>> i'm going to do it again. i'm going to make it happen. >> oh, hear that. >> a mother and her adult, autistic son, team up to create one-of-a-kind artwork. >> there's a beauty in what he does and who he is. and i want that. >> and now, you can buy a piece of it. around a nasa aims researchers go on an out-of-this-world mission to prove what he thought

really possible. >> everybody thought wonderful. we're finally going to get started building spacecraft. >> here's nbc bay area's garvin thomas. >> thank you so much for joining us. this is a show unlike any other you'll find on bay area tv. one-half hour of nothing but the good people are doing around us. sometimes they don't pan out as planned due to nobody's fault but the weather. that was a serious problem for people who make their living off the land. but also for one san jose man who had dreams plarnted in the soil. his name is rich santora. he's famous for his backyard flower displays. but this year, he wanted to share his passion with many more people. >> big dreams sometimes require a big canvas. that perhaps the simplest answer

to at question many who have passed this hillside over the winter may have been asking. name by just what is that guy doing up there? well, that guy is rich santoro. and his annaswer to that questi running a little deeper. >> you've got to keep trying. >> we first met rich two years ago in his backyard. by then, rich was already semi-famous as the bold guy of san jose. for a decade, he had been planting thousands upon thousands of bulbs in his backyard and then opening it up to share his beauty with the rest of the world. this year, rich planted more than 10,000. still, wasn't enough to satisfy his desire to share his love of flowers with the world. >> i have a mission. my mission is to make bulb gardening sort of a fad.

>> which brings us back to the hillside. in december, rich asked the owner of this hillside if he could plant out a few thousand bulbs here. >> this was only supposed to take four days to do. it took 23 days. i missed it by this much. >> not only was his timing off, his choice of winters was pretty bad, too. >> not long after rich planted the bulbs, nature cooked them where they sat. >> the big display of rich's dreams is gone. for now. >> i'm going to do it again. i'm going to make it happen. i'm pretty tenacious. ask my wife. >> there's no doubt about that. or if we've learned anything from rich over the years, it's that water is to flowers like hope is to dreamers. neither last long without it.

>> it's not just nap ral beauty. there's incredible wealth and general rossty to match. but as the principle of one school shows us, you don't have to be rich to share the wealth. >> not too long ago, a kind kindergartener's mom walked in and asked if she could hold a bake sale at the school. she was told no. but the principal said she had two good reasons for doing so. one, where 96% of the students receive free or reduced lunches, bake sales aren't allowed. the mother was trying to raise money to pay for her son's cancer treatments.

>> you'll see him running to the bathroom and he'll go to the office and say i'm really sick. but while omica had to tell the mom her request was denied, she told her her request was perfect. dream big, work hard, give back. and every march is when the giving back happened. and so when members of the student council and renaissance club went to choose how to give back this year, they didn't have to look far. but what could these kids, amongs the poorest of the bay area's poor, afford to give? the answer may have just been pennies, but it was a lot of pennies. >> thank you. >>er morning during the month of march, students passed a bucket from room-to-room. every morning, students dug into their pockets and emptied their

piggy banks to give. and every day, the tidal wave of change grew. in the end, $2,000. much of it one benny at a time. >> when you sit back and fill the seats, they will surprise you. >> it may not be everything the sick boy's family needs, but it may just be a lesson we all need about giving what you can, everyone wheven when it's just a little. >> speaking of kids, parents of special needs children often have to accept that others don't always see the same beauty in their child as they do: but what if you could help others to not only see that beauty, but buy a piece of it. that's what patty gay has cone. paddy has collaborated with many artists in her career. one is more special than the rest, for a number of reasons. >> patty gay has been an artist for most of her life and a

mother for half of it. still, it wasn't until later in her life that patty decided to bring both of those together in the most beautiful of ways. >> there's a beauty in what he does and who he is. and i want that stoo r to be the same! he is noah. patty's 22-year-old autistic son. noah is what autism experts call non-verbal. it means he can't tell you that he loves to help his mother in the grocery store or loves to go for walks in the woods. still, noah manages to get the message across. it's how patty has known ever since he was a little boy that noah loved it when pachblting time rolled around. >> oh, yeah, look at that. >> still does, as a matter of fact.

