the following is a cnn special presentation. if you could give a day to a charity you cared about, which would it be? where would you go? how would you help? i along with several colleagues were given that opportunity and asked to share the stories of the people and the causes closest to our hearts. tonight you're going to meet them. this is "champions for change." ♪ if i told you i was down, i was down, would you help me ♪ ♪ told you ways down, i was down, would you lift me up ♪

>> good evening. i'm dr. sanjay gupta. over the next hour we'd like to introduce to you some remarkable people. they saw a need and stepped up and are truly make a difference. 11 cnn and hln anchors fanned out across the united states to meet them and spend some time with those whose lives they've changed. i'm also going to take to a place that has special meaning to me, to meet someone i consider a true champion for change. let's start with my colleague and friend anderson cooper. you've probably never heard of spike's k-9 fund. it's a very small organization with a very big goal to protect the lives of police dogs nationwide buying them bullet-proof vests. anderson's going to join me in just a moment, but first he'd like you to meet a man named jimmy hatch. >> she's fast. >> she's an athlete, man. >> i first met jimmy two years ago when i interviewed him for a story. he served in the navy for almost 26 years. most of it as part of a special

missions unit, most of it in afghanistan, iraq, and elsewhere. jimmy doesn't like to make a big deal of it, but he's seen a lot of combat in his life, and he's done some remarkable things to help protect us. on his last mission in afghanistan in 2009, jimmy was critically wounded, shot in the leg by a taliban fighter while searching for army private beau bergdahl. his life was saved partly because of a military dog in his unit named remco who was the first to spot the taliban fighter and the first to come under fire. >> i watched remco. i watched his body language, and as it changed, i knew we were getting close to something. and then before i realized what was there, he took a couple rounds to the head with an ak-47 at about six inches. >> remco was killed, and jimmy nearly lost his leg. he was so badly wounded he had to retire from the navy.

but that didn't mean that jimmy hatch retired from serving. he found a new mission by founding spike's k-9 fund, a charity named for the first dog he handled in the military, spike, who was killed on a mission in iraq in 2006. >> for me, as a person who handled the dog, it was my duty i felt to make sure he was protected. and when the dog gets hurt or, you know, killed, you failed. >> jimmy is now dedicating his life to helping train and protect police and military dogs. jimmy helps police department k-9 units around the country often posing as a bad guy, a decoy to help train the dogs and get them used to wearing these vests. in some situations, police dogs are sent in when it's too risky for a police officer. the dogs find the suspect and grab onto him which gives police officers valuable time to apprehend them.

volunteering as a decoy is not glamorous work. jimmy spends a lot of his time getting bitten by dogs over and over again. this dog is wearing a custom-made bulletproof vest that spike's k-9 fund got for him. it's lightweight so it doesn't slow the dog down but will protect him. these vests aren't cheap. they cost about $2,500 apiece. all this training helps the dogs and their police handlers get better. though the dogs look scary, they can actually save a suspect's life, stopping him before he gets shot or tasered. the better trained the dogs are, the safer everyone is. >> training is how just like when i was in the militait's the same thing. you train, train, train, train, train, and your odds of success go up. >> spike's k-9 fund is a small

charity. jimmy runs it along with his director of operations emily. >> currently we've helped dogs in 26 states. i would like the whole map to be lit up with dogs that we've helped. >> their office is jimmy's kitchen table and to keep overhead low. jimmy says more than 80% of the money donated goes to dogs' vests and medical expenses which sometimes aren't covered by local police departments. he's gotten vests for at least 288 police dogs so far. by the end of the year, he'd like to be able to say he's outfitted at least 500 police dogs. last month i met up with jimmy when he was working with the norfolk police k-9 unit. >> anderson, come on in here. listen to this dog, man. see how he keeps biting to get deeper. >> one of their police dogs, krueger, was shot to death in 2016. and through spike's k-9 fund, i was able to help get bulletproof

