Hill Harper<\/b> (CSI: New York’<\/i>s Dr Sheldon Hawkes) was a member of the Blue Ribbon Panel that selected this year’s Top 10 CNN Heroes, and the actor continues to push young people toward achieving excellence through mentoring, scholarships and grant programmes.<\/p>\n
\nVoting is now open<\/a> for the CNN Hero of the Year. The winner will be announced during CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute<\/i>, which airs on Thanksgiving night, November 25, at 8:00pm ET. The Top 10 CNN Heroes honor everyday people doing extraordinary things. It’s important to recognize how these people change the world because “at the end of the day, that’s the only way the world is going to change,” Harper told CNN. “Change happens from the bottom up—all of us as individuals deciding that we will and we do have an impact.”<\/p>\n \nThe New York<\/i> actor is also a bestselling author, and he used some of the proceeds from his first book, Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny<\/i> to start the Manifest Your Destiny Foundation<\/a>. Since 2005, 120 kids have gone through the foundation, and even more have been affected indirectly. “[W]e’ve had nearly 2,000 kids be touched by the programme, whether it’s us going out and speaking to groups of kids and donating books or having them come to our toy drives and then getting some kind of lessons,” Harper said.<\/p>\n \n“I started to find that a lot of our young people just don’t have mentors,” Harper explained. “They don’t have individuals to help them navigate their journey. ‘Manifest your destiny’ means what it is: If you have a dream, if you have a goal, let’s figure out how to get you there.” He added that mentoring is important because “we either rise or fall based on the expectations that are placed upon us.”<\/p>\n \nYou can find a video of Harper discussing the Manifest Your Destiny Foundation embedded below:<\/p>\n \n