Sydney Martin started making beautiful rock necklaces when she was only eight years old. She started with rocks that she found along the beaches of Lake Michigan. This would prove to be an emblem of hope to thousands of children years after. A time of darkness At 10, Sydney’s world seemed to come crumbling about […]

“I couldn’t sleep at night. I kept recalling the images of the children wasting away,” recalls Randi Thompson. The communications executive had taken a trip to Kazakhstan in 1993. She had visited an orphanage for children between 7 and 15 and was shocked by what she encountered. “The images haunt me to this day.” Terry […]

“I want to dedicate my life to providing for people in need in Papua New Guinea. If you think that is something you can consider then we can continue dating.” Not your typical proposal, but that is what Mark Palm, then 20, proposed to Kirsten. Kirsten, who is now his wife, simply smiled and said […]

Maggie Doyne, who was profiled recently by Hero Highlight, has won CNN’s 2015 Hero of the Year award. She was picked out of ten finalists to receive the award through an online vote, and will be granted $100,000 to put towards her BlinkNow Foundation, which she used to open the Kopila Valley School in 2010.  […]

Life isn’t easy for any woman coming out of jail without an ID, family or friends. When they leave jail, they’re going back to the street. There’s nowhere else for them to go. They go into jail homeless and they leave homeless. The only life they know is surviving on the street. No one knows […]

When Rochelle Ripley was a child, she was the victim of a violent crime. Following this event, Ripley stopped speaking. During this time, she went to visit her grandmother, a Native American. “My grandmother performed a healing ceremony for me,” recalls Ripley. “We then spent the rest of the day together. She talked to me […]

When Monique Pool called the Animal Protection Society in 2005 looking for her lost dog, she never imagined that the call would change the course of her life. They told her that there was a baby sloth in their care that had been orphaned. Without a second thought, Pool offered to take the sloth in. […]

Jody Farley-Berens and Michelle Singleton were childhood friends. They grew up together and had children. But tragedy struck when Michelle was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 30. A single mom, she struggled to make ends meet while battling for her life. “With two children, it was scary,” recalls Farely-Berens. “The everyday tasks […]

Many people would be astonished and even horrified at the gun violence stories that frequently make the headlines in Chicago. Not Dr. Daniel Ivankovich. “I’ve treated more than 200 gun violence victims in Chicago,” says Ivankovich. “These are the mean streets. People often call Chicago’s streets the killing fields.” But gangs and gang related crime […]