Most Inspiring Nominees of 2009

And the Winner Is...

Beliefnet is proud to announce that Zach Bonner is the Most Inspiring Person of 2009.

He was nominated for living his conviction that no one is ever too young to change the world. He was selected for his compassionate, selfless service to homeless children. Not only has he made it his mission to call attention to their plight, he literally walks his talk--last year he made a 1200-mile "My House to the White House" walk to raise money to house homeless youth. Next year he will help with a project through Variety Boys & Girls Club of Los Angeles.

Zach began at age 6 to show his penchant for humanitarian service, hauling his Radio Flyer through his hometown of Tampa, Florida, collecting bottled water for hurricane victims. But his greatest concern, even at that age, was the plight of homeless children.

At 12, he is the youngest winner in the 10-year history of this award.

Zach received the most votes and he won the hearts of Beliefnet readers and editors.

• See an interview with Zach about his work.

• Read Kimberly Winston's profiles of our other nominees.

Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger

Hero of the Hudson

Minutes after takeoff, both engines of US Airways Flight 1549 went dead, and Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the commanding pilot, knew he had just moments to save the 155 people aboard.

The plane had hit a large flock of birds, and Capt. Sully determined that returning to New York’s La Guardia Airport was impossible. As the towers of the city loomed, there was only one option--landing in the Hudson River. Six minutes after takeoff, all aboard were rescued, with only five serious injuries. Capt. Sully waded through the flooded cabin to check for stragglers and collect the maintenance book. He was the last to exit the sinking plane.

Sully found himself hailed as a savior--a title he continues to shun with typical selflessness. "I was just doing my job," he said to grateful survivors and their families hours after the rescue.

Capt. Sullenberger, 58, is nominated as one of Beliefnet's Most Inspiring People of the Year for his display of grace under pressure and devotion to duty.

Those who know him say a lifetime of preparation gave him steadiness under fire. "He was cool because he had all this experience," said Jeff Zaslow, who co-wrote Sully's memoir, "Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters." "He knew the most important thing he could do was make the right decision early on, and he made it...He is very smart and he has a good heart , and I think it all came together that day."

After the crash, Sully told Congress how airline industry cuts affected safety. He said his pay was cut 40 percent, and after 30 years of service he had lost his pension. He lamented that today's pilot salaries could not attract the best candidates.

Since the landing, Sully has been lauded by everyone from presidents to his hometown fire department in Danville, Calif. And he still deflects much of the adulation that comes his way. "What is it about this event that has made people feel the way they do about the event, about themselves, and about me?" Sully has asked. "I think the answer has to be that something about this gave people hope. It reassured them that good could still happen in the world. It was life-affirming."

Kimberly Winston is a freelance writer and frequent Beliefnet contributor living in California. Her most recent book is 'Fabric of Faith.'

Danny Cottrell

Recession Angel Sparking the Economy

Call it the Two-Buck Economic Stimulus Plan. With many businesses struggling to survive the economic downturn, Danny Cottrell, a pharmacist in tiny Brewton, Ala., gave his 24 employees a bonus--$700 for full-time workers and $350 for part-timers.

There was a catch--they had to give 15 percent to charity or to someone in need, and the rest had to be spent in local businesses. And it all had to be done with the $2 bills Cottrell ordered specially from the bank--all $16,000 worth of them.

Cottrell is nominated as one of Beliefnet's Most Inspiring People of the Year for demonstrating that neighbors can help neighbors out of tough economic times.

"I wanted to help my employees and I wanted to help the town and I wanted to help people in need," Cottrell told NBC News. "I think we've managed to do all of that."

And then some. Since Cottrell gave out the money in March, dozens of businesses from New Hampshire to Alaska have done the same. A website that charts what it calls "The People's Stimulus Package" has put more than $120,000 back into local economies.

In Brewton, the bills have gone around and around, reminding people to "pay it forward." Many have come back to Cottrell's pharmacy, where the cashier hands them back out as change and asks people to spend it locally.

