Beth Adams

Several stall doors and mirrors in a girls' bathroom at Victor Junior High School were recently adorned with positive messages.

Students behind the Young Women's Leadership Club service project want to help their classmates feel more confident.

The colorful artwork spells out inspiring quotes. "Strong girls lift others up," one says. Another one reads, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

"My favorite would probably be, 'Real girls aren't perfect and perfect girls aren't real,' " said Ellie Chapman, one of three seventh-grade girls who made the artwork. 

In just a few weeks, when the nights get warmer, it'll be time to plant tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and other vegetables.

People will be digging into soil all around the city -- in vacant lots, behind schools, at libraries and even medians in the road.  There are more than 120 community gardens and urban farms in Rochester.

Nathaniel Mich, Foodlink's edible education and urban farming specialist, said he hears from more and more people, especially young people, who have an interest in growing their own food.

Adoptee rights advocates are urging New York lawmakers to pass legislation allowing adopted people to get unrestricted access to their birth certificates when they turn 18.

"Why should we be treated any differently than anyone else?" asked Annette O'Connell, spokesperson for the New York Adoptee Rights Coalition.

Adoptees say it's a matter of equal rights, but opponents of the measure worry about birth parents' rights to privacy.

Lollypop Farm, the Humane Society of Greater Rochester, is undergoing renovations that will mean less capacity for dogs over the next several months.

President and CEO Alice Calabrese says the kennels where dogs are held when they first arrive at the shelter will be upgraded to limit the spread of disease and reduce the animals' overall stress level.

The man who may be Rochester's last Pearl Harbor survivor has died.

Navy veteran Stan Hwalek died April 16 at the age of 99. The Rochester native spoke often about the attack that plunged the U.S. into World War II.

Monroe Community College is exploring ways to help single mothers stay in school and get their degrees.

"They are a paradox,” said MCC research specialist Mary Ann DeMario.

She’s leading a six year research project that will examine why single moms enroll in college, but then drop out.

The global demand for milk and other dairy products is expected to increase more than 50 percent in the next 30 years, but climate change is threatening the dairy industry.

Dairy cows produce less milk and are susceptible to infertility and disease when the weather is warm.

The sun was shining for the first time in a few days on Wednesday as a small group of students gathered near the athletic field on the campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology in Henrietta. 

But they weren't socializing.  They were up to their elbows in trash.

"It's not the most flattering task," said Keira Higgins, a fifth-year mechanical engineering student and member of the group Engineers for a Sustainable World.

That organization and members of student government got a head start on Earth Day by launching a waste awareness campaign.