vest for a number of police dogs in the area. >> this guy right here was named in honor of anderson cooper. that's a.c. >> thanks to spike's k-9 fund, officer mcniff's new k-9 officer has the vest that krueger did not. >> what's cool is he's wearing the vest that you provided for the dogs, so that bulletproof vest he wears it to work every day. >> jimmy somehow convinced know suit up so i could experience the power and discipline of these dogs. >> i got him. >> let's get up. feel how intimate that is? he's talking to you. >> and anderson joins me now. intimate, that's how they described it. >> yeah. it's just so surreal, you know. this dog was just nice one moment, and the dog was looking right at you. it's really intense. >> the dog named after you. >> yes, a.c. >> a.c. in all the years i've known you, you take reporter involvement in these stories to a whole different level, including in this particular piece which

people will get to see. jimmy was very persuasive in terms of getting you to do something you've never done before. >> jimmy skydives pretty much every weekend. for a while he's been talking about getting me out. i'm afraid of heights, so -- but, you know, he has a way of convincing people. so i ended up doing a tandem jump with somebody else, and jimmy was actually videotaping the whole thing. and i mean, it's terrifying. for somebody who doesn't like heights, i was fine until the door of the back of the plane opened and you're 13,000 feet up. and you have no control over it. you're like in a giant baby bjorn and somebody's waddling you to the edge, and they decide when they're going to jump. they don't tell you, and they do a somersault so you're completely discombobulated. >> you've traveled all over the world. you've seen a lot of charities at work. this is the one that you chose. >> yeah. >> you obviously had a

connection with jimmy, but why this one in particular? >> i think there's a lot of different charities that i've done stuff with over the years, but it's large ones and small ones. and there was something about jimmy that -- he's a, you know, he's an american hero. he had some difficult times when he got back trying to figure out his life. and that's how the auspices under which i initially met him and interviewed him. i just thi the police dogs are -- look, i have a lot of respect for police officers. police dogs are sort of unsung heroes of police departments. in the budgets they often -- some dogs don't have bulletproof vests and i started -- i was doing a speech down in norfolk, virginia, and jimmy called me about a week before and said that a police dog had been shot to death there named krueger and that's how i started getting involved. >> and that unequivocal loyalty. >> it's incredible. for the police officers who work with k-9s, it's their partner. and when a k-9 is killed in the line of duty, it's like losing a partner. >> amazing pieces.

thank you so much. you can watch the full segment about spike's k-9 fund at cnn.com/championsforchange along with all the other stories, including -- >> how are we feeling? >> good. >> feeling strong? >> yes. >> who runs the world? >> us. >> fredricka whitfield sure is passionate about girls' sports. she heads to washington, d.c., to see how one girl uses athletics to empower them for the future. up next, we explore childhood hunger with a group that ensures they get and receive the nourishment they need.

♪ i told you i was down i was down would you lift me up ♪ welcome back. here in the united states, 13 million households with children often go without adequate food. it's a number that boggles my mind, and consider this. one in five schoolchildren depend on a free or reduced-price lunch every school day. but after classes wrap up on friday, many of them will go without a decent meal until monday. hln's "morning express" host

robin meade wants to introduce you to a charity that's doing what it can to fill in that food gap on the weekends. >> i think it's important to realize that n everybody who is hungry is necessarily homeless. sometimes families just really need help to get by. >> translator: it happened when antonio was real little. my husband and i were having a hard time. he didn't have a job. we couldn't even afford to buy milk for anthony. those were really hard time for us. >> so what is everybody thinking? oh my gosh, when i am bigger i want to be -- i heard you're going to be a reporter or an actress. >> i like movies and i like being on tv. >> to live in big houses and look so amazing. i like wearing the latest, like, clothes but i can't wear the latest clothes.

