Lonnie Lockhart Bey, Mataka Askari and Supreme Allah all previously served time in the Missouri Department of Corrections. Since being released, they have all chosen to work with at-risk youth in Columbia.

Carlos Wade is an inmate at the southeast Missouri Correctional Center in the Bootheel. He's been in prison for 28 years – since he was 17 years old, and he maintains his innocence.

Kerry Karaffa is a University of Missouri Counseling Center psychologist that is embedded within the MU College of Veterinary Medicine and works directly with vet students.

Karren Ganschinietz lives and works in Boss, Missouri. She’s been a CNA, or Certified Nursing Assistant, for nearly 40 years – working in assisted living facilities and home care. She spoke with Missouri Business Alert about the shortage of CNAs in Missouri and how that could impact our healthcare systems, as well as the care patients receive.

Sabrina Weaver is a nurse in Columbia and created the non-profit, Defense Against Diabetes, which helps people manage their Type 2 diabetes and helps prevent the onset of the disease in the first place. She spoke about some of the challenges people can face when they're working to establish new healthier habits.

LaKisha Redditt is a Black doula and the founder of Virtuously B’Earthed Doula Services in St. Louis. She spoke about how much more education black birthing people have to do to keep themselves and their babies safe – and about how a doula can help in that process.

Nkenge Miller is a Black doula in St. Louis who started her own doula practice, Doula’s Intuition, in 2018. She spoke about the need for and benefit of doulas – especially those with shared cultural backgrounds.

Sabrina Weaver is a nurse in Columbia and created the non-profit, Defense Against Diabetes, which works with people with diabetes, as well as people before they get diabetes – helping them establish new, healthier habits.She spoke about the differences between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, how both of these can impact children and families and about how preventing diabetes in the first place can help improve people’s long-term health.

Bridgett Robbins is an Assistant teaching professor at the Sinclair School of Nursing, but before that she worked as a nurse in Mid-Missouri for more than 30 years.She spoke about how travel nursing can impact hospitals and about why she believes some students want to sign traveling contracts.

Danielle Devers works in Student Health & Well-being at the University of Missouri, and one of her roles is to work with the Well-being peers – a diverse team of students that seek to support and educate other MU students on topics like alcohol responsibility, stress and mental health, sexual health, healthy relationships, and more.

Bridgett Robbins is an Assistant teaching professor at the Sinclair School of Nursing, but before that she worked as a nurse in Mid-Missouri for more than 30 years.She spoke about how the past several years of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted – and continues to impact – her and those she works alongside.As a note - This piece discusses the pandemic, grief and death, and may be distressing to some listeners.

Lauren Jones is a sophomore and hairstylist at Mizzou and spoke a little bit about her own relationship – and past – with her hair, as well as about how hair can impact the mental health and well-being of other people in the Black community.She also spoke about the role she gets to play, as a stylist, in helping people see the beauty in their hair.

Kiera Bradshaw is a senior and part-time hairstylist at the University of Missouri. She spoke about the mental health impacts of hair, texturism and hair depression in the Black community.Texturism is the discrimination against people with kinkier, coarse hair in the 4B and 4C range, as well as a preference for looser and smoother textures in the 3A to 3C range.

Students for Change is a student-led group in the Columbia Public Schools. Karli Jones and Taylor Lee both attend Hickman High School, and Virgil Worstell is a student at Rockbridge.They spoke about how their organization came to be and how the threat of gun violence impacts their day to day live.

Lonnie Lockhart Bey and Julian Jackman both spent many years in prison, and since their releases they have worked together to create the R.I.S.E Initiative in Columbia, which works with and empowers at-risk youth.They spoke about some of the reasons they created the R.I.S.E. Initiative and about what motivates them to do this work.

Teens Mylee Hawkins and Jessi Johnson are competitive figure skaters who met at the Jefferson City ice rink. The sport is very physically and mentally demanding, so they spoke about how they’ve found support in each other.

Debi Hake is a licensed professional counselor with the Marriage and Family Counseling Center in Columbia. One of her specialty areas is spiritual abuse and religious trauma.She spoke about how religious trauma impacts how people navigate mental health care.

Jessica Chambers, a peer support specialist at the Reentry Opportunity Center in Columbia (the ROC), works with folks who are coming out of prison – helping them connect to housing, treatment, and just a sense of community.

Cameron Reitan, a second year Master’s of Public Health student at the University of Missouri, who’s also employed as a personal care attendant – essentially, she’s hired by people with disabilities to help them with whatever tasks they need.She spoke about why she does this work and a little about what people misunderstand about caregiving.

As the saying goes, sometimes nature and fresh air can be the best medicine.Steve Buback is a natural history biologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation and spends most of his day outdoors – dealing with various rare plants, insects and birds.He spoke about how exposure to nature can impact people’s mental and physical health, and a little bit about how the pandemic has shifted some people’s relationship with the outdoors.