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This year, we’re proud to power giving for the2025 Top 5 CNN Heroes, five changemakers whose work is reshaping their communities and beyond. Through Pledge, you can support their missions directly, split your gift between all five, and help choose the Hero of the Year.
👋 Meet 2025’s Heroes:
🌼 Quilen Blackwell (South Side Blooms, Chicago)
For more than a decade, Quilen Blackwell has used sustainable agriculture to cultivate opportunities that help residents of Chicago’s low-income neighborhoods blossom. Today, his social enterprise, Southside Blooms, turns vacant lots into eco-friendly flower farms, employing 25 local young people to grow, harvest, arrange, and sell flowers at the group’s nonprofit flower shop.
“This is about creating real and tangible opportunity in a place that desperately needs it. Our young people are blossoming and blooming every single day.”
👉 Support Quilen’s cause or text QUILEN to 707070 to donate now 💜
🐾 Heidi Carman (First Responder Therapy Dogs, California)
When massive wildfires hit California in 2020, Heidi Carman and her certified therapy dog, Kerith, made it their mission to comfort firefighters working on the front lines. The experience led her to realize the national need for this type of support, which has been proven to reduce stress, so she started First Responder Therapy Dogs. Since 2021, her nonprofit has certified more than 480 therapy dog teams and provided relief to more than 150,000 first responders in 46 states.
“We have helped so many people. I’m grateful to Kerith for showing me the way.”
👉 Support Heidi’s mission or text HEIDI to 707070 to donate now 💜
🍴 Hillary Cohen (Every Day Action, Los Angeles)
As an assistant director for television shows in Los Angeles, Hillary Cohen was appalled that the gourmet food served on set was thrown away at the end of each day. So, she and a colleague started Every Day Action, and today the nonprofit organizes volunteers and industry professionals to pick up food from film sets and other businesses and deliver it to people in need. Since 2020, the group says it has rescued more than 270,000 meals – ensuring that the food helps alleviate hunger and doesn’t go to waste.
“Giving someone that’s hungry, food – is the best thing one can do. Now more than ever, we have to help each other.”
👉 Support Hillary’s work or text HILLARY to 707070 to donate now 💜
✍️ Debra Des Vignes (Indiana Prison Writers Workshop, Indianapolis)
After spending a decade as a crime reporter, Debra Des Vignes wanted to volunteer at a prison to better understand the people she reported on. The experience spurred her to start the Indiana Prison Writers Workshop, a 12-week creative writing program that provides a safe space for incarcerated people to share their work and find healing and community. Since 2018, the program has expanded to eight prisons, serving more than 250 incarcerated individuals, and created a 38% reduction in prison conduct violations.
“Learning their stories and where they come from puts it all into perspective. It’s given my life meaning, purpose.”
👉 Support Debra’s program or text DEBRA to 707070 to donate now 💜
🐶 Tim Woodward (Animal Rescue Corps, Tennessee)
Tim Woodward has dedicated his life to saving forgotten and abused animals. Since 2011, the nonprofit he co-founded, Animal Rescue Corps, has removed animals from large-scale cruelty and neglect situations, often saving hundreds of animals from a single residence where they live in horrific conditions. Because of the organization, more than 10,000 abused and forgotten animals have been rescued and go on to live happy lives.
“My hope for the animals is that they have the best life possible and that they forget all about where they came from.”
👉 Support Tim’s rescue work or text TIM to 707070 to donate now 💜
Here’s how else you can join their journey:
💬 Text the Hero’s name to 707070 to make a direct donation
💸 Explore and support their fundraisers via: https://www.pledge.to/cnn-heroes-2025
💰Donate evenly to all heroes: https://www.pledge.to/cnn-top-5-heroes
🗳️ Cast your vote for the Hero of the Year at: http://www.cnn.com/heroes/vote (you get 10 votes per day, every day through Nov 30)
💜 Share your support for your favorite hero on social media and tag us @Pledgetodogood
Together, we’re making generosity go further — one hero, one story, one act of kindness at a time