Photo by John Huba

Impact Awards 2005 Honorees By The Editors, January & February 2005 Ten people who improved the world we live in

Richard Gere

AIDS Activist
On a bright fall afternoon in Manhattan, Richard Gere takes a break from promoting his latest film, Shall We Dance?—in which he plays a man who finds new passion and purpose in life when he learns to waltz (from Jennifer Lopez no less)—to ponder the deeper meaning of his own life. At 55, the actor, who became an icon playing irresistible seducers in American Gigolo and Pretty Woman and won a Golden Globe in 2003 for his role as the tap-dancing con artist Billy Flynn in the hit movie musical Chicago, doesn't have to do anything to preserve his place in history. But he feels a greater calling, a universal responsibility to end suffering in the world. More on Richard Gere >>

Linda Saif

SARS Researcher
For more than 25 years, microbiologist Linda Saif quietly worked in one of medicine's less fashionable areas—the infectious diseases of farm animals. Then people in Hong Kong started dying from a mystery illness called SARS, and Dr. Saif's singular expertise proved suddenly invaluable. SARS was triggered by a coronavirus, a type of bug that usually causes only cold symptoms in humans but can be deadly in animals. As one of the world's leading authorities on animal coronaviruses, Dr. Saif and her Ohio State University animal-virus lab suddenly found themselves at ground zero in the battle for lives. Dr. Saif herself acted as a lead consultant to the World Health Organization, and her lab became part of an international network of labs organized to fight the disease. More than 900 died in the epidemic, but it could have been worse. "A lot of people said, years ago, that we were on the verge of conquering infectious disease, but now we can see that emerging diseases are coming at us at a fast and furious rate," Dr. Saif says. "Our only hope is doing more research."—David Dudley

William Donaldson

Wall Street Watchdog
After watching corporate behemoths like Enron and WorldCom implode because of corrupt accounting, gutting thousands of people's 401(k) savings, few investors felt secure. That started to change when President Bush appointed William Donaldson head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2003. "At this stage in my life, I felt I could be truly independent," says Donaldson of his decision, at age 71, to accept the job. "I can take on the complex problems and I have the freedom to try to do what's right." The ex-Marine and former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange didn't waste a minute in making bold, controversial moves, adding almost 1,000 new employees to the SEC payroll and adopting nine new initiatives to tighten oversight of mutual funds. "Chairman Donaldson is a forceful advocate for the interests of investors," says Paul Schott Stevens, president of the Investment Company Institute, the trade association for the mutual fund industry. It's reassuring to know there's an ex-Marine fighting to protect our retirement cash.—Ron Geraci

Jane Seymour

Children's Advocate
Yes, she still has long chestnut-colored hair and that come-hither look that made her such a beloved heroine in the '90s TV show Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. But make no mistake, beneath Jane Seymour's sultry exterior beats the heart of a stalwart child advocate who works tirelessly to help abused and vulnerable kids. As international ambassador for Childhelp USA, an organization dedicated to the prevention and treatment of child abuse, Seymour, 53, travels around the world raising awareness and money. "My number-one priority in life is children," says the mother of four and stepmother of two. "I realize that I've been given many gifts, not least of which is my ability to communicate on behalf of people who don't have a voice." To that end, in 2004 Seymour renewed her commitment to the American Red Cross Measles Initiative, which vaccinates children in Africa against the deadly disease. Two years ago, when Seymour traveled to Kenya as part of the initiative, the result was 14 million children vaccinated in one week. "I believe that children are our most endangered species," Seymour says. "We can eradicate measles from the continent of Africa with a program that costs less than $1 a child." No Hollywood diva she, Seymour reminds us that the power of celebrity—coupled with compassion and dedication—can yield incredible results.—Elizabeth Enright

Princess Yasmin Aga Khan

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Alzheimer's Crusader
For years, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan had known that something was desperately wrong with her mother, actress Rita Hayworth. In 1981, doctors gave a name—Alzheimer's—to the Hollywood legend's memory loss and sudden rages, but they couldn't help her daughter slow the disease's steady progression. "At first I felt a sense of relief—here was a medical explanation," Khan says. "But now what?" Khan, whose father was the wealthy Prince Aly Khan, abandoned a singing career to become her mother's sole caretaker in the final years of her illness. She also threw herself into the search for a cure, joining the nascent Alzheimer's Association, lobbying Congress for increased federal funding, and, in 1984, holding the first Rita Hayworth fundraising gala. In 2004, her two annual fundraisers in New York and Chicago generated $3 million in donations. "I always have hope, and we are making progress," says Khan, who is now honorary vice-chairman of the Alzheimer's Association in the U.S. and president of the UK-based umbrella organization Alzheimer's Disease International. "I don't know if a cure will be found in my lifetime, but I will be involved for my life. It's my mission."—David Dudley

