MUHAMMAD Ali reckons Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow is a hero - high praise from the man who calls himself the greatest.
The sporting icon was on a panel of judges, which also included Richard Branson and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who selected this year's Top 10 CNN Heroes from more than 10,000 nominations.
And the founder of Mary's Meals - who help 400,000 children every day in 16 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and eastern Europe - was named on the shortlist.
Now dedicated Scot Magnus is about to fly to Los Angeles for CNN Heroes: An All Star Tribute, a celebrity-packed award ceremony held at the city's Shrine Auditorium to find out if he's won.
The dad-of-six is not interested in the glamour but knows the $100,000 prize money could feed an awful lot of hungry children.
He said: "I don't think I really took in to begin with what a big deal this was or the scale of the opportunity to let people know the work we do.
"It is a godsend to us really and it is more than we could ever really hope for as a way of spreading the word about Mary's Meals, particularly in places like America, where we are still really small.
"It is amazing to make the shortlist and just to be invited. It will be a completely different experience to anything we have ever done before and a contrast to the kind of trips I usually make.
"To win would be amazing purely because it would be fantastic to have the money for the charity."
Bon Jovi will be performing at the awards ceremony and Halle Berry, Demi Moore, Eva Longoria Parker and LL Cool J are among the guest presenters.
But for former salmon farmer Magnus, only one guest is worth meeting - Ali.
He said: "Of all the names on the judging panel that was the one which stood out for me and is the one that I am actually excited about.
"If I do get a chance to meet him that would be amazing, but if not at least it gave me a chance to tell my children about him and watch some old footage on YouTube. Incredibly, they didn't really know who he was.
"There will be celebrities there on the night but neither my wife or I are into that so I will probably embarrass myself by not really knowing who anyone is.
"I am really looking forward to meeting the other nine people nominated. They are all doing incredible things so it would be really nice to spend some time with them."
Other nominees include a 74-year-old in El Paso, Texas, who runs a hospital caring for up to 900 people a day despite escalating violence and his patients' inability to pay, and a former Cambodian child soldier who now helps clear the mines he laid as a boy.
There is also an American lady who has helped her community lose 15,000 pounds in weight and a Kenyan who runs a project to help villagers swap kerosene stoves for solar-powered ones.
Magnus can certainly sit easily in such esteemed company.
The former salmon farmer first got involved with charity work in 1992, when he set up Scottish International Relief (SIR) after he and his brother Fergus watched pictures of Bosnian refugee camps on television.
The brothers decided to raise funds for a Land Rover and drive it, packed with aid gathered from local people, to the worst-hit areas.
They continued to do so for a year and then in 1994 they got involved in helping AIDS orphans in Romania.
They built a home for AIDS orphans, who were in such bad shape many thought they would simply be providing hospice care.
Just last year, three of the orphans were married.
The project's long-term supporter Duncan Bannatyne gave one of the brides away.
The charity became involved in projects across the globe but the idea for Mary's Meals first came to Magnus when he was visiting Malawi in 2002.
He was visiting a mum-of-six who had AIDS and only had weeks left to live. As she lay in her dark hut with her children gathered around her, she told Magnus all she could do now was pray that someone would look after her children when she was gone.
All her friends and relatives were already taking care of other people's children and she didn't know what would become of hers.
Magnus then asked the oldest boy what he wanted out of life and his answer was simple - "something to eat and the chance to go to school".
From there, Mary's Meals was born.
To begin with, they provided meals for 200 children in a school in Malawi, where giving one child a meal of the local likuni phala porridge each day for a year costs just £5.30.
The 400,000 children they feed across the globe every day also get an education at the same time.
And local people are employed to run the kitchens.
Before the earthquake devastated Haiti last year, Mary's Meals were feeding 6000 children at six large schools in the Cite Soleil slum in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince and another 2000 in the rural city Hinche.
Even before the disaster struck, things were so bad in the slum that one priest toured the mortuaries collecting the bodies of between 60 and 70 unclaimed children each week.
After the quake, the aid they provided became more important than ever before, and Mary's Meals became known in America as a result.
These days, Magnus routinely gives talks in the States on his charity's simple premise, that by giving children one school meal a day, they can address the immediate problem of hunger and the long-term problem of education.
And being shortlisted for a CNN Heroes Award will undoubtedly boost the charity's already growing profile and hopefully help provide the cash they need to feed more children.
He said: "Going to Los Angeles for a star-studded awards ceremony couldn't be more different than visiting Haiti or Malawi.
"I do have mixed feelings about it but the bigger picture is the opportunity I have here to tell people about Mary's Meals and I never tire of doing that.
"It is just amazing and it is for the greater good."
Many of the people Magnus works with certainly believe he deserves to have his moment of glory.
Ibolya Ungur, who manages the projects in Romania, says: "CNN have nominated him for hero of the year but for thousands of people he is a hero already or a life model to follow.
"Through Magnus, hundreds of children from the poorest families in our city were fed, given clothes and shoes. Backpacks and educational materials enable them to attend school and have an education."
Virginia Villahermosa, who looks after the charity in the Philippines, says: "How much help Mary's Meals has given to these poor hungry children of this third world country could not be quantified.
"It is beyond all words. We know more children could share Mary's Meals as thousands more, even millions, of hungry children still need the food and care of Mary's Meals if given more resources."
HELP MAGNUS WIN!
To vote for Magnus to be the CNN Hero of the Year click on www.edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cnn.heroes . Online voting closes at 11am on Thursday. The awards ceremony will be broadcast on CNN on November 26 at 1am, repeated at 10am and 9pm. For more information on Mary's Meals or to make a donation, click on www.marysmeals.org or call 01838 200605.
