When Ellen Bigger’s Girl Scout leader was murdered by a drug addict, Ellen launched a campaign she named “This is a Drug-free Home.” She endured criticism and taunting from her classmates, drained her babysitting savings, and took “awful weeding jobs” to pay for the costs of her campaign.
Home when commended: North America, US, Florida Home now: North America, US, Florida Gender: F (female) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Ostracized, harassed and verbally attacked by neighbors in Patchogue NY, Jerry Bilinski, the resident houseparent in a group home for disadvantaged boys, promised to keep the home open for as long as he could, and he did. Looking back Bilinski says, "There comes a time when you've got to stand up and say, 'That's wrong.'"
Home when commended: North America, US, New York Home now: North America, US, New York Gender: M (male) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Thomas Billecci of Martinez CA blew the whistle on a refinery's safety violations and illegal toxic dumping into San Francisco and San Pablo Bays. No government agency would look into Billecci's charges, but the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund worked with him to win a $4.2 million judgment to help restore the waters. The offending corporation was ordered to build a new $64 million water treatment plant.
Home when commended: North America, US, California Home now: North America, US, California Gender: M (male) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Glenn Billington of Cleveland OH spearheaded a unique program that united Africans and middle-class Americans to fight hunger in famine-plagued Mozambique. Billington, an attorney, led 19 Cleveland families in creating and supporting a 500-acre rice-growing project in Mozambique to generate food, jobs and revenue there.
Home when commended: North America, US, Ohio Home now: North America, US, Ohio Gender: M (male) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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High school teacher Naomi Bindman of North Bennington VT allowed some of her students to create handouts called "Myths and Facts About Homosexuality." Her tenure was revoked and she was asked to resign, despite her excellent teaching record. Bindman refused, insisting the students' work was a legitimate study project; she was reinstated after efforts by the teacher's union, the ACLU and a parents' group.
Home when commended: North America, US, Vermont Home now: North America, US, Vermont Gender: F (female) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Businessman John Bisceglio of Providence RI exposed a kickback system in city bidding, although his own business depended on city contracts. His revelations helped unseat the crooked office holders.
Home when commended: North America, US, Rhode Island Home now: North America, US, Rhode Island Gender: M (male) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Anne Bishop of Merogomish, Nova Scotia, changed a fishing community forever when she began helping the women there. Despite great resistance from the local Establishment, Bishop organized a labor union and a cooperative, and taught women to drive so they could get to a processing plant to work.
Home when commended: North America, Canada, Nova Scotia Home now: North America, Canada, Nova Scotia Gender: F (female) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Joel Bisina was a successful banker in Lagos, Nigeria when he realized that the impoverished rural region where he was raised needed him to come home. Oil extraction by multi-national corporations was damaging the environment of the Niger Delta. Oil was leaving the Delta--along with the profits from its sale. Nigerians in the area were poorer than ever and many of them were angry enough to become violent. Bisina now runs Niger Delta Professionals for Development, organizing Deltans to work for economic justice—peacefully.
Home when commended: Africa, Nigeria Home now: Africa, Nigeria Gender: M (male) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Nancy Bissell and Gordon Packard of Tucson AZ overcame enormous community opposition to provide food and shelter for that city's homeless. In addition to the endless unpaid hours they spend working with the homeless, the couple also take time to educate the public on the issue of homelessness.
Home when commended: North America, US, Arizona Home now: North America, US, Arizona Gender: F (female) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Barbara Bisson of Pownall VT demanded that town officials stop operating the city government behind closed doors. She and her allies called in the State Attorney's investigator, who made it clear that denying citizens access to public information was illegal. After winning public office herself, Bisson initiated an open-door policy and encouraged public involvement in local affairs.
Home when commended: North America, US, Vermont Home now: North America, US, Vermont Gender: F (female) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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When Ashley Black was 10 she saw an upsetting news story about European computer games with Nazi themes—the player earned points for killing death-camp prisoners and the graphics featured Hitler and swastikas. Ashley started a petition campaign to have the games banned in New Jersey. That effort failed. But she got something bigger—an international agreement that Austria and Germany would not export any of these computer games to any part of the U.S.
Home when commended: North America, US, New Jersey Home now: North America, US, New Jersey Gender: F (female) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Student Roxanne Black of Atlantic City NJ didn’t let her own battle with lupus stop her from creating Friends Health Connection, a service that has matched over a thousand people with severe illnesses and disabilities so they can share information and keep each other’s spirits up.
Home when commended: North America, US, New Jersey Home now: North America, US, New Jersey Gender: F (female) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Wayne Bleier of Port Townsend WA gave up his career and his private life to help kids in refugee camps around the world. Acting on his own, Bleier provides everything from food, shelter, clothing and medicine, to sports, art and education, often in camps so dangerous that aid agencies won’t send their staffers in. He has personally reunited more than a thousand refugee families.
Gender: M (male) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Olga Bloom, a retired violinist, mortgaged her house and worked with her bare hands to turn an old coffee barge into an intimate and acoustically perfect chamber music hall anchored under the Brooklyn Bridge. Though "Bargemusic" attracts world-class musicians, Bloom keeps ticket prices low for the twice-weekly concerts, taking no salary for her seven-day-a-week efforts.
Home when commended: North America, US, New York Home now: North America, US, New York Gender: F (female) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Paul Bloom of Washington DC, an attorney working for the Federal Department of Energy, was asked to search out possible overcharges by oil companies and return the money to customers. He passed $4 million to large national charities with the proviso that the money be used to pay the heating bills of the poor. His unprecedented act led to threats that he personally restore the funds to the treasury, but the gift was completely legal.
Home when commended: North America, US, Washington DC Home now: North America, US, Washington DC Gender: M (male) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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After a brilliant career with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mel Blount retired to a horse farm in Claysville PA, planning to build a youth home like the one he'd already opened in Georgia. He was shocked by the outpouring of racial prejudice that met his proposal to bring kids in trouble to the farm. Blount persisted, despite threats and a smear campaign by the KKK, and the communty rallied in his support.
Home when commended: North America, US, Pennsylvania Home now: North America, US, Pennsylvania Gender: M (male) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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1 Way 2 Help
FIND GIRAFFES
Please note
We're adding stories and photos to the Giraffe Heroes database everyday. If information isn't visible yet, know that we're working on it.
YOU & THE FOUNDER
From time to time, Ann Medlock, this Project's founder, does a brief but inspiring email called Heads Up. You can check out past copies here. They're so good (and so free) we bet you'll join the Heads Up circle and send them on to friends & family.
For further wit & wisdom from Ann, check out her speeches, radio commentaries and OpEds.