>> how about you? >> i still don't know what i want to be. >> yeah, well, that's okay. >> okay. how about you? >> be a manager of building homes and make them perfect. >> oh, that's beautiful. >> so people can live. >> why that? >> so they won't have to struggle and live in a really tiny apartment. >> so haven't you always wondered what might become of a person's life if only they had a little bit of help? what might they become? as a young person here, if only they're not distracted by hunger, for example. and blessings in a backpack, i think, could be that, if only. >> that's 40. we must have one extra. >> how did it first get started? >> the first person was a schoolteacher. she was really concerned. she could not believe the children were coming back to school this tired and this hungry, and they realized that the last meal they were having was friday at lunch until they came back to school on monday for breakfast. the $100 feeds a child for the entire school year. that's 38 weekends. it gets the kids through the

weekend and gets them back to school monday ready to learn. >> translator: to some people, it might not be that much, but for people that have needs, for me, it's a lot because with that i can make a big special meal for the kids, and the kids are very happy. >> this use meant a lot to me because i know that my dad grew up in dire poverty. the 14th kid of 14 in the hills of eastern kentucky. now he says because they farmed, they always had food to eat. when he talks about how he would pack lunch for school, it was this. he would take stale corn bread, put it in a mason jar, put milk in it, tie it up and put it in a stream and that's how he kept temperature cold during school. so knowing what my dad went through, even though he says he always had something to eat, it makes me feel empathy of what these kids might be going through and how blessings in a backpack could help them.

>> i visited esther jackson elementary school in roswell, georgia. despite a brand-new school building and a neighborhood that most people would consider affluent, 75% of the kids here qualify for free or reduced meals. >> we noticed in class they were falling asleep, their attendance was poor. so that was the main red flag. since we started a program with most of the kids were their attendance improved. >> i did all the math by hand. >> kids, they're focused. they look forward to getting in the classrooms and working hard. they feel that this could happen to any of us and that there's nothing to be ashamed of. >> we get together every wednesday, and we pack all the bags and then take them on to the schools. >> there we go. >> the hardest part is knowing that there are other children in the school, and we don't have

e fundinto ilude them. >> i think it's just absurd that in the united states of america people are experiencing poverty to the level that a child will look forward to going to school because that's where they're going to get something to eat. is there misconception about who's hungry? >> i think so. i was surprised that it was so close to home. i didn't think it was in kind of the suburbs. >> somewhere else. >> uh-huh. >> translator: i just want to thank the families because they are a big help. there are times when parents are left without a job, and that's when they help us so our kids won't be left without food. >> what a wonderful son you have. you must be proud. >> thank you. >> my mom's a hero because she supports me. one thing that my dad always taught me is to never give up. >> it's amazing to think that fuel such a bright future.can

>> helping hungry kids, one backpack at a time. still ahead, john berman introduces you to his "champion for change," a group that john was able to help by knowing the right question to an answer. >> this is the "celebrity jeopardy" check for $50,000 that you won for friends of karen. y2bg8y y10my briathe customer app willw if be live monday. can we at least analyze customer traffic? can we push the offer online? brian, i just had a quick question. brian? brian... legacy technology can handcuff any company.

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go beyond brushing with act®. welcome back to "champions for change." every child deserves an equal shot at success. that's what makes "cnn newsroom" anchor poppy harlow so passionate about her boys and girls club, just a short walk from her home in brooklyn. >> this is the carrot he brings in. >> this is the carrot. >> this is the carrot right here. >> to thousands of children, it's a second home, a place where a kid with a kid and also get on track with college with help from great staff and mentors including poppy. her co-anchor john berman also has a personal connection to his cause. it's a group that gives one-on-one support to families when the unthinkable happens.

>> no one's prepared to have a critically ill child. i mean, i think people avoid thinking about it. >> yeah, that's the number one thing families always say, we never thought this was going happen to us. and nobody does. you're not prepared financially for it or emionally for it, and that's where friends of karen can come in. >> it's always hard as she's getting treatment, right? >> sara cokely helps families face the unfaceable. she is one of a dozen social workers at friends of karen, an organization which supports the families of critically ill children. >> how many families are you working with right now? >> i have a caseload of about 40. yeah. >> 4-0? >> 4-0. >> this is the process. she started losing her hair. this is her twin sister zoe. >> take the case of 14-year-old zaria giddy and her family. their world was turned upside down when she was diagnosed with

sarcoma in her leg. what's it like to hear that your child has cancer? >> it's -- i'm sorry. getting emotional. it's the worst thing possible to hear. it's really heartbreaking. it really is. >> hello, how are you? >> good. >> it's always a fine balance talking about the finances and the emotional piece. but you want a parent to know that we are going pay their bills so they can sit by their child's bed. >> they helped me along the way so that i was able to maintain my sanity and not have to worry about one aspect of my life while i'm worrying about the health of my child. >> so, come on, i'll show you my office. this is what i spend some of my day doing. part of what friends of karen does is we pay family bills. since it's for cell phone, hospital expenses, medicines.