noah seems to enjoy the colors, the textures and the sensation that is come with painting with fingers, rollers and sponges. >> look at that. >> patty has always loved what noah created. but only a couple years ago, came up with an ingenious way for the two of them to collaborate. >> i was looking at the textures and i thought this would be really cool. tons of colors, combinations. >> cool if she used his art as her palette. patty got hundreds of paintings into her computer and then used pieces of them to create these. every bit of blue, yellow, red and brown started with a no aurks h creation. >> so it really is this con nekts of the two of us. into creating something that i love. >> and, as it turns out, not

guilty junot just art, but business. the beauty of a one-of-a-kind collaboration coming to a store near you this spring. coming up, he's a man of science who doesn't leave many things to chance. >> so why did it take decades to get his mission off the ground? >> see, you personally have tutored about half the school? >> yeah. >> plus, paying back the gift of kindness one classmate at a time. but, first, a double whammy of bad health news turns a camera on himself and his family.

at shell, we believe the world needs a broader mix of energies, to move, to keep warm, to make clay piggies. that's why we are supplying natural gas, to generate cleaner electricity, that has around 50% fewer co2 emissions than coal. let's broaden the world's energy mix, let's go.

in the tv news business, time is often our enemy. there is rarely enough time to say everything we want to say. well, one san jose film maker is facing a bit of a time crunch as well. chris hennesej y is in a hurry to get his film made and out while he still can. ever since chris bought his first video camera 25 years ago, behind the lens is somewhere he has always femt right at home. so much so, chris made it his career. shooting weddings, corporate videos, injecting each shoot with a little of his trademark humor. on that score, this shoot on a dwras grassy hillside is no different, and, yet, it is very different. chris, you see, is busy shooting the story of his life. in more ways than one.

>> this is not the story that i want to tell. this is the story i have to tell. >> chris grew up on long island new york. all state and track as a high schooler, fifth in athletic as an adult. it's why the diagnosis of prostate cancer hit him so hard. the shocks, however, were just beginning. not a month after radical surgery for chris, his wife betsy delivered their first child, hann aurks h three months early. 1 pound, 9 ounces. >> immediately, i was thrust into a situation where not only i had a life threatening situation going on. but i have a daughter now that was a pound and a half. >> chris responded to the situation not with despair, but, once again, humor. he feels that upbeat, positive attitude got him and hannah

through the worst of it. she is now a thriving 4-year-old. and chris is on a mission to tell her and his story through a film. touched by hannah is what it's called. inspirational is what it's meant to be. chris working fast not only because he's passionate because while hann aurks h is fine, he is not. signs point to a return of his cancer. >> we're rolling. i've got a great shot right here. >> rather than get down, he's getting to work hoping to make the most of his tostory and the time he has left. >> every second i'm here, i'm going to be passionate about what i do and i'm going to try to make a kimpbs. >> from the power of positive thinking to the power of kindness, three years ago, rama prastad was a south bay student that was very smart but

very shy. she decided she needed a change. well, it worked in ways they couldn't have imagined, thanks, in part, to a single act of kindness. >> a change of scenery doesn't alms translate into a change for the better.qj >> there are three types of nuclear reactions. >> at least not right away. >> and we're going to talk about those right now. >> it didn't three years ago when she transferred as a high school freshman to san jose's brand new charter school. always incredibly smart, rama was also painfully shy. now, finding herself somewhere she didn't know a soul. >> i never talked to people. not that much. >> this story really begins with rama not talking to anyone. just sitting on a bench at school, alone, of course. >> but then there was a couple of kids who came up to me and said hey, where did you come from? what's your name?

>> it turns out what happened on that bench was the crack in rama's shell that she needed to begin breaking out a bit. >> and now, because of them, i'm, like, who i am today. >> and who she is is pretty special. rama wanted to pay forward some of her new friends' kindness. already far ahead in some of her studies, rama saw an opportunity with a handful of students struggling to pass the california exit exam. >> so i went to my english teacher and said can i go to these students and they will pass. >> and the rest, they say, is history. or, in rama's case, math, science and english, as well. every day during lunch and all day on friday, rama leads a team of peer tutors. and this, her junior year, rama

has, by herself, tutored more than 120 fellow students. >> so you permly ha personally tutored half the school? >> yeah. yeah. >> she's an incredible model of come passion. >> not just compassion, but dedication, as well. and proof that a little bit of kindness can go a long, long way. >> okay. >> coming up, they may be cute. >> but they require tons of care. meet the kitty crusader who helped these tiny kittens with little more than a thank you. >> they were wroung. wrong okay. that's just that simple. >> he's a nasa scientist that doesn't take no for an answer, e even if it takes 30 years to get a yes.

