Since Lynne Ballew, BA'68, MA'74, PhD'75, first traveled to Anchorage, Alaska, in 1977, she has made a long list of contributions to the city. She began by creating a soup kitchen where people could get a hot meal and a warm place to be without preaching or judgment. She then turned her attention to housing.

The place she helped create, and now calls home, is Safe Harbor Inn, a kind of sanctuary where people coming out of shelters or off the streets can prepare themselves for moving into homes of their own. Ballew lives in one of the smaller rooms, eating the same food and dressing the same way as those living around her. She lives off small pensions from previous jobs and a little income from some property she sold.

"I squeak by," she says. "My wants are small. I guess I'm just fortunate in that the things I really love, enjoy, and think make life worth living don't cost anything."