What I love most about CNN’s Heroes Awards, is how it redefines the word "hero." Look up the word in any dictionary and you'll find references to mythic figures who create a moment's glory or one-time death-defying event that grows brighter in our memories with each passing year. There’s nothing about quietly showing up to do what it takes to make other people's lives more livable ---- day after day, month after month, year after year.

There’s no mention of young men like Efren Penaflorida, who lives in the Philippines and wheels reading, writing and arithmetic on a pushcart to children whose playground is the municipal trash dump. Or school bus drivers like Jorge Munoz who shows up each night on a street corner in Queens, no matter how tired he is or how much it’s raining, to feed a hot meal to hungry people. Over five years, Munoz and his family have served 90,000 meals on that street corner.

North County is fortunate to have its share of heroes in the CNN Heroes vein ---- ordinary men and women who just keep quietly showing up and doing what it takes to improve the quality of other’s lives. Mel Takahara is one of those people.

As a community leader and Winter Shelter System Developer at the Alliance for Regional Solutions, Takahara, along with others, has been responsible for hundreds of men and women not only having shelter and a warm meal at night during the winter, but access to case workers and social services so that they might improve their own lives.

Takahara sees beyond the street person. He sees the man who loves to play chess, the teenager who could use a smile, the confused woman who needs someone to answer her questions, to acknowledge that her existence matters.

“He believes with his entire being that we are all one people, and so, of course, he treats everyone he encounters with a consistent brand of exceptional grace and courtesy, knowing that personal luck and economics never define who we are,” says Suzanne Pohlman, executive director of Interfaith Community Services, who has known Takahara for 30 years.

Recently, a homeless man told me that he was yelled at and cursed for being a street person. "I didn’t expect it to hurt so much, but it did," he said. He winced even as he said the words.

When we see someone on the street, we have no idea of the series of events that led them to that point. Did they serve in Vietnam, the Gulf War or Iraq? Are they struggling with mental illness? Did they lose their job, their medical insurance and then their home?

I think what the CNN Heroes have in common and what they share with Takahara is the resounding belief that kids who play in garbage dumps are as valuable as kids who play in Little League. And how they quietly go about improving lives by replacing despair with hope, self-respect and dignity. Day after day, month after month, year after year.

Brigid Brett writes from Valley Center. Contact her at brigidbrett@aol.com.