Every time Kate Fink arrived at Roswell Park Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York, there was a good chance she’d run into a man named Jon Avery. He worked outside the main entrance, greeting patients and taking their cars while they went inside for treatment. Kate was battling breast cancer, and those hospital visits had … Read more
Stan Brock learned what being far from medical care really meant after a horse badly injured him in the wilderness of what was then British Guiana. He was working on Dadanawa Ranch, surrounded by thousands of square miles of savannah and rainforest, where horses, cattle, bush planes, and long distances were part of daily life. When he was hurt, the nearest doctor was roughly 26 days away on foot.
In 1994, Canadian businessman Lloyd Cenaiko traveled to Ukraine with his father to visit the places their family had come from. He wanted to meet relatives, learn about his family’s history and see a country he’d heard about for much of his life. At the time, Lloyd had a successful career in commercial real estate. … Read more
When Maggie Doyne finished high school in New Jersey, she decided to take a year off and travel. She was 18, had about $5,000 saved from babysitting, and wanted to see more of the world before deciding what to do next. During her travels, she reached Nepal, a country recovering from years of civil war. … Read more
In 2002, Narayanan Krishnan was preparing for the biggest opportunity of his cooking career. He had already worked as an award-winning chef at a five-star hotel in India and was being considered for a prestigious position in Switzerland. At just 21 years old, he had the kind of future many young chefs dream about. But … Read more
A woman knocked on Jon Potter’s car window while he was filling up at a gas station in Pittsburgh. She needed a ride to a shelter for women escaping abuse, or enough money to take the bus. Jon said no. Almost immediately, he wished he hadn’t. He got out of his car and tried to … Read more
At around 9:30 in the evening, Jorge Muñoz would pull up beneath the elevated train tracks in Jackson Heights, Queens. People were already waiting for his white pickup truck and the home-cooked meals packed inside. Earlier that day, he had been driving a school bus. After finishing his route, he went home and began cooking … Read more