When Jerry Brown of Rosemead CA found homeless people were trying to live behind his machine tool warehouse, he could have called the cops. Instead, he set up beds inside the warehouse and gave them paying jobs.
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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Librarian Marie Bruce firmly upheld New York State's library-confidentiality laws when the Secret Service demanded circulation information from her records. Pressured by Secret Service agents and by city officials, Bruce still refused to release the confidential information the agents wanted until they had gone through the proper legal channels.
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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Restauranteur Jerilyn Brusseau founded Peace Table, an exchange program of US and USSR food professionals. Putting her own business at risk, Brusseau worked long hours to establish a link with her peers in the Soviet Union, organizing the first-ever US tour of a delegation of Soviet chefs.
Home when commended: North America, US, Washington Home now: North America, US, Washington Gender: F (female) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Calvin Bryant of Sarasota FL, a successful businessman, puts in endless hours as a volunteer counselor in the prison system and fills a quarter of the jobs in his company with prisoners on work-release. Himself an 8th-grade drop out who was the 15th of 17 children of a Georgia sharecropper, Bryant has also funded a literacy program for inner-city kids.
Home when commended: North America, US, Florida Home now: North America, US, Florida Gender: M (male) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Ray Buchanan and his partner, Ken Horne, created the Potato Project, supplying hungry people with perfectly good potatoes that cannot be sold because they are "unattractive." The Project has delivered over 100 million pounds of homely potatoes to hungry people in 47 states.
Home when commended: North America, US, Virginia Home now: North America, US, North Carolina Gender: M (male) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Charlotte Bullock, and her friends Robin and Sheila Cannon didn’t think it was a good idea to build a multi-million-dollar garbage incinerator that would spew toxic pollution into their low-income neighborhood in south central Los Angeles. By organizing local resistance, networking with environmental groups and working day and night, the women stopped the plan.
Home when commended: North America, US, California Home now: North America, US, California Gender: F (female) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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North Carolina State botanist JoAnn Burkholder and her research team found an organism that’s causing east coast fish to die, and people who fish the coastal waters to get sick. Government agencies and the fishing industry have blocked her efforts to make the dangers known. And Burkholder's exposure to the toxic organism she discovered has made her ill herself.
Home when commended: North America, US, North Carolina Home now: North America, US, North Carolina Gender: F (female) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Family practice physician Dr. Walter Burnstein knows it’s futile to help patients get healthy if their environment makes them sick. So he devotes all his time after work to protecting the air and water quality of his home state New Jersey, founding citizen groups to lobby against uranium mining and food irradiation and educating the public about how they can shape public policy.
Home when commended: North America, US, New Jersey Home now: North America, US, New Jersey Gender: M (male) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Bill Bush of Huntsville AL runs a round-the-clock hotline, counseling whistleblowers and potential whistleblowers across the country. Bush himself suffered harassment, demotion, loss of pay and stress-induced ill health for blowing the whistle at NASA.
Home when commended: North America, US, Alabama Home now: North America, US, Alabama Gender: M (male) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Lynne Bussey created and runs Project Child in Chico CA, a non-profit crisis clinic where children of abusing parents are cared for. Sacrificing her own health and her lucrative business career, and enduring sniping from public agencies threatened by the Project, Bussey works 50-to-60-hour weeks, and often covers the payroll from her own savings.
Home when commended: North America, US, California Home now: North America, US, California Gender: F (female) For more information, click on the Giraffe's name.
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Lew Butler of San Francisco CA gave up a lucrative law practice and became “odd” to his peers when he began devoting countless unpaid hours to directing California Tomorrow, a citizens' group working to make California a successful multi-cultural society, with equal voices and influence for all the state’s minorities.
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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Rev. Calvin Butts risked arrest for vandalism by leading his Harlem congregation in the whitewashing of cigarette and booze billboards aimed at young African Americans. Butts is campaigning to ban such advertising within five blocks of any school, playground or place of worship.
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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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.