At 15, K.D. Sullivan was homeless, hungry, and sleeping on park benches in Honolulu’s Aina Haina neighborhood. In one of her most vulnerable moments, she was penniless, sitting huddled near a McDonald’s she frequented, when the owner of a nearby restaurant noticed her and invited her inside, offering the girl a bowl of Hawaiian noodle ...
As she strolls toward the smallest park in San Francisco, Bonnie Wallsh calls back to the group of tourists behind her: “How many of you have had a park named after you?” They are standing by a tiny swath of land on Bush and Octavia Streets named the Mary Ellen Pleasant Memorial Park. It’s dedicated ...
In college, Bob Britt worked as a night auditor at a roadside Holiday Inn in Southern Illinois. “Every night something different was bound to happen,” he said. “It was such a contrast to life growing up on a farm.” The hustle and bustle of hotel life was so seductive Britt decided to forge a career ...
Jon Insco has been a go-getter most of his life — always hustling for his next adventure. As a freshman at Gunderson High School in San Jose, he spotted a “Help Wanted” ad for a Denny’s in nearby Los Gatos and walked in to ask about the job. The blue-eyed teen from Aptos, who lived ...
Sue Trupin spent more than a decade living in a countercultural enclave in Canyon, a community in rural Contra Costa County. She had gardens, goats, and chickens, and harvested vegetables. She harvested walnuts and fetched food from the bins at the back of grocery stores. “We lived on very little; it was part of that ...
The difficulties that pregnant women face in impoverished parts of the world can seem overwhelming. But Stacey Ramirez, who has worked for years to improve those conditions on three continents, calls herself “a hopeless optimist.” “I have to believe that we can get to a place that is beautiful for all of us,” she said. ...
