Dan Lender wasn’t raised with a silver spoon. He grew up in a rural part of West Central Pennsylvania, in the small town of Smithmill. His dad was a truck drive...
When Luiz Lobo was growing up in Brazil, a black and white picture was on his wall of a man he did not know. One day, at the age of nine, he asked his father wh...
Francesco Marra grew up in beautiful Naples, Italy, where the sun always shines and the kids spend as much time in the water as on the land. At the age of 21, h...
Anne Meltzer comes from a long line of strong women. Her grandmother worked in a children’s clothing store while she was growing up, and Anne remembers playing ...
In July 1991, Shariq “Sharick” Mirza came to America from Karachi, Pakistan with $250 in his pocket. His maternal uncle, Sami Uddin Mirza, gave him the $250 on ...
Scott Montgomery prides himself on putting his relationships first. Valuing the people around him is both a path to professional success and a closely held pers...
Tamara Nall wasn’t like other 12-year-olds. She did well in school, enjoyed playing with the other kids in the neighborhood, and sometimes argued with her siste...
Although Katie spent most of her childhood in Arizona with her father and stepmother, she was born in the DC area where her mother and maternal family remained....
In high school, Guy O’Brien started DJing to earn some extra cash. Money was tight, and he knew his mom needed him to help make ends meet where he could. As he ...
Sam Pappas was born to two Greek immigrant parents and was raised with a respect for the wisdom of the ancient Greek world. In the birthplace of modern medicine...
The work of drug and alcohol prevention has special meaning to Michaela Pratt; she grew up almost entirely with her mother, as her father was an alcoholic throu...
When Ken Rochon Jr. moved from a small Midwestern town to Maryland as a teenager, he was unsure of what he wanted to do with his life. Being so close to the Nat...
To her classmates in high school, LaJuanna Russell seemed to have it all. She was pretty, popular, and academically successful. She was also a dancer and was ca...
As a girl growing up in Haiti, Guylaine Saint Juste lacked for nothing. She was surrounded by a strong family and community in Port au Prince. She remembers fee...
Peter Schwartz’s parents were deeply religious. He grew up Catholic, went to mass, attended Catholic schools, and even believed that he might go on to become a ...