"They've done a good job," Cottrell said of his employees and the townspeople. "I've been very pleased. They bought into it. It's really been a lot of fun. It's sort of taken on a life of its own."

Kaleb Eulls

Selfless Student Who Saved Lives

When Kaleb Eulls, 18, saw the girl waving the gun around the school bus, he didn't stop to think. He went into action.

As one of the best high school quarterbacks and defensive ends in Mississippi, Kaleb's years of athletic training kicked in and he tackled the girl, knocking the .38 caliber semi-automatic out of her hands and allowing the 20 other children on the bus to escape unharmed.

Kaleb, 18, is nominated as one of Beliefnet's Most Inspiring People of the Year for having the courage and clear-headedness to think of others before himself.

"I just tried to catch her attention, tried to get her to point the gun directly at me," Kaleb told reporters. "I just tried to calm her down and get the gun away from her and she refused. So I just tried to get her attention, and as she blinked for a second, I just lunged at her."

If he had not reacted so selflessly and quickly, there might have been a bloodbath. The gun had five rounds of ammunition in it, and the girl, upset over being bullied, was distraught and threatened every child, ages 5 to 18, on the bus.

"He made the absolutely right call," said Yazoo County Sheriff Thomas Vaughan. "If it had not been for what he had done on that bus, there would be a lot of sad families today."

His younger sisters were among the children on the bus.

“He made the statement to one of my deputies that if she was going to shoot anyone, he would rather she shoot him,” Vaughan said. “Watching him do that and him doing such a heroic act and not even caring about his own safety, that’s something you don’t see every day.”

Zach Bonner

Caring Kid Who Helps the Homeless

"Kids are never too young to make a difference," says 12-year-old Zach Bonner, a sixth-grader in Tampa, Fla. "No matter how old or how young, how rich or how poor, you can always make a difference. Whether you donate a dollar or a hundred dollars, it all adds up."

Zach began at 6, hauling his Radio Flyer through his hometown, collecting bottled water for hurricane victims. But his greatest concern, even at that age, was the plight of homeless children. At 7 he was filling backpacks with food, hygiene products, and simple toys for kids living on the street, some of whom had never had a new toy. “There are 1.3 million homeless kids in America,” says Zach. “And 13 die each day on the street.”

One of his projects, “24 Hours,” got kids like him to spend a day and night living on the street in cardboard boxes to experience what homeless kids go through. Last year he made a 1200-mile "My House to the White House" walk to raise money to house homeless youth, and he is now embarked on a coast-to-coast walk to benefit a boys' and girls' club in Los Angeles.

Zach is nominated as one of Beliefnet's Most Inspiring People of the Year for living his conviction that no one is ever too young to change the world.

When Zach grows up, he'd like to be an attorney who also spends time giving back to the community. "I hope that service will always be a part of my life," he said. "When we do the projects, we get to interact with the kids. You get to see the joy on their faces. It makes everything worth it, all the hard work."

Jill and Kevin's Wedding Dance

Dancing Couple Share Joy and Donations

Last June, as bride-to-be Jill Peterson, her fiancé Kevin Heinz, and 16 wedding attendants rehearsed the couple's wedding procession, they put on Chris Brown's recording of "Forever" and let loose their inner hip-hoppers. Their super-sassy, booty-busting, uninhibited wedding dance down the aisle, captured on video, is five minutes and 10 seconds of utter joy.

It released a flood of happiness that spread way beyond the St. Paul, Minn., church as the video of the event went viral, garnering more than 31 million views to date. The happy couple beamed from morning news programs and talk shows and even inspired an episode of "The Office."

But while many people in today's reality-TV world might have taken their 15 minutes of fame and sought endorsements, Jill and Kevin went another route. They turned their video into an anti-domestic violence fundraising tool--very apropos, as it turned out, since a month after the wedding, singer Brown pleaded guilty to assaulting his girlfriend Rihanna.

Kevin and Jill Heinz, both 28, are nominated as two of Beliefnet's Most Inspiring People of the Year for spreading joy and creatively using their experience for a good cause.

