We are here to honor some real heroes -- heroes all of whom have put others ahead of themselves...
 Anderson Cooper arrives...
And the entire city knows that the heroes are in town ready for the broadcast
The Red Carpet is in place.
And we are here.
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Hollywood and the CNN Heroes Celebration
Ah, the shine of Hollywood. Flying in, I sat next to a film
producer who lives in Salt Lake City to escape the craziness of Los
Angeles but spends most of his life on the road between one coast or
the other. Life on the road...now there's something I know a bit
about.
This is one road event that will be the bright sparkle in my heart for
a long time, though. Yohannes Gebregeorgis had been chosen as one
of the top CNN heroes of the year by a Blue Ribbon panel that included
Jane Goodall and Desmond Tutu. I'd spent weeks urging librarians
and teachers and school kids and Ethiopian-Americans and readers at
large to vote, vote, vote. Truthfully, every time I visited the
CNN heroes page to vote, myself, I glanced at the other 9. But I
didn't take time to read their stories. After all, I wasn't going
to change MY vote. Maybe I was even a tiny bit cynical.
May I be the first to admit my mistake. Every one of the heroes
had a story that pulled me in and made me gasp with astonishment and
pride to be a fellow human being. That, however, came
later. First, Laura Bond (US director of Ethiopia Reads) and I
had to admire a few stars on the sidewalk, visit a wax musum (this
after resisting wax museums in Amsterdam and London), stand and stare
at the cool signs on the Kodak Theater (where the Academy Awards are
handed out), imagine Yohannes on the red carpet, and watch Anderson
Cooper, who hosted the hero event, bustle past.
That night, we were escorted back to the theater to watch Yohannes get
his make-up on and stand around, startled to recognize Vanessa Redgrave
and the guy who played the farmer in BABE. Then we were bustled
in--to front row seats with Yohannes and his two sons--where we spent
the evening yards away from the likes of Christina Aguilera, John
Legend, Cameron Diaz, Forrest Whitaker (who gave Yohannes his award),
Meg Ryan, and (of course) the heroes.
Wow. The images are stuck in my brain: a sweetly grinning old man
taking the first step of his life. The hero who thanked her
fellow nannies for their $10/month contributions to keep her school
going in Malawai. (Go, nannies.) Of course those brilliant
Ethiopian kids, holding books in their hands for the very first time,
calling out, "Ethiopia reads."
CNN knows the power of good storytelling, and every one of the clips
was gripping, moving, heart-expanding. After Yohannes had his
moment in the sun, Hill Harper, from CSI New York, leaned forward to
offer to donate the books he's written. I understood the
impulse. By the end, I wanted to whip out my own checkbook and
help those 10 heroes do their life-changing work in the world. On
my way out, I took Vanessa Redgrave's hand and said, "Thank you for
coming."
She shook her head--warm, gracious, full of emotion. "No, thank YOU. Thank YOU so, so much."
That's the kind of evening it was. Cynics 0, Heroes 2000+.
 
Jane Kurtz
November 27, 2008
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