Roses to Laurie Paolicelli and the staff of the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau, who swung into action swiftly to organize a rousing community celebration for Anoop Desai, the talented local man who reached the final six on the "American Idol" television show.

UNC planned a welcome home for Desai, but Paolicelli and the Visitors Bureau staff recognized that that event was primarily designed for university students, alumni and faculty.

The Visitors Bureau hustled to quickly organize a series of community events that allowed the public to express its support and pride in Desai.

In a span of just five days, the Bureau printed posters, buttons, organized a meet and greet at the Franklin Hotel, worked with the mayor's office on a ceremony at Town Hall and made Anoop memorabilia available to citizens.

More than 400 citizens showed up at the Franklin and Town Hall.

Although generating hometown pride isn't necessarily the charge of the visitors bureau, the staff recognized and acted on the opportunity to do something that would promote a sense of good will and fun. These days, we can use as much of that as we can get.

Roses to Kate Minogue and Alexa Phillips, a pair of eighth-graders at Culbreth Middle School who celebrated their birthdays recently not by accepting gifts but by giving them.

For their birthdays, Kate and Alexa asked their families, friends and neighbors to contribute to Pennies for Peace, a campaign of the Central Asia Institute that provides community-based education and literacy programs for girls in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The girls raised almost $500. That's not a huge sum, perhaps, but it was an important symbolic act, and every penny helps; as the girls eloquently wrote in a column for The Chapel Hill News last week, in the villages of Central Asia, a penny "can buy a pencil, start and education and transform a life."

And two middle school students in central North Carolina can help kids on the other side of the world. That's a lesson well worth passing on.

Roses to Albert Kim and the rest of the Math Olympiads team from Rashkis Elementary School.

Albert, a fifth-grader, racked up perfect scores in every Math Olympiads competition this year.

Think that's easy?

He was one of only 46 children to get a perfect score out of the 90,000 who participated in Math Olympiads.

That's only ... well, a very small percentage. Albert could probably tell you exactly.

The rest of the Rashkis team did none too shabby, either; the fifth-grade team made the National Meritorious Achievement List for finishing in the top 20 percent.

Besides Albert, Rashkis fifth-graders Kristina Choi, Nathaniel Lai, Jai So, Thomas Wang and fourth-grader Jopsy Bayog were in the top 10 percent of individual scorers.

Great job, kids, and a shout-out as well to the teachers, staff and parents who organized, coached and assisted the team.

Please send suggestions for Roses & Raspberries to Dave Hart, associate editor, at dhart@nando.com.