Awesome! NY's Own "An Angel in Queens" to receive Pres. Citizens Medal!

[quiet.american]

In reading through the list of this year's medal recipient winners, one of the names jogged my memory, and sure enough "an angel in Queens" - Jorge Munoz - will be awarded a 2010 Presidential Citizens Medal this afternoon. Mr. Munoz couldn't be more deserving of it. Check out this NYT story on him from 2007 - (stories like this make me think - man, what have I been doing with my life?):

NYT: The Chicken and Rice Man
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/nyregion/thecity/25dinn.html?pagewanted=all

The man, Jorge Muñoz, is an elfin 43-year-old who goes by the nickname Colombia, a reference to the country from which he emigrated 21 years ago.

Every night around 9:30, he arrives at the intersection from his home in Woodhaven, driving a white pickup truck laden with enough home-cooked fare to feed the dozens of day laborers who congregate there.

For many New Yorkers, Thanksgiving is a weekend to indulge in a brief stint of volunteerism at a church or soup kitchen. For Mr. Muñoz, the holiday is just another night devoted to feeding his unofficial flock.

“Every single night, Jorge is here,” said one worker, his leathery face peering out from a hooded sweatshirt. “Doesn’t matter. Rain, thunderstorm, lightning. He do that from his good will, you know.

“He feeds everybody, make the stomach happy,” the worker added. “He’s an angel.”

-----------

The whole story is worth a read. Goes a long way towards shoring up one's faith in humanity.

List of Munoz's fellow Medal winners;
http://www.whitehouse.gov/citizensmedal

[Cha]

1. It makes me tear up cause

he's so caring! Thanks for this article on him, q.american, so we can know more about who's getting the Citizens Medal.

Is this a new thing the Obama Admin came up with to honor our citizens?

Sorry, I haven't read much about it..and I really need to go out for a bit but saw this and could not resist reading a little and replying.

[quiet.american]

2. Hey, Cha - thanks for checking it out - Mr. Munoz is inspiring, isn't he?

Apparently, the Presidential Citizens Medal has been awarded for the past 40 years or so -- one of the differences in the choosing of this year's recipients, though, is that the Administration solicited nominations from the public at large, instead of just approaching it in a top-down way.

(Change I can believe in!) :)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/citizensmedal

[elleng]

3. I've thought of him and his family often, since reading the story.

'The operation through which these workers have been fed without charge began three years ago and is financed mainly from the $600 a week Mr. Muñoz earns driving a school bus.

His life revolves almost entirely around preparing and serving the meals. All the cooking is done in the small house with gray vinyl siding where he lives with his 66-year-old mother, Doris Zapata, and his sister, Luz, who works for the Social Security Administration.

He telephones home from the road a dozen times a day to plan the menus. He has few friends, and no hobbies.

“I haven’t seen a movie in two years,” Mr. Muñoz said one afternoon in his kitchen as he boiled milk for hot chocolate. “But sometimes I listen to music when I’m driving.”

His sister described the situation more bluntly. “He got no life,” she said, looking awkwardly away from her brother as she stirred a boiling pot of lentils. “But he got a big heart. He really does.”'

[quiet.american]

4. It's like he was born to provide sustenance for the people he looks after.

Incredibly inspiring. And it really speaks to the thought -- "well, I'm just one person; I'm not rich; what can I do?"