Antonia Hernández

Civil Rights Leader
As the oldest of seven children of poor Mexican immigrants, Antonia Hernández always knew she wanted to dedicate her life to helping those less fortunate. Even before she could drive, she would walk the picket lines in support of California's farm workers. Then she spent two decades working to protect the rights of the nation's 35 million Latinos: as president and chief counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) from 1985 to 2003, she worked to create voting districts that equitably represented Latinos, opposed the nominations of federal judges with poor civil-rights records, and successfully defeated a California state measure that would have denied health and education benefits to undocumented immigrants. "I'm a do-gooder," acknowledges Hernández."What I truly want is for every person to have the opportunity to fulfill his or her potential." Today, as the new president and CEO of the California Community Foundation, the nation's ninth-largest community foundation, overseeing more than $650 million in assets, her role is to marry the resources of generous donors with causes such as health and education. While the focus has narrowed, the overall goal is the same: to improve the lives of poor people. "Being able to create an opportunity for people of wealth to share their resources with those in need is wonderful," Hernández says. "We're creating a community in which we're all interdependent. It's what makes this country so great."—Elizabeth Enright

Alice Coles

Community Builder
Until 2003, most of the 114 residents of Bayview, Virginia, lived in the kind of abject poverty that is difficult to grasp: two- and three-room shacks with no running water and no heat, and the constant threat of fires from faulty electrical wiring. In the last year, most of those people have moved into modern housing, thanks largely to the efforts of Alice Coles, 53. In 1994, this single mother of two learned that the state of Virginia was planning to build a maximum-security prison on land that her ancestors had farmed for more than 300 years. "We decided to fight it," Coles recalls, "because we didn't have anywhere to go and we didn't have anything to lose." Coles, who at the time was making $5,000 a year handpicking the meat out of crabs, educated herself about how the Department of Corrections worked and traveled to Richmond to testify against building a prison less than a mile from where her children attended school. "I didn't have two pennies to rub together, but I told them about our dedication to our land and our children. And they listened." Flush from that victory, Coles organized her neighbors and began applying for federal and state housing grants to turn the eyesore that was her community into a jewel. Today, 42 of a planned 132 homes are built, as are a greenhouse and a community technology center. "We have to look within ourselves for that one gift God has given us and use it," Coles says. "We just need to look around and see how we can make this world a better place to live."—Gabrielle Redford

George Wein

Jazz Impresario
In 1950, at age 24, singer-pianist George Wein discovered his true calling. That's when he set up a tiny club in Boston with $5,000 in savings and began booking jazz musicians on a weekly basis. Four years later, he launched the Newport Jazz Festival, which is credited with popularizing music that, until then, had mostly been heard in smoky nightclubs around the country. Along the way, Wein helped friends like Duke Ellington and Miles Davis develop global followings. In 2004, the Newport festival celebrated its 50th birthday with an acclaimed return to the music's roots. As founder and CEO of Festival Productions, Wein oversees a dozen festivals staged in numerous cities around the world, including a stop in Tokyo, launched in 2004; the flagship JVC Jazz Festival in New York City; and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, a national treasure. "I can never retire," says the 79-year-old jazz impresario, allowing fans of live music everywhere to heave a collective sigh of relief. —Richard Gehr

Tom Brokaw

Veteran Newsman
When Tom Brokaw stepped down in December as anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, it signaled not just the end of his 21-year stint as the handsomely chiseled face of his network's news division; it also marked the end of an era. "When I came up in the business, the world was seen through the prism of white middle-aged guys on the Eastern seaboard," Brokaw says. The trusted newsman helped change all that, scoring a string of exclusive interviews with such high-profile world leaders as Mikhail Gorbachev and the Dalai Lama, and reporting directly from the scene in hot spots across the globe. He was the only evening news anchor in Berlin the night the Berlin Wall fell and the first to report from the site of the Oklahoma City bombing. Now, cut loose from the rigors of a daily program, the newsman says he's eager to get on with his non-TV life. "Walter and Betsy Cronkite are role models for [my wife] Meredith and me," Brokaw says. "The energy they cast across a wide spectrum of interests inspires me." Brokaw's own interests post retirement include a visit to New Zealand and possibly even a new book. "I'm ready to try some new things," he says. "That's what life is all about."—Cable Neuhaus

Gloria White-Hammond

Doctor, Pastor, Missionary
When they married, Gloria White-Hammond and her husband considered becoming missionaries in Africa. Events—and children—intervened, and the two stayed in Boston, founding Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church and ministering to their flock and needy neighbors. But the lean, elegant pediatrician still had a burden for Africa, and she periodically found her way there on humanitarian missions. In 2001, she traveled to Sudan to help redeem more than 2,000 women and girls taken as slaves during that country's civil war. The stories she heard there—of beatings, killings, and almost unimaginable sexual abuse—sickened her. But so did the grinding, dead-end lives the women were returning to. "You bring them back to their communities," White-Hammond says, "but then what?" The doctor's answer to that question was to provide, in 2004, diesel-powered mills to relieve the women's traditional, all-day task of grinding grain—and to support a new school for girls, called My Sister's Keeper School. Her next stop: bloody Darfur in western Sudan, to learn what women there need.—Meg Guroff

Credits

Photo Credits
Richard Gere: John Huba; Linda Saif: Daniela Stallinger; William Donaldson: Brian Velenchenko; Jane Seymour: Matthias Clamer; Princess Yasmin Aga Khan: Emily Shur; Antonia Hernández: Emily Shur; George Wein: Brian Velenchenko; Alice Coles: Daniela Stallinger; Tom Brokaw: Evan Agostini/Getty Images; Gloria White-Hammond: Emily Shur

Hair & Makeup Credits
Jane Seymour: Hair by David Shannon for Cloutier, makeup by Lisa Neilson; Princess Yasmin Aga Khan: Hair and makeup by Andie Makoe-Byrne