Short list for hero: Queens man Jorge Muñoz feeds 125 daily named finalist for CNN Hero of the Year
In Queens, he's called an angel. Around the world, he's being hailed as a hero.
Bus driver Jorge Muñoz is in the running to be crowned CNN's Hero of the Year for selflessly serving free meals to thousands of hungry strangers for years.
Muñoz, 45, has become a regular fixture beneath the elevated No. 7 line in Jackson Heights, where - each night for more than four years - he has doled out hot food from a mobile food pantry.
"My mother said we'd have a better future here," said Muñoz, who emigrated from Columbia in 1981 and later became a U.S. citizen. "Now I want to make sure others are fed so they can have futures."
Muñoz has been short-listed as one of 10 heroes around the world, from a pool of more than 9,000 names.
The finalists, who win $25,000 each, will be profiled on TV and online.
Viewers can vote for their ultimate good Samaritan from now to Thanksgiving, and the winner will get an additional $100,000.
"I couldn't believe it," Muñoz said after hearing he was one of CNN's top 10. "I would give the food no matter what."
Muñoz's home has turned into a makeshift food pantry: His living room is filled with cartons of milk and boxes of graham crackers. His basement is overflowing with food.
Each weekday, he rises at 5 a.m. and spends his mornings as a bus driver ferrying children to school.
By the afternoon, he is in his Woodhaven home slaving over the stove with his mother and sister before they pack the food into cartons and dish up at least 125 dinners each night.
And his generosity seemingly knows no bounds: He also has housed and fed a homeless man he met at church for the past two months.
"You just have to share whatever you can," said Muñoz, who spends about $150 a week of his own money on supplies and relies on donations and food handouts for the rest.
"It's a mission that I am on. God helps me on this mission."
Muñoz says he will use his $25,000 winnings to pay his credit card bills and help pay off the Toyota Tacoma truck he uses to deliver food.
And if he wins Hero of the Year?
"If I won it would be great because I'd have a budget to help people for at least two years," he said.
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