Friendships are finally getting their due. Once relegated to a distant third position after life partners and children, a spate of new books are spotlighting the importance of friends. And research shows that people with close friends are healthier – both emotionally...
Purpose Prize
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An Intergenerational Approach to Getting Families Housed in Santa Barbara
Lyiam Galo is the co-director of Generations United for Service, a program of the Northern Santa Barbara County United Way and one of 10 awardees of the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity. Watch for interviews with all 10 of these innovators bringing...
Utilizing Faith-Owned Land to Strengthen Intergenerational Community in Seattle
E.N. West is the co-founder and lead organizer of the Faith Land Initiative of the Church Council of Greater Seattle, one of 10 awardees of the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity. Watch for interviews with all 10 of these innovators bringing older and...
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Kevin McDonald
Purpose Prize Fellow 2009
McDonald is helping substance abusers — most with criminal records — transform their lives and become productive, employed members of the community.
Years of substance abuse culminating in serious heroin addiction landed McDonald in a Los Angeles jail cell charged with armed robbery in 1979. He was released into a unique San Francisco-based recovery program, got clean, and eventually rose to one of the top posts in the resident-run organization. In 1994, McDonald opened his own program, Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers (TROSA), in Durham, North Carolina, with an $18,000 community investment. He secured an abandoned elementary school that would serve as home base. TROSA maintains a free, long-term, residential, community-based approach to substance abuse. Based on a social entrepreneurial model, TROSA residents run a series of businesses that serve as on-the-job vocational training sites and help sustain the organization. TROSA’s business revenues and in-kind contributions secured by residents cover almost 90 percent of a $10 million budget. McDonald, 62, says the feeling among the program’s recovering addicts is: “Don’t give me handouts. Give me work.” In 2004, the city of Durham honored TROSA with a Golden Leaf Award for Community Appearance for renovating seven properties in one neighborhood. Annually, TROSA serves close to 700 substance abusers. According to McDonald, more than 90 percent of participants are still drug free one year after graduating from the program.