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Friday, November 27, 2009

CNN's Heroes for 2009

all images courtesy of CNNIn a star-studded award ceremony held on Saturday, November 21st at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre, Efren Penaflorida of the Philippines was named the 2009 CNN HERO OF THE YEAR, after nearly three million votes were cast at CNN.com/Heroes. Actress Eva Mendes introduced Penaflorida (pronounced Pen-ya-flow-REE-duh) as one of the Top 10 CNN Heroes; host Anderson Cooper announced Penaflorida as the CNN HERO OF THE YEAR at the end of the evening, after a powerful performance by Grammy Award-winning recording artist Carrie Underwood.
Penaflorida was voted CNN HERO OF THE YEAR from among the Top 10 CNN HEROES, who were all honored at Saturday’s event. Celebrity presenters included Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Neil Patrick Harris, Pierce Brosnan, Dwayne Johnson, Eva Mendes, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Randy Jackson. Underwood, Leona Lewis, and Maxwell each performed.CNN HEROES: AN ALL-STAR TRIBUTE, hosted by Cooper, aired globally on CNN, CNN International and CNN en Espanol on Thanksgiving, November 26, at 9 pm. The CNN HEROES gala is the only awards show of its kind – featuring celebrities honoring everyday people who have made an extraordinary difference in their communities and beyond.Ten years ago, Efren Penaflorida faced a choice so many impoverished teens in the Philippines confront: life in a gang. When a gang member challenged him to a fight, Penaflorida walked away and embraced his education, promising to create a positive alternative for other children to build a better life. Through his organization, Dynamic Teen Company, Penaflorida created a pushcart classroom to bring education to the most forgotten children in the country. The gangs start recruiting early and so does Penaflorida. Every Saturday, he pushes the cart to different sites across the city: the cemetery, the municipal trash dump, and the deplorable housing conditions. He brings reading, writing, and arithmetic to the children. He gives them a place to sit and learn in peace. He teaches them basic hygiene – washing their faces and brushing their teeth.
Since 1997, he has taught more than 1,700 students with nearly 12,000 members in his organization, showing the youngsters that they, too, have a choice. They can reject the gangs, embrace their education and “be the change that they dream.” Peñaflorida hopes to create an international movement for pushcart classrooms in underdeveloped parts of the world.The CNN HEROES initiative, which began in 2007, garnered a record number of submissions this year (over 9,000) as well as a record number of online votes (nearly 3 million). The Top 10 CNN Heroes were selected by an esteemed Blue Ribbon Panel, which included Colin Powell, Whoopi Goldberg, Ted Turner, Shakira, Rosanna Rosado, Mariane Pearl, Malaak Compton-Rock, and Sir Elton John, among other humanitarians.
Here are two candid shots of this year's nominees:

Here are a few images of CNN's 2009 Heroes with their celebrity presenters:

And some candid shots of the evening:

Congratulations to Efren Penaflorida and to the CNN Heroes and to all who strive to make a difference.




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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations to all the deserving participants in this event. Unfortunately Heroes did NOT live up to its hype, but that is to be expected from this low rated and mediocre channel that sees itself as the life line of the "rich and famous," with a peppering of News in between entertainment. And here in lies the failure of this show. Mr Cooper, looking dapper, but ill at ease, helped by the tremendous endorsement of celebrity, and a sprinking of ordinary persons of the year, the theme being, humble, and the question remaining just how shall we down play their existense? We'll hand them a large, cumbersome piece of wood encaptioned: HE/RO, and "pretend to value their achievement," because, after all, this is supposed to be a NEWS CHANNEL. Shall I laugh now or wait to later?

Anonymous said...

hello nice photos i love your blog.

Anonymous said...

i would say that the same thing that the other comment said but i am 2 lazy.

Anonymous said...

I happened to enjoy the program.If you
don;t like it just turn the channel.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the pics. There is nothing wrong
with Heroes being on CNN.It is news that people
are out to change things and all too often stories
are ignored by the main stream media. Also,
NBC, ABC and CBS are now gearing up and
doing the same type of segments. This airs on
Thanksgiving night. I see nothing wrong with
a news channel airing a program like Heroes
on Thanksgiving or Christmas.I also like that
CNN is airing stories of hope from the football
player with a 45 million dollar contract sending
poor kids to college or the pastor who lost a
church in a fire but still helping the less
fortunate. There is nothing wrong with this.
Shows like this help viewers realize there are
good people that should be on tv news each
and everyday.MSNBC actually aired LockUp
on that day. It might get ratings but it is in
no shape or form news.

Anonymous said...

News is at the center of Heroes. That fact
that people are dying because they don't have
clean drinking water,homeless vets in America,
insurance companies not paying for artificial
limbs and mammograms that save lives. Rape
used as a weapon in the Congo,how hard it
is to get education in many parts of the world,
budget cuts that are axing music programs in
America's schools and all of the others. That's
what I call news. I voted and watched and will
do the same for Heroes 2010. The BBC does
stories like this all of the time.

Anonymous said...

@9:01PM: A lot of viewers already are, changing the channel.
Be interesting to see what ratings this blessed show brought.....and no, the other channels are not copying anything Klein does.

Anonymous said...

If CNN was as devoted to charity as they say they are, they'd give more than $25,000 to each honoree and more than $100,000 to the winner. In todays world, that's a drop in the bucket, but it's an excellent excuse to have and promote faux "entertainment," and call it an endowment. How good of them, when the anchors are making millions just for appearing. Where are our prorities? Certainly not with "ordinary people," and their contributions.

Anonymous said...

Some of the comments on this blog are quite disturbing and shameful. There are those who cannot see anything good come out of anything because of their miserable lives and twisted ideologies, forever blinded by partisanship that frankly shocks me. CNN is not one of my favorite channels but on this i have to give them credit for doing something this selfless and grand. These anchors are getting paid either way with or without CNN heroes. what we ought to take from this is the fact that ordinary everyday people are being recognized for acts that are obviously selfless and humanitarian. It is very, very sad that there are those who see everything through the prism of ratings, left or right, liberal or conservative. life is a lot more complex than that.

Phebe said...

Thank you for sharing your opinions and for the interesting discussion.

Comments are closed on this post.