these are the things that keep a family afloat when theirhild is sick. >> do you ever get to the bottom of the pile? >> there's always a new pile. >> this really is a house, isn it? >> it is a house. >> judith is executive director of friends of karen. >> we can't prevent the pain, but we can certainly lessen that pain for a family. there's not a person at friends of karen that doesn't feel the mission in their heart and work their hardest because they really care about the kids and their families. >> what are the darkest moments? >> well, we all get an e-mail when a child dies. while most, maybe 80% of children are cured, it's always one is too many. >> friends of karen is named after the first child helped nearly 40 years ago. it's based out of a 150-year-old house, a genuine home for the organization. >> i need 15 of these, please. >> home to the volunteers, a home to the 15,000 children they have helped, a home for so many memories.

>> i remember this family. we love you eric james barron. we miss you, buddy. >> look at this. this is the "celebrity jeopardy" check for $50,000 that you won for friends of karen. and i -- >> so, yes, i once played "jeopardy" on behalf of friends of karen, and i was nervous. so beforehand i wrote judy a note thinking she would say don't worry, just do the best you can. it will be okay. but she said quit whining. think about all the remarkable kids that will benefit from the jeopardy. think about the horrible treatment they go through every day and the strength they have to endure it. being on "jeopardy" will be a piece of cake compared to that. >> i can't tell you how grateful we are for being so smart and for playing. >> i was thrilled. i was thrilled that it worked out. >> he's the wier of $43,900. >> how'd i do? >> like a backpack. >> friends of karen isn't just money and medicine. there's sibling services as

simple as an art project can make brothers, sisters, twins feel included, safe, remembered. >> i really hate when she got sick. >> most of us even hate to think about these situations. at friends of karen, they joke that they ruin all kinds of dinner parties by bringing up what they do. and i have to confess that my mind often drifts toward the pain and the tragedy. but they don't. not the social workers, not the families. >> kissing her, always kissing her forehead. >> this is tough, these pictures here. >> i often saw zaria laying down in a hospital bed or in a wheelchair. and a couple weeks ago i went to visit them, and it was the first time i saw her standing and walking. and the smile on her face was huge. >> the smiles must make all the difference. >> it does. that's what gets you through, knowing what it can look like at the end and what you're hopeful for, for each family. >> and we're happy to report that zaria continues on her road to recovery.

for "cnn tonight" anchor don lemon, inspiration comes from helping a florida charity raise money to help kids with cancer. and also living life to the fullest. while erin burnett visits the 94-year-old woman named connie to see how a delivery of a hot meal includes an extra conversation of compassion. you can see photo galleries and ways you can get involved on our website. next, kate balduan treks to the hills of appalachia to find out how one group is making a difference down on the farm. >> you think farming is easy, i dare you to try this. oh, not so fast, carl. ♪ oh no. schwab, again? index investing for that low? that's three times less than fidelity... ...and four times less than vanguard. what's next, no minimums? ...no minimums. schwab has lowered the cost of investing again. introducing the lowest cost

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♪ you're watching brooke baldwin's "champion for change." his name is tim, and through the heroes project, he challenges wounded vets to climb their way through confidence scaling some of the highest peaks in the world. and, yes, brooke took the challenge as well.

