The MY HERO Project: Mission Statement

Celebrate the best of humanity.

Participate using MY HERO's online tools.
Create your digital media portfolio now.

MY HERO will not publish anything that promotes hatred, violence or prejudice. As a child-friendly website, we are dedicated to cultivating peace, tolerance and diversity.

The Create Program enables visitors to design Web pages with text, images, and links to honor their heroes.
Did you know? Last year, over 5,400 story submission were activated and over 150 t-shirt prizes were awarded to authors whose essays were featured on the website!

Add your original artwork that portray heroes, heroism, or heroic deeds in a variety of media.
Did you know? Our curator reviews and activates submissions and keeps the Gallery homepage current by creating theme-appropriate art collections to feature online.

Submit your film about your hero or heroism to the MY HERO website.
Did you know? Films in our growing archive come from students and professionals around the world, including Academy award winners.

Share and listen to music and audio presentations of poetry, hero essays and interviews.
Did you know? Students in other countries use the Audio Gallery to read and listen to our stories to learn English!

Give a short shout-out to whatever hero is on your mind right now!
Did you know? Since 1995 and the launch of MY HERO, we've gathered over 150,000 "tweets" about heroes from around the world!

Review events and contribute notable heroes, important events in history, UN celebration dates, and collaborative happenings with MY HERO.
Did you know? Soon, you'll be able to create your own calendar using our data!

Change your information both public and private.
Did you know? You can choose to make your information public so people who view your media can know a little bit about yourself!

Standards based lesson plans, collaborative tools, tutorials, flyers, FAQs, selected stories, and more are available for educators!
Much of the teacher's room is a closed community - we verify and manually approve educators to promote a safe and fun place for teachers to collaborate.

Contribute to the discussion about the meaning of heroism, what it means to be a hero, and how should we choose our heroes.
Did you know? MY HERO isn't just a stagnant website. We are a team of educators and artists that continually update the site, monitor submissions, and assist teachers and visitors!

Share Inspiring Short Films

Students of all ages, amateur and professional filmmakers are all invited to contribute short inspiring films to our online multimedia library. We accept all genres of film - documentary, narrative, experimental and music video. All work submitted to MY HERO is reviewed by MY HERO Staff to ensure that it is child friendly and does not promote hatred, violence, sexism or racism. MY HERO's short film library and media arts education resources are help students develop their digital media and filmmaking skills.

How to Submit

There are three ways you can share your short film on the MY HERO Website...

Short Films compressed to under 1GB, AVI or MOV format, and with a maximum resolution of 848 x 480 for widescreen, or 720 x 480 for standard video can be uploaded directly to our website by registering for a MY HERO account.

You can provide a link to a film on the internet.

You can mail us a DVD.

International Film Festival

Visitors also have the option of submitting original short films 10 minutes and under to The MY HERO International Film Festival.

Screening Room

The MY HERO online Screening Room is used by millions of students in classrooms around the world to discover heroes from around the world promoting environmental awareness, cross-cultural understanding and character education.

Create a Web Story

The MY HERO web site digital archive hosts thousands of stories about heroes written by people around the world. Visit our Directory of Heroes to see some of the best work from this ever-growing Internet archive of hope. The homepage features selected content by theme: including Black History Month, Human Rights Day, Earth Day, International Day of Peace and Tolerance and more.

What is The Create Program?

The MY HERO Create Program enables visitors to design Web pages with text, images and links to honor their heroes. This Web authoring tool can be applied across interdisciplinary school curricula and in after-school, vocational, or library programs to build critical thinking, reading, writing, and media literacy skills. Once a writer submits a story, MY HERO staff will review it and activate it, if it is acceptable according to MY HERO's standards. An automated letter with the active story link will be sent to the email address provided by the writer. The MY HERO staff awards t-shirt prizes and certificates to authors of outstanding essays.

Student artists and professionals contribute original hero-themed paintings, drawings, mixed media pieces and digital creations to the MY HERO Gallery. Curators review and activate submissions to ensure all images are child friendly. They also create collections around special themes or current topics to feature online. The MY HERO Gallery offers teachers a visual tool to build skills and explore the subject of heroism, simultaneously bringing traditional and digital art projects into the classroom and increasing student's computer and publishing skills.

*Professional artists like Robert Shetterly, September McGee and Shepard Fairey connect to young artists by sharing their own visions of heroism.

Create and share original hero themed songs, music, poetry and spoken word stories in the MY HERO Audio Studio. Using Garage Band, and other software programs visitors can record and publish ORIGINAL music and audio programs saved in the MP3 format to share online with our global community.

