Ashley Crownover

For the past 300 to 400 years — since the time of the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions — humans have thought of the body as a machine. You put fuel in it, perform routine maintenance, and the machine operates. But as the stress of living among our technological advances has become more intense and demanding, the desire to reconnect with an organic model of existence has resulted in an “updated” view of the human being as a natural organism. Instead of being composed of parts, it turns out, we are an interwoven whole.

Reading can be a pleasant escape, an imaginary journey that takes you down far away roads — but it can also be illuminating, a light for the path you’re already on. It’s a rare book that allows a reader to do both at the same time. For teacher and writer Cindy McCain, the classic novel Wuthering Heights is such a work. Written in 1847 by Emily Brontë, this tale of passion and obligation may be most familiar as one of those old books you had to read in high school.

When you look at official photos of the beautiful South Asian country of Nepal, you won’t see the refugee camps. When you hear about the government of Bhutan’s focus on “gross national happiness” — a policy aimed at creating high quality of life for its citizens — you won’t hear about the tens of thousands of people driven from their homes into neighboring Nepal. And when you meet Neelam Dahal, it’s very difficult to understand why no country — up until now — has allowed her to call it home.

Living in harmony with her surroundings has always been a way of life for Berdelle Campbell. “Growing up, we were recycling and didn’t know what it was,” she says, recalling how families saved cooking grease and tin cans during World War II to help with the war effort. As one of the founders of Recycle Nashville in the mid-1980s, Campbell worked to bring that sensibility to the city’s approach to garbage. The organization helped establish the first recycling center in town and was instrumental in convincing Metro Nashville to initiate its own recycling program.

Marguerite Mills credits theater with teaching her that every contribution has value. Sewing costumes, applying makeup and building sets, she worked behind the scenes in high school and college to develop not just production skills but her ability to collaborate with others as well. As an adult community theater volunteer, she developed a puppet theater workshop to provide children with a similar experience.

Julie Koh cites “peer pressure” as the impetus for her first time running the Country Music   Marathon. “But once I did it,” she recalls, “I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll do another one,’ and then, ‘I’ll do another one.’” But it’s the third half-marathon that really stands out: Koh ran it just months after being diagnosed with and treated for Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Catherine Wyatt-Morley can divide her life into two parts: before that day in 1994 at 2 p.m., and after. In the hospital for a routine procedure, she instead learned that she was HIV positive. “I was raising three children in Brentwood,” Morley says. “I had a wonderful job, a wonderful husband. Then my life did a 180-degree turn. One moment things were fine, and the next moment someone told me I was about to die.”

Moving from one culture to another can be quite an adjustment, even when you’re only changing states! As a bilingual child growing up in New Mexico, Cristina Allen didn’t think twice about the diversity surrounding her. “The minorities were the majority,” she says, describing how natural it was to see political leaders, school principals and others in positions of respect and authority from a variety of ethnic backgrounds — Native Americans, Anglos and Hispanics alike.

The 2000 “Status of Women” report said it all: Tennessee ranked 49th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia when it came to women’s health, education, economic level and political participation. Published by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the study found that services existed, but women weren’t using them — a phenomenon attributed to geography, language barriers and economics. The report caught the attention of many local groups, including the Junior League of Nashville and the Nashville Academy of Medicine Alliance.

We have a saying here that no two days at The Community Foundation are the same,” Ellen Lehman explains with a smile, attempting to describe a “typical” day at Middle Tennessee’s premier grant-making organization. From meeting with donors to planning new initiatives to signing thank-you notes, the president’s day-to-day activities are all deeply entwined with what she calls “the charitable goals and dreams” of the Middle Tennessee community.