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Go online and vote so Tyrique Glasgow of South Philly can be named the next CNN Hero of the Year

Without a lot of fanfare, Tyrique Glasgow has quietly been tending to the needs of low-income South Philly residents in the same neighborhood where he used to ply his trade as a drug dealer.

Tyrique Glasgow (right) works out of his Young Chances Foundation in South Philadelphia on Tuesday with his mother, Yvonne Glasgow. He is a finalist for the annual CNN Heroes contest.
Tyrique Glasgow (right) works out of his Young Chances Foundation in South Philadelphia on Tuesday with his mother, Yvonne Glasgow. He is a finalist for the annual CNN Heroes contest.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer

A lot of us might not have made it through the pandemic were it not for Ala Stanford, founder of the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium. So I was kind of salty when she wasn’t named last year’s CNN Hero of the Year.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that Philly might not have come out as hard as it could have for her. She literally dropped everything and took to the streets to test folks for COVID-19 during a time when tests were hard to come by, particularly in African American neighborhoods. Once a vaccine finally became available, she went on to help lead a citywide effort to get people inoculated. Despite the narrative that the majority of Black folks would refuse to be inoculated, many waited in long lines for hours in the bitter cold to get the shot from someone they trusted.

During the CNN Heroes award ceremony last year, Anthony Fauci acknowledged Stanford’s work. The year’s top award, however, went to Shirley Raines, who does phenomenal work providing beauty and other services to homeless people on Los Angeles’ Skid Row.

Although Raines was a worthy winner, I hope the heroes in our city get a little more love this time around. And, as it so happens, South Philly’s own Tyrique Glasgow of the Young Chances Foundation is one of this year’s 10 finalists, and he really deserves our support.

» READ MORE: With life on the corner behind him, guiding others (from May 2015)

Without a lot of fanfare, Glasgow has quietly been tending to the needs of low-income South Philly residents. It’s the same neighborhood where he used to ply his trade as a drug dealer — and where he was shot 11 times. Glasgow, now 39, served time for his misdeeds and returned home in 2011 determined to do good for a neighborhood in which he had once done so much harm.

As CNN pointed out on its Heroes website, he’s gone from being “a drug dealer to a community healer” and played a key role in such revitalization efforts as creating a neighborhood garden in honor of 3-year-old Tynirah Borum, who was shot and killed in 2014 while sitting on a front porch getting her hair braided.

I was outside the Young Chances headquarters in the 2700 block of Tasker Street earlier this week as residents of all backgrounds wandered by and helped themselves to bananas, kiwi, sausages, bread, fresh greens, and other donated groceries. All they had to do was sign their names and take what they need, no questions asked. Same thing with the used clothing hung up on a rack and shoes lined up along a sidewalk. As I watched, a passerby shook Glasgow’s hand and called him “Black Angel.”

I caught myself staring bug-eyed at an enclosed bookshelf with a glass door that was filled with books and VHS tapes that Glasgow uses as a makeshift public library. I made a silent promise to return with some books from my personal collection to donate. It’s the least that I can do — besides encouraging everyone who reads this column to go online and vote for Glasgow.

It’s not complicated. Once you’re on the page, it will only take a few seconds. All you have to do is find Glasgow’s name, sign in using your Facebook or email, and cast your vote. You get 10 votes a day. CNN will even send you a daily reminder to log back in and do it again. The last day to vote is Dec. 6. The winner will be announced on Dec. 11 and will receive $100,000 to continue their good work. Should Glasgow be named CNN Hero of the Year, he plans to contribute $25,000 of his winnings to some other local organization that needs it.

Glasgow isn’t the type to launch a huge media campaign or spend his entire day on social media making posts hyping people up and reminding them to go to CNN’s website to vote for him. He’s not that kind of guy. He’s about the people and making sure residents have enough to eat. He’s about handing out hot meals twice a week. He’s about organizing after-school activities for children in his neighborhood.

In fact, he didn’t even set out to become a CNN Hero. A neighborhood resident nominated him. Then, one of the cable network’s senior producers contacted him a few times over several years before he even got around to filling out the paperwork to get this far. Now that he has made it to the finals, the least we can do is support him — the way he does his South Philadelphia neighborhood every single day.