>> i'm a little nervous. >> you can watch all of it at cnn.com/champions for change. when you hear the words farm aid, a concert is probably the first thing that comes to your mind. willie nelson, john young, dave matthewsall of them raisg millions of dollars to help family farmers save their land and their heritage. no stranger to farm country herself, kate balduan is about to show you how they do it and what it means to one family whose farm goes back generations. >> this is rural, small town virginia. i feel like i'm my best self when i'm back in a place like this. i grew up in rural, small town indiana. the house that i grew up in and the house that my parents still live in backs up to an apple orchard. it's a family owned and operated farm. it was perfect. it was simple.

we all have a personal connection to farming. farmers are part of the backbone of america. i've also watched the rise and decline of the american farming tradition. very soon there's likely to be less than 2 million farms in the united states. when i saw that, it raised a really big question in my mind. is the american farming tradition a thing of the past? i hope not. but that's what farm aid is here for. >> and welcome to farm aid, the concert for america. >> farm aid was borne out of a concert in reaction to the farm crisis in the '80s where tens of thousands of farmers were pushed into debt, and willie nelson wanted to do something about it. so he called up his friends, and they threw together a concert. >> he made his inner revolution for farmers. >> they could sustain on the

farm -- mt robin robins. >> i was the runt of six grandchildren. >> raid on tobacco farm, today robin is the matriarch of a multigenerational farm family. and she's putting me to work. we started in the greenhouse. >> these you can water higher like rainwater. >> farming has always been, to me, something that is in my heritage. i love it, my passion for my granny, my grandpa, and it's honoring the land, honoring your heritage. >> that's no easy feat here at appalachia, a region gutted by the demise of the tobacco and coal industries. to save their land, they transformed their tobacco farm into an organic produce farm. >> we refinanced our house to build the green housings. that was a little scary. but, you know, we have to take that leap of faith. >> and farm aid helps farmers like robin make that leap supporting food hubs which certify farmers and distribute

their produce to bigger supermarkets. robin has grown her organic produce farm to 24 acres now. >> she runs it with her husband, no offense to dave, but i think robin runs the show. >> you're doing it. >> i got on a tractor for the first time. learned from dave how to do it because we were plowing the field. what's it like knowing that this is your family's land, your granddad made his living off this? >> it's that connection that really keeps you here. i've been a lot of different places, but i always come back. >> i warned your mom, every plant i ever touched, i've killed. >> it brought robin's daughter logan back, too. she just left her office job. >> farng greback. >> yeah, i miss it, plus i just like the whole purpose of it. i mean, you're feeding people. >> that's something to be proud. >> from logan i learned how to get the plants ready to ship off to market.

>> next, probably my most challenging job on the farm, taking zucchini transplants and planting them in the field. >> i'm so nervous. we're moving and the tractor is punching holes along the way. you think farming is easy, i dare you to try this. the perfect image in my head is the scene from "i love lucy" when she's at the chocolate factory. we were probably going two to three miles an hour, and it felt like we were going 50 miles an hour. and get it right or else you're not going to have zucchini plants in 45 days. i think i should stick to tv. how much of it is science and how much of it is luck and prayer? >> your agriculture is just controlled by mother nature. she's the trump card. >> i think one of the things that surprised me most since meeting the robins family is all the intricacies that go into getting anything from farm to table.

they're constantly juggling. >> because you're going to have a lot of humidity. >> my biggest question coming here was, is the american farming tradition a thing of the past? are farmers facing crisis again? >> they are, yeah. you have a small number of large companies or farmers producing the majority. but we really are focused on new farmers, young farmers to make sure that they continue to diversify agriculture. >> like robin robins who no matter what is on a mission to keep her farm in the family. >> did it. >> together with the big guns of farm aid, i have no doubt the tradition will live on. >> this generation is kind of shaming my generation. i could turn all three of my girls loose on our farm right now and actually take a vacation. >> this continues with them. >> this continues with them, and they pay it forward. >> and after all that work, kate says she'll never look at a salad the same way again. still ahead, alisyn camerota

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♪ welcome back. the people who inspire cnn's "new day" anchor alisyn camerota provide a pathway to the future for kids who need it most. as you'll see, sometimes all it takes is a stroke of a brush or a click of a camera to help a child discover herself. >> this is dream yard, a nonprofit that brings music, dance, theater, poetry and fine arts into public schools in the bronx, new york, the poorest congressional district in the country. more than two decades ago, two