Fans of the video can click onto the couple's website and make a donation to the Sheila Wellstone Institute. To date, it has generated more than $15,000 in donations to the charity.

"I loved dance as a way to express yourself and share joy," Jill said. "So it was something that I always thought about doing."

"I am just glad I didn't hurt myself," Kevin said.

(Click here to view jkweddingdance.com.)

Jorge Munoz

Feeding the Hungry

Jorge Munoz is a man who has made it his mission to help the less fortunate by putting his money where their mouths are. Mostly financed by his modest salary as a school bus driver, Munoz buys food, helps cook it and personally delivers it—every day! For the last five years, he has devoted a huge chunk of his time and money, providing daily free meals to the hungry in Queens, a borough of New York City. Rain or shine, hot or cold, weekday or weekend, Munoz dishes out chicken, rice, hot chocolate, and coffee to the poor from the back of his truck parked under an elevated subway stop.

Munoz, 45, is nominated as one of Beliefnet's Most Inspiring Persons of the Year for his selflessness in using his own resources to look after the less fortunate.

"I think God has given me this to do," Munoz told Beliefnet. "Everyday, when I get up, I pray to God and say thanks a lot because I have a bed, hot coffee, something to wear. These guys, they do not have that. Most of them, they are by themselves."

Munoz remembers what it was to be like "these guys" – illegal, underemployed, and confounded by a new country. He was born in Colombia and came to New York after his mother, a widow, found work there. He became a citizen in 1987, and in 2004 he began handing out brown bag meals to day laborers, most of them undocumented.

His mother, Blanca, prepares the food while Munoz or his sister, Luz, serves it. Recently, they were joined by his five-year-old nephew, Justin. Organized as a nonprofit, An Angel in Queens, they serve as many as 140 meals a night made from food purchased with Jorge's salary and food donations from small groceries and bakeries.

Munoz says that anyone can help others in their own neighborhoods by not throwing away extra food. "Put it on a plate and bring it to somebody on the corner," he said. "Get them a cup of coffee. When you see their faces, when they smile, you're going to see a difference. You do a great thing for them."

Air Force Maj. Tobin Griffeth and Air Force Capt. Katie Illingworth

Officers Aiding the Afghan People

Reaching out to the people of Afghanistan is one of the hardest parts of the war effort. It is not easy to get Americans, with all their challenges at home, to focus their concern on people who are half a world away. But two Air Force officers have found an unusual method--turning the football rivalry between their two universities into something much bigger: a battle for the hearts and minds of Afghans.

Major Tobin Griffeth and Capt. Katie Illingworth, two Air Force officers serving at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, are nominated as Beliefnet's Most Inspiring People of the Year for turning the Battle of the Red River--the University of Texas Longhorns vs. the University of Oklahoma Sooners, into Operation Red River Cares, a charity drive for warm clothes, shoes, and school supplies for suffering Afghans.

"We started this because it's the right thing to do," said Griffeth, a graduate of the University of Texas, Arlington. "In a war where we'll spend millions on bombs or missiles, it only makes sense to spend money on clothes, or socks."

"I’m a diehard Sooner fan, and our rivalry with Texas generates a lot of energy," said Katie Illingworth, an Oklahoma alumna. "We thought it would be great to direct that energy to helping people here."

The officers came up with the idea when military chaplains expressed a need for basic supplies among local Afghans. When family members asked how they could help, the two officers, who are both lawyers, took what had been a teasing game between them to another level. They decided that each school would be assigned a "point" for each box of donations that came from its fans and supporters. So far Texas is ahead, but Illingworth swears more OU boxes are on the way.

The contest ends Dec. 3, but the officers would like to see other college rivalries join in 2010--perhaps Alabama v. Auburn and, of course, Army v. Navy.

"This is a way we can help better the lives of the Afghan people," Illingworth said. "I think this project can be far-reaching and have great results."

Paul Levy

CEO Who Saved Jobs

In a year of devastating budget cuts with thousands losing their jobs around the country, Paul Levy, CEO of Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, was faced with the painful prospect of cutting 600 jobs due to budget shortfalls.

