Your Everyday Entertainment uncovers mind boggling mysteries, answers burning behind-the-scenes questions, and unearths undiscovered destinations; but when our readers need to see inspiring stories, our partner, Your Everyday Heroes, highlights the heartwarming tales of regular people who have an extraordinary impact on society.
Your Everyday Heroes spotlights normal individuals that lead exceptional lives and positively impact the people in their community through spectacular acts of service and noteworthy contributions to the causes that are near and dear to their hearts.
Your Everyday Heroes Season One – Inspiring Stories
The first season of the Your Everyday Heroes docuseries presents a diverse and often underrepresented group of people who have risen above their unique circumstances to motivate, encourage, and guide others.
The season one cast features an inspirational mural artist who paints the faces of missing women on the sides of buildings in their community, a black female director who continues to make social justice films despite a stage four lung cancer diagnosis, an immigrant graffiti artist who channeled his less than legal street art into a thriving business, a disabled underdog who continuously defies expectations and strives to serve others with similar situations, and many more courageous and awe inspiring humans.
Take a sneak peek at first season of Your Everyday Heroes:
Meet The Cast
Season One features everyday heroes spanning across the globe, from a pro-bono youth boxing teacher in Ecuador and a disabled graphic designer in Pakistan, to a displaced Russian teacher and Lithuanian ex-pat graffiti artist.
Many of the cast hail from the Windy City, which is home to a quadruple amputee comedian, a blind auto mechanic, an inspirational mural artist, and more.
Get to know the spectacular heroes:
Umar Mughal – Inspiring Stories
The 28-year-old graphic designer Umar Mughal has suffered from genetic bone disorder Osteogenesis Imperfecta since birth. His soft, fragile bones frequently fractured while he was growing up, and poor healthcare in his home country Pakistan resulted in his tiny stature and deformed limbs.
Umar’s legs cannot support his body weight, and he gets around by scooting across the floor at home, but is reliant on others to carry him around in public. He was largely dependent on his brother for transportation, but gradually became more autonomous after getting a job at a graphic design firm 10 years ago.
“Everyone in that studio thought that I would not be able to work. Even my manager thought the same thing… He said he would shorten the duration of my shift because he thought I couldn’t work for that long,” he remarked. “But I showed them I can work hard, and within the three months of learning, I amazed everyone. [They] started to support me as much as they could, and they all still do.”
Umar was taught by his mother to live his life like a normal healthy man, and began using ride share apps to hail motorcycle drivers for lifts. He now does everything on his own, including teaching graphic design to students. He also has plans to help fellow disabled people.
“I’m working on resources to open an institution where I will give jobs to people with disabilities,” Umar detailed. “I will make them independent by teaching them work and providing them jobs and shelter, so they don’t ask for help. Instead they will be able to help someone else, making a chain.”
Watch Umar Mughal’s Full Inspirational Story HERE
Vick Lee – Inspiring stories
Award-winning filmmaker Vick Lee makes social justice-oriented short films about the Black experience in America, which she independently writes, produces and directs. Her 2018 film “The Polyamorist” focuses on Black love and elevating the status of historically ostracized Black women, while 2019’s “Look What You’ve Done” tackles police abuse against the Black community.
“Film is my form of activism,” she said. “Everything that I do is done in love and in Blackness… Blackness is a culture, a people, a resilience, a drive.”
In November of 2020, Vick was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, which has metastasized and spread to other parts of her body. Despite the distressing news, she refused to give up her career, and completed her fourth film “Inbox Interviews” in 2021.
“I want people to be inspired to keep going,” she explained. “You can get faced with some devastating, life-changing news, but you can push through it and still do what you want to do. You can still follow your passions.”
Learn More About Vick Lee’s Heartbreaking Story HERE
Damon Lamar Reed – Inspiring stories
Inspirational mural artist Damon Lamar Reed uses his artwork to convey the rich cultural legacy of the local communities he depicts in his paintings. Reed’s work can be seen hanging in galleries, but more prominently his nearly 100 public works can be spotted throughout inner-city neighborhoods in Chicago.
“Good public art creates culture. It feeds the soul, it uplifts. Not everyone is going to a gallery, but if they walk by something I’ve created, it’ll have the same impact,” he observed. “I like to say that I bring the gallery to the neighborhood and I bring the neighborhood to the gallery. Because I believe what I do is museum or gallery quality art on walls, it’s just in a public platform.”
Beyond beautifying communities with uplifting works that represent their cultural history, Damon launched a project that has the potential to save lives. He was inspired to paint missing women after the murder of his aunt and two young cousins was never solved.
What started out as a tribute to make sure the women were not forgotten, evolved into a city funded mission that aims to locate women who have disappeared.
“I do it to raise awareness, I do it to bring honor, and I do it to create something beautiful,” he said about the paintings. “I want to show the world that, yes, we are still searching, and we’re gonna keep going until we find answers, until we find resolution.”
