Everyday Hero Stories

Where did your values come from?

We've all had people in our lives who have made a positive impact on us. A parent or grandparent, a sibling who was there for us, or maybe even just a guy who shines shoes for a living? Whoever they are, tell us their story so they can inspire us even more.

Tell Us Your Story
AMBITION
KEN B My hero is my father, Ken B. Ken was born in 1931 in Pennsylvania. His father, Ken Sr., lost his job in the height of the depression as a furniture manufacturing manager, and the family returned to the old homestead in Templeton, Massachusetts. There he helped work the family farm, selling any extras they grew....
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REACHING OUT
KATIE W One of my heroes, Katie W., was born with one arm and of Asian decent. She grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood, and her parents neglected her and did not show her the love she deserved and needed. She was on the first girl's basketball team that I coached. She joined us her 7th grade year and through...
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AMBITION
JANE A Jane A. started the Hull House in Chicago in 1889 as a community center offering support to the children and adults in the neighborhood. She was a broad thinker and activist and helped bring a number of great facilities to her community including: night school for adults, kindergarten classes, clubs for older...
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REACHING OUT
HALBERT T What started as a job offer in the medical examiner/coroner's office turned into a life changing event for a single mother of four children. Dr. T. was a leading national pathologist who worked on many notorious forensic cases with the likes of Henry Lu and Michael Boden. But what he was most was a very...
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APPRECIATION
GEORGIA AND GENTRY I have two daughters, Georgia, 13, and Gentry, 11. I can't tell a story about someone being my hero without mentioning both of them. Just over a year ago I embarked on a campaign to win one of three vacancies on our city commission. Building social capital is my work, my passion, and my hope for our society's...
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CHARACTER
GEORGE R My grandfather—George R.—is my hero. He was born blind and against all odds he attended the University of Pittsburgh and received his BS. His seeing-eye dog was the first dog to graduate with a blind student. He also attended Carnegie Tech (Now Carnegie Mellon University) and received his MS in Social Work. He...
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REACHING OUT
GENE W My hero is Gene W. Gene has started more than a dozen companies in his lifetime. He started out working in the laser industry when it was still in its infancy in the 1940s. In his early days in Silicon Valley he often associated with pioneers of the era like Dave Packard and Bell Hewlett. Dave Packard in...
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REACHING OUT
KATHLEEN I'm the executive director of Napa Valley Community Housing, a non-profit that develops and manages housing for low and very-low income residents. These people are my heroes. Most of them are uneducated; many to not speak English and almost all of them make $9-$12 an hour. Yet, they work hard every day in...
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REACHING OUT
STANLEY M Four days a week in Hutchinson, Kansas a miracle happens: 200-300 people eat a hot meal. The miracle worker is an unassuming woman named Stanley M. who operates the Christian Soup Ministry. For close to 20 years she's never missed a scheduled day, never run out of food, never turned anyone away...and never...
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COURAGE
DUSTIN S Dustin is a six year old boy who recently went through a kidney transplant. He spent over a month at the Milwaukee Children's Hospital where he received one of his father's kidneys. Dustin had been waiting for his transplant for many years, waiting for his body to be ready to accept the kidney. After the...
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PERSISTENCE
I WAS JUST ABOUT TO GIVE UP ON MY LIFE LONG DREAM It was an incredibly tough time in my life. A few years ago, I felt as though my world was crumbling. Everything seemed to be going wrong for me. To start with, I was overworked and overwhelmed trying to finish my college degree while holding down a night job as a nurse. I was working through a hurtful breakup,...
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APPRECIATION
ROSE D My grandmother is my hero. She was a proud woman that spoke her mind and put on no false pretenses. She was incredibly strong and passionate about her home and the nature around it. You either loved her or hated her...and I loved her. She instilled in me the values of her times and I can't say how much that...
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REACHING OUT
BOB B As a young boy, I was quite lonely. Although I had a wonderful mother and a great 'big' sister, I didn't have a dad. My true father died when I was two. However, a wonderful person came into my life when I was about 5 or 6. He was a young guy of about 19 and he worked in the hardware store where my mother...
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HARD WORK
AN UNLIKELY GENIUS My story is a simple one. First of all, I'm the youngest of six children and I don't live in the best part of town. I started out at a school where 93 percent of the student population lived in poverty and a report card was simply a bunch of letters to most kids. This school was known for its bad test scores in...
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AMBITION
MARC M When I reflect on the word 'hero' I think of my father, Marc. For over 30 years my dad has been an ordained minister serving as a senior pastor in several churches. He has taught me about compassion and the need to serve others before myself. In everything that he does, he strives to be a blessing in others'...
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SPORTSMANSHIP
DANCE NATIONALS I am writing this story to express the important value of sportsmanship. A while ago, my traveling dance team participated in a nation wide dance competition. This competition is very hard and the atmosphere is far from friendly. As we walked off stage after completing our dance, the next competing team snickered...
