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| Ed Nicholson , Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing |
| Visit Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing's website |
| Contact Ed Nicholson |
Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
At 62, upon leaving the defense contractor he joined after a distinguished 30-year career as a U.S Navy captain, Ed Nicholson found himself recovering from prostate surgery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
It was 2004, and the hospital was full of young people who had been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I’d be walking through the halls feeling sorry for myself, and I’d see these 19-year-old guys missing arms and legs, and holding their little babies,” says Nicholson.
Founder and Director
Sustainable Food Lab
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
A child of the activist ’60s, Hal Hamilton spent decades in Kentucky as a farmer, rural community activist and nonprofit director. He helped pioneer alternative food and agricultural systems that are kind to the environment and provide a livelihood for small farmers – the hallmarks of sustainable food production.
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| Clark "Corky" Graham , LET'S GO Boys & Girls |
| Visit LET'S GO Boys & Girls' website |
| Contact Clark "Corky" Graham |
LET'S GO Boys & Girls
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
The United States lags behind other industrialized countries in science, technology, engineering and math college graduates. The problem is especially severe among low-income black and Hispanic students.
For Clark “Corky” Graham, that situation threatens American prosperity and national security.
He speaks from experience. A retired commanding officer for the U.S. Navy and a mechanical engineer, Graham spent 30 years overseeing research and development projects for the Navy and another 14 as an executive in the maritime private sector.
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| Robert Hildreth , Families United in Educational Leadership |
| Visit Families United in Educational Leadership's website |
| Contact Robert Hildreth |
Families United in Educational Leadership
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
Growing up, Robert J. Hildreth knew the value of education. Raised by public school teachers, he earned degrees from three universities, including Harvard, and rose to prominence in Latin American finance with his own brokerage company.
Hildreth also had a strong philanthropic streak – and his own foundation – that brought him in contact with low-income families, often immigrants. The parents often worked such long hours they had little time to help their kids navigate college prep, or much knowledge about the process themselves. They saved money, but not enough.
Executive Director
Cure Violence
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
Physician Gary Slutkin spent 20 years working to reduce rates of infectious diseases, including tuberculosis and AIDS, in the United States and Africa. In 1995, after 10 years living abroad, he returned home to Chicago. Noting the high rate of lethal violence among young people in American cities, Slutkin began treating violence as a contagious disease, applying the tools he used in disease control.
“Decades of leaving the problem untreated perpetuates retaliation, further victimization and exposure, which keeps this cycle of violence going for generations,” Slutkin says.
Founder and Facilitator
Grayson LandCare
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
A native son of rural Virginia, Jerry Moles spent decades as a college professor and consultant helping rural communities cultivate productive, income-generating and environmentally friendly agricultural businesses. He worked mostly on the West Coast and in Sri Lanka. But when his mother fell ill in 1999, he found himself back in Virginia to oversee her care.
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| Barbara Gardner and Ed Moscovitch , Bay State Reading Institute |
| Visit Bay State Reading Institute 's website |
| Contact Barbara Gardner |
| Contact Ed Moscovitch |
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Bay State Reading Institute
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
Barbara Gardner and Ed Moscovitch hoped for big changes when they helped write Massachusetts’ 1993 sweeping education reform law. But years later, Gardner, then a state education official, and Moscovitch, a former state budget director, were disappointed by the limited results.
On classroom visits, Gardner saw children who were “disengaged or barely listening as the teacher droned on,” she recalls. “That experience and the image of bored faces and stale environments was my moment of revelation. I kept thinking, ‘There has to be a better way.’”
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| Richard Mabion , Building A Sustainable Earth Community |
| Visit Building A Sustainable Earth Community 's website |
| Contact Richard Mabion |
Building A Sustainable Earth Community
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
In 2006, Kansas City, Kan., resident Richard Mabion started presenting an energy efficiency program to leaders of neighborhood groups at Livable Neighborhoods, a city-run organization created to consolidate and coordinate neighborhood services and address pressing issues. A pressing issue Mabion saw was the need for people of color to get involved in the effort to create a greener, healthier city – and world.
Co-founder
KitchenKids!
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
A longtime manager in charge of creating diverse workplaces, Leslie Meacham Saunders’ life abruptly changed in 2001 when her father suffered a series of strokes and her youngest sister committed suicide, leaving a 7-year-old daughter behind. “Literally overnight I became responsible for caring for a disabled parent and a hearing-impaired child,” Saunders says.
Founder and Senior Director
Herald Cancer Association
Purpose Prize Fellow 2012
When Lucy Young was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988, she was a pastor’s wife in Queens, N.Y., and terrified of death. The Chinese-American, who was more comfortable speaking Chinese than English, was afraid to discuss a taboo topic with her Chinese friends and couldn’t find any Chinese-language cancer resources.
