By Amanda Ponzar

 Had the most amazing night last night at the United Way Community Leaders Conference in Nashville, celebrating 125 years of the United Way movement:

• Dr. Tommy F. Frist Jr. received the first Lifetime Achievement award from his grand kids (so cute) and was honored by Elaine Chao and a host of others.
• Josh Turner rocked out some country tunes with his incredible deep voice while the audience went wild (I got to shake his hand!)
• Plus we awarded the 2012 Spirit of America and Summit awards –- United Way’s highest national honor for corporate citizenship and community impact –- to P&G, Publix Super Markets, Inc., Bank of America, Deloitte, Microsoft Corporation, General Motors, Wells Fargo and ITW. Woo hoo!

It was amazing. You can read more about these top corporate citizens and their innovative practices at PR Newswire or on United Way’s Spirit of America page.

These companies are stepping up –- volunteering millions of hours, giving millions of dollars, improving millions of lives. And they are doing it all around the world. They are helping address the most crucial issues –- high school dropout rates, hunger, family financial stability and housing, clean water. You name it; these companies and their employees are out there doing it.

Yes, a lot isn’t going right in the world and things aren’t always good. But it's not all bad. There really are a lot of good people doing good things and making an incredible difference. Sometimes it's hard to get media coverage about this, because it's not scandalous or outrageous. Apparently, people would rather read about a celebrity who got arrested, a CEO who misappropriated funds, the latest crazy thing some overpaid athlete did, silly animal stories, or some kind of tragedy/shooting/natural disaster/blooper. Nothing wrong with those things, but it's important to realize that there's more untold stories out there. And in my opinion, these "good" stories are the real news.