Damon’s Still Searching project makes the faces of missing women, whose cases typically go cold, highly visible on walls in the communities where they disappeared from. Their portraits include QR codes with information about the women, and contact information for local authorities involved with their case.
“I feel like the art has moved to civic engagement,” Reed added. “I’m painting women that are missing, but it’s about keeping safe the women that are here and aren’t missing. When the idea came to me, I thought it was a big project. Sometimes you can have a good idea, but then sometimes you can have a God idea.”
Find Out More About Damon Lamar Reed’s Still Searching Project HERE
Laurynas Buzinskas – Inspiring stories
Lithuanian graffiti artist Laurynas Buzinskas had a less than legal love for street art from a young age. His passion put him at odds with his parents and his academic career in jeopardy.
“I met these older guys, and they invited me to go spray with them,” he recalled. “I was going out at least three, four times a week in the nighttime. My parents didn’t know about it at all. I was just leaving, going out to spray with them all night long. In the morning, I’d come back and go to school.”
When his father caught Laurynas sneaking back in the house, he accused his son of being a thief, and was mildly relieved to find out he was only out tagging. However, Laurynas’ actions were still criminal, and he eventually landed in hot water with the law. After narrowly dodging a two-year prison sentence, he went to art school and channeled his skills into graphic design.
After graduation, Laurynas was still obsessed with street art, so he immigrated to Chicago to pursue his passion. “Graffiti started here in the U.S.,” he detailed. “And I really wanted to see it and feel it for myself, not just through the internet… I left my job, left my parents and moved here alone.”
He did not become an instant success, and instead struggled for years at odd jobs to survive in his new home. Laurynas credits his wife for helping him turn his life around.
“My parents didn’t support my passion, my love to create things, the same thing happened with my teachers and a couple of my friends,” he explained. “Not a lot of people supported me.”
Except for his wife, who gave him the confidence to pursue his dream. “She was always telling me, believe in [myself]. That was a feeling which I never had, I wanted to do what I was doing right now, but I never believed in myself,” Laurynas noted.
Today, he’s a sought-after graphic artist that specializes in creating graffiti art for his corporate clients.
“If you really have a passion and feel like this is what [you] really want to do, go for it,” he encouraged. “Never stop, because you’re always going to have ups and downs, hard times. Just keep doing it, keep following your dream.”
Check Out Laurynas Buzinskas Amazing Art HERE
Brett Eastburn – Inspiring stories
Comedian Brett Eastburn has never let his personal struggles hold him back, instead he channels them into stand-up sets that leave his audiences in stitches and inspired. Brett was born with a congenital birth defect that left him with no arms or legs, but at only 2 feet and 10 and half inches tall, he lives a life that is much more exceptional than most able-bodied people.
Brett never let his disability keep him down, as a child he played basketball, baseball, football, and even became an accomplished swimmer. In high school he made the varsity wrestling team and went on to place 4th in a national competition in 1988.
As an adult, he turned what some view as his handicap into a thriving career as an inspirational comedian, motivational speaker, and even an author. Bret chose his path when he discovered that people were in awe of his everyday accomplishments.
“Because of seeing what you can do with your situation, I realize that my problems are not nearly as bad as I made them out to be,” he recalled them telling him.
Brett began speaking professionally about self-improvement during his senior year in high school. He frequently appeared in news articles and made television appearances. He traveled the world giving motivational speeches, and eventually channeled his experiences into the memoir, “I’m Not Missing Anything.”
Check Out Brett Eastburn’s Inspirational Comedy HERE
Bart Hickey
Auto mechanic Bart Hickey has been obsessed with cars since he was a child, but he’s never been able to see one. He was born two months prematurely and only weight slightly over three pounds. His underdeveloped lungs were unable to provide enough oxygen to his body, causing severe vision impairment.
Despite not being able appreciate the visual aesthetics of cars, he was able to read about them in the Braille edition of Popular Mechanics, and learned how to work on them from his father, who was a mechanic.
Unfortunately, Bart’s father died when he was just 11-years-old, and he had to learn how to fix his mother’s lemon of a 1969 Impala to help her avoid costly repeated trips to the dealership. Bart helped put with the household bills by doing basic vehicle maintenance for others, which only helped fuel his passion for cars further.
He eventually turned his pastime into a career when he bought Bart’s Automotive and Towing, or BAAT, which his family joking refers to as “Blind As A Bat.” The business became a family affair, with his mother and brother helping launch the shop in 1993, and his son Brendon eventually decided to work by his side, just like Bart had with his father decades before.
Find Out More About How Bart Hickey The Blind Mechanic Fixes Cars HERE
Your Everyday Heroes season 1 is live and new inspirational hero stories will be released in the coming weeks. Check back frequently to find out about our exciting slate of inspiring stories.
