An 80-year-old Utah man arrived on the East Coast Monday to help feed evacuees from Hurricane Sandy. Vern Gillmore, who says his hobby is volunteering, joins other Good Samaritans from around the country and Canada leaving their warm homes and heading into the eye of the storm to help neighbors they've never met.
Hundreds of doctors, firefighters, emergency personnel and volunteers are converging on the East Coast to help devastated areas with recovery efforts. Trent Smith, from Indiana expects to spend the coming days working long hours with little sleep, but he said the work will have its own rewards.
For their extraordinary efforts to help change the world and better the lives of others, 10 everyday people will receive $50,000 and a chance for much more.
An abused Filipino child who lived off a garbage dump has won a prestigious award for the work of his children's charity, which benefits his fellow street kids. Cris Kesz Valdez, aged 13, was handed this year's International Children's Peace Prize at a glittering ceremony in The Hague on Wednesday, where he received a $130,000 prize presented by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Two best friends in Florida after leaving jobs that no longer fulfilled them decided to pack their bags and go on a Summer Service Adventure. 56-year-old Carol Hasbrouck and 60-year-old Joyce Claflin left their St. Petersburg home in June embarking on a 33-city volunteering tour under the banner, Dames Gone Wild.
Barbara Casados only uses her sewing machine for one thing -- a very special thing. She makes sick children feel better by giving them personalized Superhero capes. It started when she tried to solve the daily fights with her son over wearing clothes to school. She bribed him with the promise of a crusader's cape. Next, she sewed them as a business. But when someone came to her about making them for kids in a cancer ward -- 65 kids -- she couldn't say no to a single one of them.
A $30-million philanthropic gift from an anonymous wealthy couple is allowing the City of Vancouver to reopen Taylor Manor as a home for street people with complex mental health issues.
For more than three decades, nine women have been secretly baking and delivering hundreds of pound cakes in the middle of the night to people in Tennessee who could benefit from knowing that somebody out there loves them. They also secretly pay utility bills for widows or single moms in need. In all, they have contributed nearly $900,000 to the happiness of others.
A mother whose son was stabbed to death by four members of a hooded gang plans to sell her family heirlooms to help his killers. Fatemah Golmakani, 56, also said she wants to "tell them that someone loves them".
After surviving a year and a half of homelessness in the early 1980s, Lucinda Yates moved back to Portland and started putting her life back together by waitressing. After surviving a year and a half of homelessness in the early 1980s, Lucinda Yates moved back to Portland and started putting her life back together by waitressing. But her true breakthrough came when she noticed some colorful mat boards in a frame shop's trash can. She pulled them out of the garbage and started cutting them into elementary shapes, eventually creating wearable pins. She has sold more than 5 million pins to date to benefit homeless causes.
When asked to reveal the secret to her longevity, Bea Abrams Cohen credits her do-good attitude, helpfulness toward others, and the power of prayer. The chatty 102 year-old has worked for more than seven decades supporting philanthropic organizations and especially the U.S. military, since her service in World War II.
In 1985, Stan Brock started a nonprofit, Remote Area Medical. Since then, the all-volunteer group has held more than 663 medical clinics worldwide, providing free health care to half a million people, particularly in America where large swaths of population have no dental, eye or general health care.
CNN's Top 10 Heroes of the Year will walk down the same red carpet as the celebrities for the 5th annual CNN Heroes awards show broadcast LIVE on CNN. Televised award shows normally hail athletes and entertainers for their latest career accomplishments. But tonight in Los Angeles, the celebrities will honor inspiring citizens working to make the world a better place.
Christmas came early for three people in West Michigan when a stranger picked up the tab on some presents. It happened Monday night at the Big Kmart in Plainfield Township. A woman, described only as being in her 30s, walked up to the layaway desk and asked, Can I, you know, pay off some people's layaway?
Knowing that even if a foster child is placed with a family, it doesn't guarantee a Christmas gift under the tree, Frances Smith for 15 years has used her annual vacation to amass new dolls, clothes, bikes, and games for every child in the foster care system of Coweta County, Georgia.
Now working for NBC, Chelsea Clinton files her first good news report from her home state of Arkansas about a woman in rural Pine Bluff who is making a difference for her community in such a profound way that she's known as a real life miracle worker.
A retired Menlo Park math teacher completed her seventh summer volunteering to teach math at a high school for girls in Africa -- a school that she raised more than $1 million to build.
Stanford University will open an institution with the sole purpose of alleviating poverty in developing nations, thanks to a $150 million gift donated by a Silicon Valley businessman and his wife. Called the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (known informally as "SEED"), it will draw from the school's world-class MBA program and suite of courses in entrepreneurship to stimulate business ideas that can empower the people receiving food aid today so they can become self-sufficient and not need the aid in the future.
Every Thursday morning around 10:30 Dan walks into a Starbucks in Metro Detroit, takes out a list and proceeds to order dozens of drinks. The number depends on who is in the Michigan Cancer Center getting chemotherapy treatments. In 2007 he accompanied his father for Thursday chemo treatments. Since his father's death, he keeps the tradition going. Now, Starbucks fans are donating to the cause.
Recognizing their good deeds, President Barack Obama yesterday awarded the nation's second-highest civilian honor to 13 compassionate Americans for their decades of service helping the poor, illiterate, disabled, and war-weary.
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