this next story is the stuff

of scientific legend and the man who never waivered in his knowledge even if it took decades to get his idea off the ground, way off the ground. the fact that he was persistent and followed through on his dreams is a surprise to no one who knows him. >> velocity, 33,000 feet per second. >> on july 24th, 1969, the apollo 11 capsule, carrying the first men ever to walk on the í decent through earth's atmosphere.÷&0u if whole world, it seems, held its collective breath waiting to see if the spacecraft could withstand the intense heat of reentry. the whole world, that is, except bill baruke. >> there is never any doubt in my mind that they would come back that way. >> it was bill's research that went into designing the heat shields, protecting the lives of those heroes. >> we knew what wern doing.

>> bill, it turns out, is one very confident space scientist at nasa aims research center. he is shush when he is right and has proven it yet again in a very big way. >> it's building a type of pressure. wcl200, nasa launched the keppler mission. its job, stare unblinkingly at one corner of the galaxy. looking not for stars, but for the planets that may be orbiting them. bill came up with the idea 30 years ago and was immediately told it would never work. >> they were alms negative. >> but bill, it seems, is just as persistent as he is confident. he cobbled together enough funding over the years to put something of a prototype together in his lab. the doubters able to slow bill down but never stop him. >> and they were wrong, okay.

it's just that simple. >> and after so many rejections, the green light finally came in 2000. >> it really felt wonderful to say yes, we're finally going to get started. >> we had to talk about how to calculate. >> and get those answers, they have. keppler, you may have heard s a smashing success. i had today con firnled discoveries of close to 1,000 planets. and just recently, the team revealed the discovery of keppler 186 s. bill and his team continually expanding the boundaries of human knowledge and wowing the world. >> except for bill, ovk. >> well, it was right at my kbptations. >> congresswomaning >> coming up, you can call her the kitty rescuers. >> i was asking her just a calm

volunteer over at the spca 20 years ago. >> see how he p she became responsible for saving >tz10,0 unwanted kittens in san francisco. [ barks ] whoo! mmm! ♪ ♪ oh, yeah [ whistling ] [ male announcer ] discover your new orleans. start exploring at followyournola.com. [ woman ] and i love new orleans!

san francisco is famous for many things, including its resident's love of animals. shelt eres in the cities have some of the lowest euthanasia rates of any cities. as a sister to eight brothers growing up and a mother of five herself, she's used to a crowded house. so when her kids grew up and moved out, perhaps tony couldn't help herself but fill the house again. and thousands of unwanted animals are better off because of it. >> there is a home in san fran soisz ksan francisco's neighborhood that is picturesque on the outside and cute as heck on the inside.

at the moment, there are 11 kittens. not a single one weighing more than two pounds. they have no idea how lucky they are because of it. tony is the tony of tony's kitty rescue, responsible for saving the lives of close to 10,000 ferl and unwanted kittens in san francisco over the past decade. her home wasn't always a kitten sank chew ware, though. like the animals she cares for, tony's rescue efforts started small. >> i was asking for a nice, calm volunteer at the spca 20 years ago. and then, i guess my cat died and they said do you want to fost ere? and so i ended uptaking home a mommy kitten. >> it went so well, tony did it again and again and there is nothing calm about tony's volunteer life.

every day during kitten season rn, you can find tony at san frarn sis koe's animal care in control. on this day, more than a dozen ferl kittens comes in. tony helps them get the baths that they need, the shots they require and eventually, the foster homes they deserve. it should be said in many, if not most other parts of the state and the country, kittens less than eight weeks old get none of those things. >> most shelters don't take them, so most of them were killed. >> even with a team of volunteers, tony puts in an amazing amount of work, especially considering she gets paid absolutely nothing for the effort. well, not paid in any currency other than cuteness. >> i just love it.

>> thank you so much for joining us. you can also watch all of the stories we've done on our web siet. just go to nbcbayarea.com. have a great night and we'll see you next time.

isi'm sara gore and this "open house." we celebrate interior designer going inside his 22 acre bedford estate. get a rescue they will never forget. first, a modern twist on mediterranean living in los angeles. this architect did a masterful job of building a home everyone wants. [captioning made possible by nbc universal] >> welcome to "open house." i'm coming to you from new york city's chelsea neighborhood. this five bedroom space