20-something guys had a dream. they believed that arts programs could keep kids engaged in school, keep them from dropping out, help them get better grades and maybe even go to college. >> we wrote a play called "dream yard" which is about a place that kids could go to and their parents had forgotten how to get there. that's all it was in the beginning was just us creating art with young people. what was powerful about it was the way it changed their connections to learning and education. >> i'm a spontaneous photographer. i don't like to stop and have someone say cheese. if i like it, i'll take a picture. >> i love to paint, just because paint is a type of thing where sometimes making a mistake actually ends up being part of what makes the painting beautiful. >> thanks to dream yard, sony keith and leann torres blossomed as artists, but they worried about what would come next. >> i feel like i've always known that college was my next step.

when i started getting accepted into colleges, i couldn't pay for them because even though i was getting good help, there was still money out of pocket that i couldn't afford and my mother couldn't dream of affording. >> i relied on the generosity of a lot of people. i was able to go to a school where there was a lot of arts and theater and music through a scholarship, and i'm so grateful i got to have that experience. i always thought, even when i was 11, someday if i can, i'm going to pay that back. >> ♪ and i'll rise up, i'll rise like today ♪ ♪ i'll rise up. >> it's so inspiring, going to this dream yard event because you see all the kids, they are so talented. they knock your socks off. gives you goose bumps when you're in the audience. ♪ >> about a year ago, my husband said, maybe we should do more than just go to the annual

fundraiser. maybe we could do just a little bit more than that for the kids. ♪ >> my husband and i have chosen to support dream yard by creating a four-year scholarship. we are honored and excited to present the first to charles p. lord, dream yard scholarships. we'd like to invite up sony keith and leann torres. >> my mother told me when she was younger she wasn't allowed to do so many things. she said the reason why she allows me do dream yard and do other things is so i can express myself, so i can become the person i want to be. >> my mom was in her early 20s when she first came to the united states. we made the best out of her sacrifice.

we're going to become professionals one day. we're going to -- we're going to do great things, and i think that that's something that she's proud of. >> and alison joins me now. welcome. >> thank you. >> you made that happen, those two girls. those scholarships because of you. how does that feel? >> let me give you a little more context. these girls are so talented and had so much promise that they had already gotten some financial aid and some other scholarships. but because college is so prohibitively expensive, even with that, there was still a gap and they weren't going to be able to fulfill their dreams. so my husband and i closed that gap. so i feel really great that we were able to do that, but it takes a village because of the expense of college now. >> so much of the funding for arts type programs have been cut. people say, look, we have to make these decisions and those

are often the first things to go. why is it so important to you? >> well, my mom was a high school drama teacher, so from the time truly i was born, she was always -- i was tagging along to her directing school plays. my first performance ever i was 3 years old, and she put me in one of the high school plays and i was a munchkin in "the wizard of oz." and it was so thrilling to me, i was in the chorus, i had no talent to speak of but it was thrilling. i just don't think that everybody bounds out of bed for an algebra test. i think that that's what keeps kids in school, and i've always felt that and believe that. so programs like dream yard just try to make that happen. >> you did a good thing. >> thanks. >> you can see more of her story online. while you're there, hln's michaela pereira wants to introduce to you the cause that

she's been championing for more than a decade. it supports at-risk teens and it gets results. >> i'm getting my bachelor's degree next may. >> you are not. >> when we come back, you're going to also meet my "champion for change." [vo] what made secretariat the greatest racehorse

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♪ over the years, i've traveled so many places, covered so many of the world's greatest humanitarian crises and been fortunate enough to be able to pitch in as a first responder. one of the most memorable was following the earthquake in haiti in 2010. i went back to see how the country's doing and to check in with one organization doing incredible work and the man who is my "champion for change." there is a saying, beyond mountains there are mountains. as soon as you overcome one obstacle, there is another, and then another. haiti, our neighbor, is the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

it was already one of the toughest places in the world to live. and then january 12th, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hits. within an instant, hundreds of thousands dead. hundreds of thousands more injured. sudden and utter human destruction. almost unimaginable. my chest still tightens just thinking about haiti. it was day five, kimberly, 12 years old, a piece of shrapnel in her brain. the u.s. navy asked me to fly out to the "uss carl vincent" to operate. she had recovered well, but she had still lost her family. lost her life as she knew it. even survival seemed a living hell. i kept thinking this is a place that will never recover. a place forgotten. >> does it come back to how much we reay care? >> it's a reflection -- the absence of money is the reflection of the

