CNN Heroes

For those of us thirsting for a meaningful Christmas and meaning in the world, CNN Heroes Presentation was like a drinking fountain, with cool and sweet water runneth.



From a nun who runs a boarding school for abducted and raped girls in Uganda, to a dentist who gives free treatment in Kenya for a 60,000 people ratio, to a Cambodian ex-prostitute who no spends her life rescuing young girls sold to brothels, to a 10-year old boy with leukemia who goes around the USA, collecting swabs of DNA for a bone marrow bank, to a Cuban woman who organized a dignified living for the poor collecting garbage, thus producing the most efficient organic garden from proper segregation--so many ordinary people doing extraordinary things to better the world.



Only a year after he was diagnosed with leukemia, 12-year-old Pat Pedraja began a one-kid mission to change the makeup of the nation's bone marrow registry. He persuaded his family to get a bus and drive cross-country to encourage minorities like himself to become marrow donors.

In just three months, Pedraja raised more than $100,000 and helped sign up more than 5,000 people to the registry. He plans to tour next summer, too.

"People don't know that it's such a big issue," he said. "People are dying each day, and people aren't informed about that, and I want to change that."

Visit the link here and view the whole list of the most extraordinary people who will remind us that there is a hero in each of us, too.