Alocal vitamin store is part of a national campaign to raise money to help spread vitamin A across the globe and prevent childhood blindness. Vitamin Shoppe, located in the Waterford Towers shopping center, is collecting cash donations throughout the month of May for Vitamin Angels’ Operation 20/20.

Raul Rentas has tried diets before—lots of them. And he has tried to exercise regularly, but never with much success. Although not what you would describe as obese, Rentas wanted to shed some pounds and get in shape. At 41, and a bartender for Walt Disney Company, he believed time — and his late-night lifestyle — was working against him.

Each day Jenni Garrison talks to people who are having the worst day of their lives. As an emergency dispatcher for the Orlando Fire Department 9-1-1 service, she calms people trapped in burning buildings and gives those whose loved ones are slipping away instructions to keep them alive until help arrives.

Hide-and-seek and Marco Polo have taken a back seat to the iPod and PlayStation. Video games, television, and other high-tech entertainment devices are steep competition these days for games that used to keep children moving.

Few children are faced with life’s obstacles from the moment of their birth. But for Andre and Henri, who were born nine years ago in different families, but with similar medical problems, learning to overcome adversity was a task thrust upon them from the very start. But both would find new hope in an adoptive mother, drawing from her own boundless reservoir of strength.

Sasha Jauretui began studying speech pathology at the University of Central Florida at age 18. She studied hard, aced her classes, and loved partying with her friends. She never paid attention to a few symptoms that nagged her — excessive sweating, fatigue and weight gain — until she became blind in one eye on her 20th birthday. Doctors found that her blood pressure was off the charts.

Visiting her childhood home of La Paz, Honduras, Doris Patalano sees barefoot children on the streets, struggling single mothers and teenagers mistreated by their families. All of these are horrible reminders of her own life. The East Orlando woman grew up in a two-bedroom home in La Paz with her family of 18, without running water or electricity — a common situation there.

With the twist of a remote or click of a mouse, ordinary people can transform into music stars, gangsters and GI’s. Folks who have never hurt a fly in real life can run people over with their car, slaughter monsters and shoot the bad guy via the virtual world.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul was a way of life for 47-year-old Debvorah Merritt, who each month had to decide whether to pay for electricity or water, the car payment or insurance. After five years of working as a lab assistant for a local hospital, she was making just $11.68 an hour, about $1 more than new graduates.

Hungry children in Bithlo with nowhere else to turn often wind up on Joanne Ripley’s doorstep. Kids as young as 6 years old have told her that they have not eaten in days. The retired school bus driver and grandmother of three usually orders a pizza or picks up sandwiches from McDonald’s to calm their grumbling tummies.