By Kathleen Toner, CNN

Iquitos, Peru (CNN) - Nearly 21 years ago, Patty Webster landed her dream job as an adventure tour guide in the Peruvian Amazon. But as she shared the area's beauty and culture with tourists, she realized there was a darker side to the rainforest paradise.

"I saw how poor they were and realized that people were dying because they didn't have medical care," Webster said.

She started sharing her supplies with the locals and soon began waking up to find people waiting outside her mosquito net to ask her for medicine. At one point, Webster - who had no medical training - gave someone stitches, following instructions from a book.

"It was kind of scary," she recalled. "If they're depending on me for their health care ... we're all going to die."

That's when she decided to stay and do something more.

Since 1993, Webster has been bringing medical relief to some of Peru's poorest and most remote areas through her nonprofit, now known as Amazon Promise.

Webster - described by a visiting doctor as "sort of a cross between Indiana Jones and Mother Teresa and Susan Sarandon" - and her volunteers have provided free health care and education to more than 55,000 people. FULL STORY

Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2010 CNN Heroes

By Kathleen Toner, CNN

Houston, Texas (CNN) - Alexander Reyes' boyhood dream of a military career ended when he was hit by an improvised explosive device during a patrol two years ago in Baghdad.

"Laying in that hospital bed ... sometimes I felt I'd rather [have] died," Reyes said. "My life came to a complete halt."

Reyes sustained severe blast injuries that led to his medical discharge; he's on 100 percent medical disability. Like many soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, Reyes, now 24, found the transition to civilian life difficult.

But he and a handful of other injured veterans are getting help from what may seem an unlikely source: a custom home builder in Houston, Texas.

Dan Wallrath recently presented Reyes and his wife with an unexpected gift: a home built especially for them, mortgage-free.

"Thank you. That's all I can say," Elizabeth Reyes said, sobbing and clutching her stunned husband's arm as Wallrath surprised them with the house.

For Wallrath, giving wounded veterans a place to call home is his way of saying thanks. Since 2005, his organization has built four houses. Five more are under construction, and he's expanding his idea into a national campaign called Operation Finally Home. FULL STORY

Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2010 CNN Heroes

By Leslie Askew, CNN

Lexington, Kentucky (CNN) - In the 1950s, when Dr. Andy Moore's father was the first plastic surgeon in town, many residents didn't have health insurance. But Dr. Andrew Moore Sr. believed that medicine was about service.

"He would accept all kinds of things in payment. People would bring chickens or a bushel of apples or a piece of furniture that they'd made," his son recalled. "He wanted them to be able to maintain their dignity."

Moore says he inherited his father's conviction, as well as his love of medicine.

Moore, who shares a plastic surgery practice with two of his four brothers, started a program that provides outpatient surgical care to Kentucky's uninsured - for free.

On the third Sunday of each month, Surgery on Sunday opens its doors at the Lexington Surgery Center. Since 2005, when Moore persuaded a hospital to donate space and recruited volunteer staff members from across the state, SOS has treated more than 3,100 patients.

Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2010 CNN Heroes

By Ebonne Ruffins, CNN

Magdalena, Colombia (CNN) - To the unaccustomed eye, a man toting 120 books while riding a stubborn donkey would seem nothing short of a circus spectacle. But for hundreds of children in the rural villages of Colombia, Luis Soriano is far from a clown. He is a man with a mission to save rural children from illiteracy.

"There was a time when many people thought that I was going crazy," said Soriano, a native of La Gloria, Colombia. "They'd yell, 'Carnival season is over.' ... Now I've overcome that."

Soriano, 38, is a primary school teacher who spends his free time operating a "biblioburro," a mobile library on donkeys that offers reading education for hundreds of children living in what he describes as "abandoned regions" in the Colombian state of Magdalena.

"In [rural] regions, a child must walk or ride a donkey for up to 40 minutes to reach the closest schools," Soriano said. "The children have very few opportunities to go to secondary school. ...There are [few] teachers that would like to teach in the countryside."

Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2010 CNN Heroes

By Kathleen Toner, CNN

Los Angeles, California (CNN) - At the bus terminal in downtown Los Angeles, they're easy to spot. Dressed in blue jeans, they carry boxes, bags or large envelopes with their name and a number on it. They are ex-offenders, just released from California's prison system. When they step off the bus with $200 in "gate money" in their pockets, many have hopes of making a fresh start.

But in this seedy area just blocks from Skid Row, the new arrivals are easy targets for pimps and drug dealers. For some, the temptation is too much. While not everyone succumbs to the streets so quickly, nearly 60 percent return to prison within three years, according to California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

It's a cycle that Susan Burton is striving to break through her reentry program. Having served six prison terms for drug offenses in the 1980s and '90s, Burton knows from experience how hard it can be.

"Every time I was released, I swore I wasn't going back," said Burton, 57. "But I know now that without the resources and support, it's next to impossible. ... If you don't have a new door to walk through, the only thing is the old door."

Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2010 CNN Heroes

Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) - The villagers' faces light up as Evans Wadongo arrives. Men, women and children sing and gather around as he shows how his invention - a solar-powered LED lantern - will soon light up their homes.

"These families, they are so poor. They don't have electricity," said Wadongo, a native of rural Kenya. "It's only kerosene and firewood that they use for lighting, cooking.

"The amount of money that every household uses to buy kerosene every day - if they can just save that money, they can be able to buy food."

Wadongo, 23, not only is giving his country's rural families a way to replace the smoky kerosene and firelight with solar power, he says he also hopes his invention will ultimately improve education and reduce poverty and hunger. And he's providing it for free. FULL STORY

Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2010 CNN Heroes