Atlantans

"Everything I learned from football—whether resilience, accountability, change, or overcoming adversity—has crafted my mentality to reading and bringing it to others."

"Our marketing is all hot pink and sparkles—we just decided to have fun with it," says Michelle Cary. "Our slogan is 'Armed, Licensed and Fabulous.' We posed all the women plumbers in prom dresses—they were not excited at first, but it came out really great. We have hot-pink hard hats. Why not? We have fun."

"My first [Hawks] season was 1985–1986. I had hoped that I would be the longtime voice of the team. That had been my dream as a young broadcaster—to become that guy, like a Vin Scully [with the Los Angeles Dodgers] or Johnny Most with the Celtics or Chick Hearn with the Lakers. People that have been so-called 'lifers.' That’s what I set out to do. And here we are, 39 seasons later."

"I started detailing cars full-time in 2003, but I got tired after a few years and decided to stop," says Yasir Waqaar. "As soon as I quit, I had old clients begging me to come back to work on their cars. So I realized detailing must be my calling."

Fascinated by majorette routines, Baton Bob got his start twirling a broom handle as a kid. As an adult, he began twirling in public as a way to combat depression. "I started going to this park in exercise gear, with my MP3 player and my baton, to twirl my spirit out of this funk. I had the idea of adding costumes to make people laugh. Once I started doing that and set up a website, I started getting responses from fans and seeing the differences I was making in their day."

One of the first things my mom had me do when I graduated from college was get registered to vote and sign up to work the election polls. I remember always going with her to vote. She made sure all her children—all nine of us—were exposed to the process.

No rescue is the same when it comes to bees: They can be anywhere you can imagine, from 30 feet up in a tree to the tarmac of the airport. I think it’s amazing that people call me to rescue bees in the first place. Even though they are terrified, people don’t want to hurt the bees because they know they are good for the environment.

Today, I am a senior refugee referral specialist. Until 2006, I was a case manager, and case managers do everything: come to the rent appointment, help them buy food, help them apply for food stamps, social security card, take them to the health center, to their appointment for the doctor, looking for a job. I cannot tell you how many times I was there at the airport [meeting refugees]. From 1990 to 2000, I only had Saturdays and Sundays not at the airport. Every Friday night, I was in the airport. They called me Mr. Midnight.

"We work with the animals, but our backgrounds also include plumbing, electrical, chemistry, water quality. You get to tinker a lot—we can fix anything with duct tape and a zip tie."

The plum tree is a small tree, about 15 feet tall. I’ve never really done anything to or for it. I didn’t know much about gardening or how to prune or fertilize a tree. My modus operandi was just to stick it in the ground, and that was it. But this little tree just grew and grew, and it has been the most incredibly bountiful tree, very quickly, bearing more fruit than anyone could ever possibly eat. Baskets and baskets of plums.