For the last 25 years, the man known as Joe the Barber has been offering homeless people in Hartford, Connecticut free haircuts in the park. They walk away sporting a new look, but also with new pride. For payment? He'll take a hug.
A National Guardsman lost both legs in Iraq, but found a new mission helping others. It was a life-altering injury, but from the beginning, Dale Beatty had a positive attitude about it. Beatty created an organization Purple Heart Homes after a Builders Association -- of which he was a member -- helped him build a wheelchair-accessible home with wide doorways and roll-in bathrooms.
Albert Lexie, the longtime shoe shiner, has been giving back to others for years. He is Pittsburgh's hero in disguise. This man is a guardian angel who changes lives one dollar at a time. A shoe shine costs $5, but Lexie's customers have been generous with their tips and every cent goes to the hospital's children in need.
Tony Tolbert, a Harvard-educated lawyer in Los Angeles, decided to move into his mother's home so he could offer his own fully-furnished house to a homeless family of five, and give it to them rent-free for a year.
A couple who wished to remain anonymous purchased a minivan from Dick Hannah Toyota in Washington last week to donate to Portland Police Officer Paul Meyer and family after seeing news reports about Meyer's paralysis from an accident. A man contacted our dealership last week and told us he and his wife would like to purchase a Toyota Sienna minivan, wrote Brian Sanders, the car dealership's General Manager. They are paying cash for it, but they'll never sit behind the wheel. He and his wife are not wealthy, continued Sanders on the company's Facebook Page. They were both in the military and recently received a modest inheritance.
Going beyond his normal duties, a Kansas police officer responded to an elderly woman's house and ended up going grocery shopping for her and bringing back $50 worth of supplies, as well as a Christmas ham and poinsettia.
A pair called the Serial Pranksters on YouTube decided to turn their mischief-making into doing something good. It was so much fun making a prank that also feeds people in need! they said, after delivering a pizza to a couple on the sidewalk.
Named an everyday Hero, Don Hanlon achieves that with a simple, but generous gesture. He walks in the doors and says, What do you need? Once each month for ten years Don has been talking trips to Sam's Club with people who are dealing with domestic violence and homelessness.
A policeman pulled over Hayden Carlo, 25, in Plano, Texas for an expired registration sticker. Carlo said he's been struggling to support his wife and two small children and had to choose between registration for his car and food for his children. The officer handed him a citation but when Carlo opened it, he broke down in tears.
Every afternoon and night, the Brooklyn man stuffs his red sack to the brim with presents and heads out to storm-ravaged homes. He is personally delivering new toys to awestruck little kids whose play rooms were destroyed by floodwaters.
As he inched through the churning, chest-deep water, Jay Price struggled to distinguish one potential catastrophe from the next as he and his comrades from the Manasquan Hook and Ladder Company No. 1 kept pushing forward, chest deep in the rushing water, to reach another stranded person in their homes and rescue them to the safety of their M35 Army cargo truck, one by one through the chaotic night.
Matthew Petronis sat in his dorm room on Oct. 29, watching TV in horror as his childhood home burned down. He felt helpless that night -- but not for long. Only a few hours later, Petronis set up the first fundraiser to help the neighborhood.
A raging fire was creeping closer and closer to Joe Adinolfi's Breezy Point home when he decided to evacuate, wading into waist-high water outside his door. That's when he heard But then he heard a cry for help from the darkened parking lot nearby.
300 veterans, some trained in crisis management, have been donating their time and skills in the hard hit Rockaway neighborhood in Queens, New York, removing debris and making life easier and safer for storm weary residents. Their organization, Team Rubicon, helps others but also helps ex-soldiers from around the country to gain a new mission in life, something to become passionate about. They've joined together to tackle the seemingly endless task of rehabilitating the homes for an entire neighborhood.
John Turner, who owns a Chicago business specializing in pumping water and cleaning out buildings following disasters, traveled to the East Coast immediately after Hurricane Sandy hit. Turner was shocked by the devastation and even emptied out flooded homes free of charge after seeing how some families without flood insurance were completely wiped out. It must have felt like a reward from heaven when he bought a lottery ticket in New Jersey and it turned out to be a $100,000 winner.
Jia Jiang has designed a unique type of therapy to address his fear of rejection. As a young businessman, he wants to toughen himself for the inevitable No's that await him in the future. For 100 days he is aiming to endure one rejection per day by making all types of crazy requests, such as asking a stranger if he can borrow $100. On just the third day, he was destined to meet Jackie Braun, a shift leader at a Krispy Kreme with such kindness and can-do spirit, that he was never going to get a 'no' from her, if the request involved doughnuts.
A Massachusetts junk hauler this weekend valued honesty over profit when he decided to return thousands of dollars worth of bonds to a homeowner who had hired him to take away what she thought was junk.
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.
Elkhart, Indiana was hit pretty hard by the recession of 2008. But now, things will run a lot smoother, after Hollywood producer David Gundlach bequeathed his entire personal fortune to the Elkhart community foundation, which supports the county. Museums, parks and senior care facilities will all benefit from the $125 million dollar gift.
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