Most Inspiring Person of the Year 2009

A calm pilot, a brave actor, a wedding...

By Nell Minow

Humanity's earliest stories were about heroes. I'm sure that the same people who created those breathtaking cave painting up to 25,000 years ago sat around campfires telling stories of people who triumphed over charging sabertooth tigers or assaults from other tribes. The great myths and legends of ancient Greece first used the word that decame hero. Those literally larger-than-life figures were demi-gods like Hercules who exemplified courage and protecting others without regard to risk.

In 1903, one of the very first films to tell a story, The Great Train Robbery, featured a heroic posse who captured the title thieves. And since then movies have given us unforgettable heroes and heroines who continue to enthrall and inspire us. Here is my 12 favorite-first six fictional characters and then six inspired by real-life heroes.

Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger

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Jorge Munoz

Feeding the Hungry
(An Angel in Queens)

Some angels don’t have wings or haloes. They are the people who quietly see others’ needs and fill them. Jorge Munoz is one of those angels. Every day for the last five years, he has provided 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 buys much of the food with his own salary as a school bus driver.

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 gonna see a difference. You do a great thing for them."

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

Officers with a Purpose

Reaching out to the people of Afghanistan is one of the hardest parts of the war effort. 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 half a world away.

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 Persons 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.”

How to Help: Donations can be sent via flat-rate priority boxes: CJTF-82-OSJA APO AE 09354, addressed to Major Griffeth for Texas or Captain Illingworth for OU.

Paul Levy

Job-Saving Employer

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

Incurable Optimist

In his near three-decade 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 Persons 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 battle against Parkinson's through his Michael J. Fox Foundation (http://www.michaeljfox.org/), 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 a top-selling author, the titles of his books--Lucky Man (2002) and Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist (2009)--reflecting his conviction that every setback is a chance to rise up even stronger. When Rush Limbaugh accused him of exaggerating his Parkinson-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."