differentiation in the value of human life. >> can someone, anyone really make a difference in a place like this? my bet is on this guy, "champion for change," paul farmer and the organization he founded, partners in health. they've been in haiti for 30 years now, and they were there january 2010. the images of port-au-prince's tent cities. how is this area doing seven years later? >> there's been patchy improvement. some places, rubble is all cleared. houses rebuilt. buildings going up. there's been all these other problems. food insecurity, more floods, hurricane matthew. so it's a mixed bag. >> when you were pretty young, you decided to come here and to do work. what was motivating you at that time to come here? >> motivations are difficult to decipher, but i think it was a

desire to help people and especially people living in poverty. >> and with that i realized paul farmer, an infectious disease doctor from harvard, makes the case that one man, one organization, can make a difference, even in a place like this. when we were here in 2010 and former president clinton came down at that time, one of the things i remember him saying to me was, sometimes something good can come from something bad. is it true? >> university hospital came out of something bad. it came out of the earthquake. it's 300 beds, the largest solar powered hospital in the developing world. six operating rooms, 2,000 patients a day. >> in greek mythology, a phoenix is a bird continually reborn from its ashes just like this. university hospital, the crown jewel in partner's haiti portfolio. a world class hospital

effectively in the middle of nowhere. did you ever imagine a place like this could exist? this is the chief nursing officehere at the hospital. how does this hospital stack up to what you've seen over there? >> it's equivalent to what i've seen. >> that's an amazing statement. there are people who say that shouldn't have ever been possible. >> i love it. i love when people say that because there's one thing i could tell my staff. there's rad kag and there's ridiculous. when we propose it, it's ridiculous but when it happens, it's radical. >> from ridiculous to radical to real. >> exactly. >> just to give you an idea of how busy things can get in the middle of haiti, a 3-year-old boy in a motorcycle accident, he has a fracture in his skull. that's going to need surgery, and a 61-year-old man who has a large hemorrhage in his brain. he's also going to need surgery. both those surgeries need to

happen in the next hour or so. before this hospital was built, alexander would have surely died in the haitian countryside. he's 61. instead today, i'm getting ready to operate on him. brain surgery. in the poorest area of the poorest country in this hemisphere of the world. >> i've seen patients come in there that i've thought, no way this person is going to make it, and they do. that's something good that came out of something bad. >> it's the house that paul farmer helped build. at one time, even his supporters thought what you are witnessing simply wasn't possible. asking, how can this possibly be done? >> that's a philosophical question, right? i didn't spend a lot of time on it because i knew the answer was the real question to ask is, how do we do it? if they had been saying, can we

do this at nasa, there would have never been someone on the moon. so the more we ask how and the less we ask, can we do it, the safer we are as a species. >> and the more likely we are to travel, mountains beyond mountains. the title of the book profiling dr. farmer and his quest to cure the world. >> and as proof that it was the right thing to do, please observe a rainbow just appeared over your left shoulder. clearly a sign from god. >> somebody is listening. >> from harvard to haiti to heaven. >> i'm probably not headed to the third destination. >> i think you've done enough good in your life. >> i'll keep trying. >> to learn more about paul farmer's work and to see all these on your laptop, your tablet, stories and more, our series lift on. your smartphone at cnn.com/championsforchange. you'll also find links to all the organizations we featured tonight where you can volunteer,

don't, maybe be inspired to be a changemaker in your own community as well. i'm dr. sanjay gupta. good night. ♪ if i told you i was down would you lift me up ♪ ♪ >> anthony: some places surprise you. even if you've been traveling nearly non-stop for 15 years like me, there are places that snap you out of your comfortable world view, take your assumptions and your prejudices, and turn them upside down. they lead you to believe that maybe there is hope in the world. senegal is one of those places. ♪ i took a walk through this beautiful world ♪