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AMBITION
CAMERON A My son Cameron, now 13, was diagnosed with a rare brain cancer when he was 11. He has transformed his experience into an opportunity to help others. He is developing a magazine called Brain Candy! as a way to bridge young people living with brain cancer. He writes a weekly blog and does regular video blogs on...
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REACHING OUT
HENRY M My hero is a man named Henry. He has always been the one I can run to in times of need. He has shown me that a father is someone who you can trust and rely on, not necessarily one who helped create you. My mom died unexpectedly when I barely turned 13, and my biological dad has never really been in the picture....
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CARING
JIM R Jim coached a TOPSoccer for kids with special needs. He also started the Prom For The Stars, an annual dance for young adults with disabilities. The Saturday soccer games included snacks and a banquet at the end of the year with special trophies. He found sponsors to help with the Prom and many of the dresses...
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REACHING OUT
WILL M More than anything else, Will gives me hope. He looks for the good and upholds it in others. He serves, he walks his talk. He uplifts people. He takes meaningful action to make the world and the people in it better. He's real and speaks the truth. He has character. He's a good man. He provides meaningful,...
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CARING
THE GIFT OF SELF I was a very young mother of two, when my husband of nearly ten years died very suddenly. Bob, who had just turned 34, had, had a fatal arrhythmia in his sleep. I was 31, with a thirteen month old baby and four year old—both girls. My family did not live close by, but everyone was there to support me through this...
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AMBITION
LISA H My hero is the most passionate person I have ever met. She is the embodiment of "Do what you love, love what you do." She is a person of greatness...someone I can only hope to be like someday. Lisa is a record holding high school and college athlete and coach. Her story lies in her unbelievable selflessness and...
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MAKING A DIFFERENCE
65 ROSES Rowan is an eight year student in my second grade class in Los Angeles Unified School District. She has Cystic Fibrosis, coughs a lot, and is absent or tardy on many days. She inspires me as a teacher to do my best and cram as much learning as I can into each day. She has a hard time pronouncing her disease,...
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CARING
CLINT M My hero is my husband. He is a peace pilgrim. He has never missed a day of work in his life. He has only ever had three jobs. He loves me, even when I am unloveable. He considers my son to be his son and raised my son to be like him. He is the most moral, ethical, intelligent man I have ever known. I don't expect...
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CHARACTER
FAYE H Faye...is an inspiration to many and does not even know it. Faye had breast cancer nine years ago. Faye dealt with this situation with a great deal of dignity. She was strong for her family and herself. She was back to work three weeks after having 23 lymph nodes removed. She has taught me a great deal in my 35...
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HELPING OTHERS
ONE STRANGER'S KINDNESS While doing some caving in Southern Missouri a few years ago, we came out of a cave only to find a flat tire on our van. I was with three or four of my buddies and we were covered in mud and not the most clean-cut group. We drove the crippled van to the nearest town. We were way out in the country and we stumbled...
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CARING
SARAH H Sarah is my aunt and she is my hero. Sarah is my hero because she is very giving and loving person. When I was 2 or 3 she took me in because my mother could not raise me. My whole family could have gone to a foster home but she took all of us in. She raised me, my 5 sisters and 2 brothers as her own. She now has...
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REACHING OUT
ANN H My Grandmother was, and still is, my hero. She gave me all the love and care she could. I love her, and miss her dearly. I love you Grammie.
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HELPING OTHERS
ADAM I don't even know how many people Adam has helped since he started practicing magic tricks. Adam incorporates his message of breast cancer awareness into the dynamic magic shows he performs, free of charge, for schoolchildren and teachers in Denver. In the seven years since Adam learned his first magic trick, two...
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CARING
MARK Mark is my hero. He organized a jump rope skip-a-thon to raise money for Skylar Stanley, a baby from nearby Fort Morgan in need of a heart transplant. Skylar's need hit close to home: Mark's grandmother had died waiting for a liver transplant and his mother was in need of a kidney transplant. Mark organized...
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REACHING OUT
JULIA Julia is my hero—she organized Showers to Go!, a program that provides personal care products for needy community members. Julia learned at school that personal hygiene is one of many challenges faced by the homeless. The next day, Julia took the contents of her piggy bank to her teacher, asking that she give the...
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CARING
MICHAEL At just 14 years old, Michael organized a bowl-a-thon that raised over $9,000 to help a 13-year-old burn victim in his community. After hearing the story on the local news, Michael, a veteran fundraiser who has raised over $120,000 for various causes, decided he had to help offset the family's medical expenses....
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AMBITION
TENISE Tenise is my hero for all that she did with her role as the president of L.I.F.E. (Love is Finding Everyone), a Colorado Springs teen service group. As the group's leader, Tenise organized dances and step shows to fund an impressive number of community service projects. She rallied L.I.F.E.'s members to provide...
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