Examples of Everyday Heroes


  1. James L. Clark spent nearly two weeks of his life on his own dime helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Driving with a gun and a medic kit, James worked tirelessly under extremely dangerous situations with little support.
  1. Jerry Quinn, Boston businessman donated $100,000 to stranger to get kidney operation. Jerry’s giving nature continues every year as he and his restaurant provide free Thanksgiving dinners to those in need
  1. Corbin Whitney, of Fresno rescued a four-year old boy from a burning vehicle. It took Corben three attempts to finally free the boy from his inflamed car seat. Corben is a California Highway Patrolman, he was off duty and on the same drive home, had just tackled and stopped a hit and run participant from fleeing the accident.
  1. Dr. Sean Boutrous, Houston based plastic surgeon who volunteers his time to travel to patients in need and offer his services free of charge. Dr.Boutrous recently built an ear for a child born without one. While doing surgeries Dr. Boutrous takes the opportunity to train local surgeons who in far off areas would never normally get the chance.
  1. Karen Fessler, Assisted the start up of a non-profit organization called Project Connect. Karen is a homeless liaison for her school district and goes out of her way to help homeless children get an education against all odds.
  1. Casey Anderson started the Montana Grizzly Encounter. Casey saves bears born in captivity scheduled to be euthanized and gives them a natural habitat. The grizzly bear sanctuary adopts the bears and intern allows visitors to learn about bears and how to help them.
  1. Faith Beasley (Rottweiler Service Dog) On September 4, 2007, Faith became agitated and desperately tried to alert her owner. Leana her owner unaware that the medication she was prescribed was causing a toxic reaction, fell to the floor from her wheelchair and began experiencing grand mal seizure. Incredibly when commands could not be given ,realizing that something was wrong, Faith problem solved by taking the phone off the hook and pushing the special 9-1-1 speed dial button and barked into the phone. Returning to her owner, Faith used her seizure response training to roll Leana into a recovery position. Able to recognize police uniforms, Faith unlocked the door when help arrived, and lead police to her owner.
  1. John Cammarata, 40, suffered from a cardiac condition, and had recently undergone an angioplasty awoke one morning to find his neighbor's house on fire.  Knowing the family had four foster children, John went into the house three times until he'd pulled everybody to safety. As power lines exploded overhead, he ran door to door, getting other families out of their homes.
  1. Lynn Hue, a 54 year old Hawaiian woman driving a tour bus to Hana, spotted a boy being swept down Haiku stream along the Hana Highway. She jumped into the water and grabbed him, while he was choking, the bus patrons formed a human chain and pulled them both to safety.
  1. Jon Thomas (JT) Robertson a 10 year old boy who collected 14,000 cans to raise money for 84 disadvantaged kids to ride a train for the first time.
  1. Dr. Lawrence Piro, president and CEO of The Angeles Clinic and Research Institute and an internationally recognized expert in hematological malignancies.   His work on low-grade lymphoma is ground breaking.
  1. Joan Smith school teacher at High Point Regional High School, of a very special class with the physically oldest and developmentally youngest kids at school. Often these students are on the receiving end of charitable efforts, but Smith teaches them about serving their community. Every Make A Difference Day, they do just that, holding collection drives for the poor and raising funds for local charities. This year the students decided to collect cards and letters to let soldiers know they care, and asked fellow High Point students to pitch in. In all Smith’s class collected 1,700 letters and $3,300 worth of phone cards for military men and woman in Iraq. In the year of 2008, the class and Joan Smith received the $10,000 Make a Difference Day grant donated by Paul Newman and the Newman’s Own Foundation.
  1. Jourdan Urbach, 17, founded Children Helping Children, a musical charity which fundraises for pediatric divisions of hospitals and medical charity organizations, and has raised over 1.3 million dollars since inception
  1. Jose Le Grand, of New York City, came across a runaway vehicle with a young girl & her father who had a heart attack while driving down the highway.  He used his own SUV, filled with his wife and 2 children, to stop the car in dangerous traffic to save this little girl and all of the other people that could have been hurt.