The audio portal serves as a resource for ESL Learners

Selected essays from the web site and chapters from our book, MY HERO: Extraordinary People On The Heroes Who Inspire Them can be heard on MY HERO/Audio. Students can listen to hero stories being read out loud by professionals while they read along the text of the story online. Using this program helps to encourage understanding of written and spoken language, and the exploration of the concept of heroism.

The MY HERO Guestbook

The Guestbook contains short entries about inspiring people and acts. It's the easiest way to add your ideas to The MY HERO Project. You can write just a few sentences about who or what inspires you: a scientist, artist, environmentalist, friend, family member or anything really, even just a cause or issue.

Since 1995, over 150,000 visitors have honored artists, environmentalists, peacemakers, lifesavers, friends, family, and other heroes in the Guestbook Program. Sign the guestbook and honor your hero...

Write a Story

The Create Program was MY HERO's first Global Storytelling program. Since we started hosting hero stories in 1995, we've collected over 100,000 stories written by people around the world. Along side the guests, students, and teachers writing stories about thier heroes, MY HERO editors, artists and designers collaborate to produce dynamic features that explore themes such as Black History Month, Human Rights Day, Earth Day, International Day of Peace and Tolerance, and more.

What is The Create Program?

The MY HERO Create Program enables visitors to design Web pages with text, images, and links to honor their heroes. This Web authoring tool is designed to be applied across interdisciplinary school curricula and in after-school, vocational, and library programs to build critical thinking, reading, writing, and media literacy skills. In 2010, Editors Rebecca Miller and David Kemker reviewed, edited and activated over 5,000 essay submissions. Over 110 t-shirt prizes were awarded to authors whose essays were featured on the website.

365 Days of Heroes

The MY HERO calendar features hero birthdays, United Nations international days, thematic content and special events of interest to teachers and students. The purpose is to facilitate the integration of heroic events into educators' curricula on a daily basis. Posts from the calendar are also shared on twitter.com/myhero. Major events are featured on the homepage banners, such as Black History Month, Human Rights Day, Earth Day, International Day of Peace and Tolerance and more.

Media Watch

Share outstanding resources in the mass media that explore the theme of heroism or that celebrate outstanding heroes with our audience.

Have you seen a great theatrical play, film, performance, blog, or multi-media installation which has brought to life a hero from the past? Did you recently watch an outstanding segment on broadcast television that celebrated the best of humanity? Share these resources with our team and visitors around the world.

Use this form to nominate outstanding TV programs, youtube videos, archival media, radio programs, and other media with our global community.

Uplifting News Stories

MY HERO has partnered with The Associated Press to bring you student-friendly current events and news. Our staff sifts through thousands of articles and photos to bring you stories about heroes and heroism. These current events are about people who use science, technology, art, and community service to make a difference in the world. The stories are presented in a short, child-friendly format and are suitable for use in the classroom to explore current events with a positive slant.

The Teacher's Room

The Teacher's Room provides tools specifically for educators. The MY HERO Teacher's Room has standards-aligned lesson plans that can be used across many different disciplines, including English and social studies, media arts, science and environmental studies, English as a second language, and in character education, special and gifted educational programs. MY HERO's media arts and web-authoring programs build skills in critical thinking, communication, project management, research and media literacy. Virtual classrooms called Learning Circles allow students around the globe to communicate and collaborate, fostering an appreciation for diversity and a sense of global citizenship.

Each year, over 270,000 visitors from around the world come to the MY HERO Teacher's Room to access educational resources, tutorials, and unique tools to create customized directories of their students' work or selected MY HERO content.

The Organizer Tool

Teachers can utilize the Organizer tool to create a unique index of students' activated MY HERO stories. You can link this index to your school Web site so students can view each other's work and share their hero stories with their parents. You can also use the Organizer tool to collect content on MY HERO for lesson plans on various topics such as art, science, geography, multiculturalism, character education, global citizenship, social action and more.

Discuss Heroism and Virtues

The Heroic Virtues Forum asks participants to share their insights on what qualities make someone a hero. Through discussion boards and various threads, visitors can read essays, posts and contribute their own ideas about the following characteristics of heroes: Vision, Humility, Love, Faith, Perseverance, Joy, Honesty and Hope. Or you can do a "Virtues Pick" and view a card on a specific trait to generate reflection and discussion. Other forums include "How should we choose our heroes" and "what kinds of heroes should we embrace?" These discussions are still available in the Forum archive.