AWARDS OVERVIEW

USA Network congratulates the 2015 recipients of the USA Unites Awards!

Ten winners were selected from hundreds of nominees for their extraordinary efforts to improve lives and strengthen their communities.

Honorees will be acknowledged during hometown award ceremonies and will receive $5,000 grants from USA Network and distributor partners – Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Cox Communications, Mediacom, Suddenlink, Time Warner Cable – to support their projects or related nonprofit organizations. Additionally, honorees will be featured on-air in a PSA.

CHARACTERS UNITE AWARD WINNER

PASTOR CHARLIE MULLER

TIME WARNER CABLE

RENSSELAER, NY

FOUNDER, CURE FOUNDATION and ENOUGH INITIATIVE

A former Golden Glove Boxer, Pastor Charlie, hung up his gloves to dedicate his life to help at risk-children who live in poverty-stricken areas of our cities. It all started when Charlie began to volunteer at a detention center for at-risk boys in Upstate New York. During his volunteer work, he quickly learned of the struggles children face growing up poor in inner cities. This realization led Pastor Charlie to start an outreach center in the middle of one of the poorest neighborhoods in Albany, NY.

However, after also learning that many inner-city children go to bed hungry, Charlie felt compelled to expand the scope of his work. Over the past 20 years, Pastor Charlie has devoted much of his time to fighting childhood hunger in America, establishing two feeding centers that are responsible for feeding over 30,000 meals a year to children in need. Striving for a holistic approach to improving the well-being of these inner-city children, he also implemented programs that provide help with homework and free summer camp.

Pastor Charlie recently started a new program called City Kids that sends two state of the art trucks into underserved communities to provide children nutrition-packed smoothies. The trucks also bring fresh fruits and veggies to families in need. The areas visited by the trucks are considered food deserts, which are towns without ready access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food, and can be found throughout America. The trucks have aided his mission to fight childhood hunger; serving children in five cities around Albany.

One of the most exciting initiatives that Pastor Charlie started is called ENOUGH, an anti-gun violence initiative, which takes illegal handguns off of the streets. More than 450 guns were collected after he offered every teen a gift card to local malls to relinquish their weapon, leading to a severe drop in the occurrence of gun violence in Albany. A great success, other cities have turned to the ENOUGH initiative to model their own anti-gun violence programs.

Due to the many programs that came out of feeding at-risk children, Pastor Charlie decided to start the CURE (Charity For Under Privileged Residents and Elderly) Foundation, in which many efforts are being made to reach people who are in need. Charlie is truly an inspiration, and proves that you can never do too much good for your community.