But Levy, 59, went a different route. He involved the entire hospital staff in brainstorming ways to avoid layoffs. "You should trust the people you work with because they care about the place and they care about one another. So why not trust them to come up with approaches that make it better?" he told Ode Magazine.

"I knew it would be very hard for people to find new jobs and I did not want to put them through that," Levy told Beliefnet. "So I immediately started thinking if everybody in the organization makes a small sacrifice, we can save these jobs. And that led to the next question: how can we make that happen?"

It happened in "town meetings" where skilled employees--doctors, nurses, accountants--came up with a plan to cut their own salaries and benefits so that low-wage workers might be spared. Many of these were struggling immigrants, and others had a spouse already out of work. Setting an example, Levy cut his own $1 million-plus salary.

Most of the hospital's skilled workers took a pay cut. What they gained was greater than any dollar amount--a recharged sense of family, support, and the value of each employee's labor. Ultimately, only 70 jobs were lost.

Paul Levy is nominated as one of Beliefnet's Most Inspiring Persons of the Year for showing consideration for his employees and trusting in their compassion.

"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you--all the rest is just commentary," Levy says, quoting an old story about the Jewish scholar Hillel. "It's a code to live by, and if you behave that way, the world will be better a place because other people will behave that way back."

Michael J. Fox

Unwavering Optimist

In his long struggle with Parkinson's disease, Michael J. Fox has never given in to the darkness of the disease--the trembling limbs, the frozen muscles, the vertigo that threatened to end his acting career. Instead, he has made misfortune his ally, using it to rally people against the degenerative brain disease.

Fox is nominated as one of Beliefnet's Most Inspiring People of the Year for his unwavering optimism, even in the face of debilitating illness and the uncertainty of a cure.

"I often say now I don't have any choice whether or not I have Parkinson's," Fox, 48, told Beliefnet earlier this year. "But surrounding that non-choice is a million other choices that I can make . . . These are new choices and they lead to amazing places." Among those places is the forefront of the battle against Parkinson's through his Michael J. Fox Foundation, which is in pursuit of a cure. To date, it has raised more than $154 million dollars for research. He has also been a vocal advocate for stem cell research because of its potential to help those with Parkinson's and many other illnesses.

Fox is also the best-selling author of "Lucky Man" (2002) and "Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist" (2009). The titles of his books reflect his conviction that every setback is a chance to rise up even stronger. When Rush Limbaugh accused him of exaggerating his Parkinson's-induced tremors for political attention, Fox termed the criticism a "great favor" for bringing attention to the disease.

"I see possibilities in everything," he told Beliefnet. "For everything that's taken away, something of greater value has been given. As big as my problems are, as big as Parkinson's is, for example, it can't take up that much space in a world that has so much capacity for good stuff. It just doesn't. I just don't let it take up that much room."

Iranian Protesters for Freedom

The Call for Democracy Heard Around the World

They risked everything to stand up for freedom.

After Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad captured a second term in a highly questionable and disputed election, hundreds of thousands of Iranian citizens took to the streets. They called themselves the Green Movement. Many were beaten, arrested and ultimately sentenced to long prison terms and even death. Others, like Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, were shot by Iranian police for having the temerity to object to dictatorship. Perhaps as many as 72 people died on the streets of Tehran in the three months after the election.

The Iranian post-election protesters are nominated as Beliefnet's Most Inspiring People of the Year for their refusal to defer the dream of democracy and their willingness to sacrifice their personal freedom, and even their lives, to see it come to pass.

"I am fed up with the rigging of votes," Nargess Hassanpour, a 24-year-old architect, told the Los Angeles Times. "I am here and I march toward Azadi [Freedom] Square as far as I can reach, and let come what may."

No one knows how many protesters participated in the wake of the June 12 elections, in which opposition candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi claimed victory. The protests were the largest in that country in 30 years.

The protests, though more subdued in the last six months, have not died out. The Green Path of Hope is continuing to protest against Ahmadinejad's presidency and to follow lawful and peaceful methods to claim their constitutional rights.