CNN Hero of the Year

"If Nobody's Going to Do It, I Will" — How One Man Pulled 12 Million Pounds of Trash from the Mississippi River: The Chad Pregracke Story

At twenty-two, Chad Pregracke launched a battered boat onto the Mississippi River and began pulling out trash—alone. Over twenty-five years, he built a movement of more than 120,000 volunteers and removed over 12 million pounds of debris from America's greatest waterway.