Alice Sullivan

A car arrives at Angel Heart Farm, and a timid little girl emerges from the backseat. She’s bald from chemotherapy, but her cancer is the last thing on her mind. She’s dressed in a pink outfit and cowboy boots and has a huge smile on her face. Today she’s going to ride a horse for the first time. A woman, Tracy Kujawa, asks her, “Do you want to meet some ponies?” And they walk hand-in-hand to the barn.

Cooper Cook was only 8 weeks old when his mom Missy noticed a lump below his jaw. Thinking it was just a lymph node, she wasn’t too worried. Her husband, Rod, however, insisted they go to the doctor. Rod and Missy took Cooper to see his pediatrician, who then sent them to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt (VCH) for an ultrasound. Missy says that during the ultrasound, it became clear that something wasn’t right. “I knew as soon as I saw the looks on their faces that we were dealing with something more serious,” she says.

Ashley Currie always knew she wanted to have her own business someday. She knew she wanted to blend her marketing skills with her love of people. So last August, she did just that when she launched iHospitality, an eco-friendly flatware and tableware business.   

When Barbara Tidwell offered to help her friend, Eleanor Simpson, with her Meals on Wheels route, she had no idea that simple gesture would help so many people. That was 15 years ago, and Barbara has been delivering weekly Meals on Wheels ever since.

Michelle Prichard is very blessed. She’s a talented singer/songwriter. She has a wonderful husband, family, and career as a controller for Integration Services Corporation. And to look at her, you’d never know there was anything different about her. Until you watch her walk across the room.

Candy Markman grew up in St. Petersburg, Fla., in a “Leave it to Beaver” kind of family. “I had every possible advantage growing up,” says Markman. Her father worked for Allstate, and her mother was a preschool teacher. It was her mother’s passion for education that led Markman to start tutoring others when she was still in elementary school.

November is National Hospice Month, a time to honor those who provide care and comfort to people in the final stages of life. And to this local woman, hospice work is hardly depressing. In fact, it’s an honor.

One can only imagine how hectic the life of a governor’s wife can be. However, Tennessee’s First Lady Andrea Conte handles it with grace and ease. How does she balance it all? By focusing her tireless efforts on causes that are near and dear to her heart, and by remembering what she learned as a child growing up in Great Barrington, Mass.: that helping others makes for a strong community. “I grew up in a small town, and you just saw people taking care of each other,” says Conte. “It was just a very natural part of growing up.”

Nancy John remembers the first book she was read as a child: The Little Engine That Could. “I was really shy, and knowing whatever obstacles I faced in life or however afraid I was, that little saying — ‘I think I can, I think I can’ — motivated me.”

Leila Grossman has been an animal lover since birth. She grew up spending weekends with her father, artist Robert Grossman, in New York City. But during the weeks, she lived with her mom, banjo player Donna Grossman, in a three-story Massachusetts farmhouse set on 200 acres, a place where there was always room for one more pet. “We had several dogs and a brood of cats,” says Grossman. “If there was a cat that needed a home, someone would tell my mother and she’d take it in.”