16-Year-old Loses Legs, But Finds a Cause; Named a CNN Hero
Jordan Thomas was an active 16-year old athlete when he lost his legs in a boating accident. At the hospital he met other amputees that changed his life.
Jordan Thomas was an active 16-year old athlete when he lost his legs in a boating accident. At the hospital he met other amputees that changed his life.
Zach Bonner, who walked to Washinton D.C. for the homeless, is just a kid. At 11, he's one of cadre of child philanthropists who seem to be growing in number and visibility as corporations and colleges reward their efforts to help others. They have become high-profile CEOs of their own nonprofit groups.
This little girl is showing the world that she not only handles all her daily chores without any help or hands... she excels at penmanship, too.
This week, 21-year-old Sho Yano will complete the journey he began as a 9-year-old college freshman, becoming one of the youngest students in history to receive an M.D. He earned his PhD at age 19 and will now launch a medical career as a pediatric neurologist so he can work with children. (Video)
A North Carolina teen returned from camp last summer and discovered her parents had abandoned her. But dedicated to her goal of an education, she took a job, went to live with a friend, and kept her grades high, despite bullying and poverty, to earn a scholarship to Harvard.
A dream 17 years-in-the-making came true for a California boy when he got out of his wheelchair and walked to accept his high school diploma. Patrick Ivison, a senior at Scripps High School in San Diego, was just 14-months-old when he was run over by a stranger's car, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
For the past two months, one of my favorite reads has been a blog started by 9-year-old Martha Payne of western Scotland to document in photos the daily lunches she was being served in her public primary school. Payne started blogging in early May and her lunch photos went viral in days. She had a million viewers within a few weeks; was written up in Time, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail; and got support from TV chef Jamie Oliver, whose series "Jamie's School Dinners" kicked off school-food reform in England.
Martha Payne, the nine-year-old schoolgirl who blogged about her school lunches and was briefly banned from photographing them, has not only achieved more healthy lunches for her Scotland school, she is helping to provide lunches to thousands of school kids in Africa.
Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs changed the way we live. All had one thing in common: Access to technology at an early age. A DC-based nonprofit called CodeNow is teaching underrepresented youth the fundamental skills of computer programming. While taking free courses, the city kids -- almost 40% are girls -- build robots, Twitter apps, and a better future.
Two years ago, Regan Kerr turned her small collection of pop tabs from the top of soda cans into an endeavor involving family and friends that culminated at her prom Saturday night. The Aurora, Colorado teen hand-made a dress that took 5,114 pop tabs and five solid months of sewing. The result is an amazing tailored silver frock with flared skirt and colored pop-top trim.
Scott Shaver and Katie Buell were crowned prom king and queen last week at Westview High School. Katie is an all-American girl, class president, champion in girls basketball, and an absolute sweetheart, according to her teachers. Yet, it seems every student, no matter their ability, is accepted here and treasured. Scotty, as the kids call him, is a HUGE personality at the school, brought out of his shell over four years by the nurturing attention given, not only by specialized staff who have tutored him as a special needs student with autism, but by the accepting student body.
There has been a breakthrough in the fight against pancreatic cancer, and it's all thanks to a 15-year-old Maryland County teen and his mom, who drove him to Johns Hopkins University every night after school to test his theory in a lab. Jack Andraka won a $75,000 grand prize in this year's Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for his new way to test for early-stage pancreatic cancer. The test also detects ovarian and lung cancer.
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