undergo the same surgery at age 29. Brett, her sister and her niece decided that a girls' weekend was in order, and it was on that road trip that the idea for a swimsuit line arose. Although Brett's niece was at peace with her upcoming surgery, she was venting over the limited offerings of swimsuits and bras for women post-surgery. Brett and her sister had suffered through the same problem and upon reflection, Brett realized that it didn't have to be that way.

"I was thinking, 'This is crazy that all three of us struggle with finding fashionable, sexy, sophisticated apparel because of breast surgical issues,'" said Brett. "All of a sudden this light bulb went off. I thought, 'If I can design a building, I should be able to design a better swimsuit.'"

Scott Budnick of Rhode Island serves up a meal, respect and feeds people's self worth at his Sunday Morning Friendship Breakfast which is free and open to anyone that is hungry - half the volunteers are homeless!

Every Saturday, Scott Budnick and his wife, Maureen, peel 75 pounds of potatoes. At 5 o'clock the next morning, Mr. Budnick packs up the potatoes, 500 eggs, 250 sausages, and a host of other items contributed by his friends and neighbors. He drives it all to the Mathewson Street United Methodist Church in Providence, R.I., in time to welcome the first wave of volunteers – some homeless, some not – to the kitchen.

The Sunday Morning Friendship Breakfast is free and open to anyone who's hungry. A sluggish economy keeps the crowds coming: The number of homeless Rhode Islanders climbed 10 percent in 2012. Since the friendship breakfast began 14 months ago, weekly turnout has grown from a few dozen people to more than 200.

The breakfast offers heaping plates of scrambled eggs, fresh fruit, pancakes, waffles, French toast, sausage, and home fries – plus pastries, oatmeal, juice, and coffee. It costs about a dollar a plate to produce.

"People tell us that this is a meal they look forward to all week long," Budnick says.

The breakfast is not just a free meal: Half the volunteers are homeless themselves.

"Early on we realized that people want to be useful," Budnick says. "Thirty or 40 people from the street help out every week, whether it's cooking home fries or pushing a broom." Budnick pairs up the volunteers, purposely mixing them up: "A lot of times, the person from the street knows our process better than the outside volunteer," he says. "It puts them in the leadership role."

Many volunteers point to Budnick as their inspiration for getting involved. He has strong roots in the community as a local contractor and Little League coach. The Turners, a fellow Little League family, contribute 200 servings of homemade French toast to the breakfast each week. Budnick's neighbors, the Ashley-Friedmans, make several hundred pancakes and waffles.

The Budnicks, Turners, and Ashley-Friedmans each have three children. "Families with kids, they feel like they don't have any time," Budnick says. But "there's always time."

For the first six months, Budnick and his wife pulled all-nighters to prepare the breakfast themselves. "I didn't reach out to anyone for a long time because I didn't want people to feel obligated," he says.