Northeast of Philadelphia’s city center, where the neighborhood of Kensington folds into Fishtown, there’s Hazzard Street. For years, the name seemed appropriate. After the city and then the kids abandoned a local park—known as Pop’s Playground, for a local who picked up the trash—the drug dealers moved in. Two years ago, the New Kensington Community Development Corporation (NKCDC) offered local skateboarders the opportunity to turn Pop’s into a skate park—if they did it on their own. Jesse Clayton, a local skateboarder, mason and carpenter, heard about the project and jumped at the chance to design his own park. Using Google SketchUp, he laid out a 60 x 110–foot space with a variety of ramps and rails. “I pulled inspiration from average urban architecture,” Clayton, 28, says. “All the things skaters normally skate on but then get kicked out of because it’s public property.” He organized a group of tradesmen who raised money by throwing beef-and-beer fundraisers and auctioning off hand-painted skateboards. Donations also poured in from the Tony Hawk Foundation and Franklin’s Paine Skatepark Fund, a local skating advocacy group. After raising a little over $23,000 on materials, volunteers spent 2500 hours building the park over nine months. They poured 65 yards of concrete and hauled nearly 4000 blocks. “It’s tough to ask people to work for free,” Clayton says. “But a half-dozen showed up every day.” Pop’s Skate Space opened last July. A year later, it’s turned into more than a skate park. “Summer camps use the space, and in the evenings it hosts summer movie nights,” Tom Potts, an NKCDC organizer, says. “It’s a community center.” Clayton, meanwhile, is helping rebuild a nearby park in Whitehall. “The impact of these parks is so far-reaching,” he says. “When a project can bring the community together, it feels like a real success story.”

Eight years ago, Larry Woody was heading toward Eugene, Ore., when the driver of an oncoming tractor-trailer lost control of his rig. Woody’s Toyota Celica was no match; the accident broke his back and shattered bones in his face. Seven hours of surgery closed the wounds and set the bones—but doctors weren’t able to restore his sight. Suddenly, the everyday activities the then 42-year-old had taken for granted weren’t so routine anymore. Woody had spent decades fixing, racing and restoring cars—and being sightless was no reason to stop tinkering. “So much of it is done by feel anyway,” he says. “I just use my hands to see what I’m doing now.” He opened his own place, D&D Automotive, in Cottage Grove, Ore., a quiet town with a population of less than 10,000. A town that needs mentors like Woody. Down the road from Woody’s shop, Cottage Grove High School instituted a School to Work program that matches students with local community mentors. One of the school’s first calls was to Woody. “Not every student is meant to spend years in college,” he says. “If I can do something to help while they’re in high school, it offers them direction and a little bit of experience.” And a little bit of inspiration. Woody’s first apprentice was a 17-year-old named Otto Shima—who was deaf. “He’s just another student, and I’m just another guy trying to help him,” Woody says. Last year, a girl named Scarlett Fulton spent three months at the shop learning the trade, and soon a new student will arrive. “It’s a small town, so everyone heard about the accident,” says Denise Beauchamp, who oversees the program. “Being paired with Larry is empowering for these students, because often they’re struggling in their own ways.”

Against a backdrop of barbed wire, concrete and bitter gang violence, Bill Vanderberg, the 57-year-old dean of students at Crenshaw High School in South Central L.A., launched an Eco Club to lead kids on trips into the nearby mountains. For these mostly poor students, performing tasks like basic trail maintenance, erosion control and building stone steps across streams has opened minds and changed fates. Last year, Vanderberg organized a trip to Yosemite and invited students from rival Dorsey High. Crenshaw High is Crips territory; Dorsey is solidly Bloods. But at a snowed-in cabin during a spring blizzard, the kids bonded and renamed the club the Dorshaw Eco Club. The Sierra Club estimates Vanderberg has introduced over 1000 students to nature. “This project got students outdoors, but it also connected them with each other,” Vanderberg says. “Along the way, we created a whole new group of conservationists.”

Like many of the soldiers he now helps, John Gonsalves doesn’t back away from a challenge. The 44-year-old former construction supervisor knew that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who came home wheelchair-bound would need major overhauls of their old houses—or entirely new ones with adapted living quarters. And, knowing that many of these men could never afford the modifications, Gonsalves looked to volunteer. “I assumed somebody was building homes for them, but nobody was,” he says. So in 2004, he quit his job and launched Homes For Our Troops. The organization builds homes—free of charge—for veterans considered to be 100 percent disabled. Many of the supplies are donated, the land is often purchased at a discount, and community-wide build brigades—like the 400 volunteers who came to the outskirts of San Antonio at the end of April—take the houses from concrete foundations to watertight shells in three days. “We’re so excited, we frequently visit the site to watch it coming together,” says Army Sgt. Nathan Hunt, who lost his legs to an IED in Baghdad. This summer Hunt will move in to one of the homes with his family. “We try to thank the volunteers for everything, but they all want to thank us.” The veterans pay it forward by volunteering for other builds and launching their own charities. Teams have finished 63 homes in 24 states—at a cost of roughly $350,000 each—and another 45 are under development. “Luckily, there aren’t 35,000 servicemen who need these homes,” Gonsalves says. “There are about 1000 who need our help. That’s not an unattainable goal.” With that kind of drive, Gonsalves takes home our first annual Hometown Hero of the Year Award and a $1000 stuffed toolbox—donated by Stanley—that we hope helps him reach his admirable target.