cover image Local Heroes

Local Heroes

William R. Berkowitz. Lexington Books, $0 (350pp) ISBN 978-0-669-15829-8

This collection of interviews with ""ordinary people of extraordinary accomplishment in their communities'' establishes a ``new heroic model for our time.'' Twenty interviews allow a variety of community builders to tell their stories. We hear from Curtis Silwa of the Guardian Angels in Brooklyn; Bill and Helene Sample, whose Philadelphia Sunshine Foundation strives to fulfill the wishes of terminally ill children; Texan Candy Lightner of MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving); Ellen Cassedy of 9-to-5 in Cleveland; Phyllis and David York, founders of the Pennsylvania-based Tough Love, and other individuals whose community service meets a perceived need and provides social support in a non-institutional format. Berkowitz, a psychologist at the University of Lowell, Mass., describes these people as heroes of a new sort, heroes because they make a difference in their home environments and inspire others to join in enterprises that bring about betterment, physical and emotional, for many. (November)