Ken and Ruth Procter call Decorah home. Ruth was born and raised in this hub of northeast Iowa, went to college here, and was a teacher for 38 1/2 years, most of them as a...

Dr. John Berry looks at the faces of the students he is responsible for every day and thinks about what they could become. Astronaut. Nurse. Firefighter. Engineer. The President and CEO of Tri-County Child and Family Development Council oversees Head...

The YMCA of Black Hawk County is celebrating 150 years of service to the Cedar Valley in 2018 and the historic organization is poised to boldly step into doing more for its community. In 2017, the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa...

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Iowa Executive Director, Katie Orlando, and her staff are passionate about expanding the positive impact one-to-one mentoring has on children and their mentors.In just two and a half years, the organization has gone from...

Hawkeye Community College has a vision that is coming to life in the form of the new Adult Learning Center currently under construction in downtown Waterloo. Here, urban students will come to start a career path, learn English, and prepare for...

Breanna Himschoot had dreamed of going to an Ivy League school like the University of Pennsylvania, but the Waterloo East High School graduate didn’t know if financially the dream would ever be achievable. Thanks to a generous financial aid package...

Don and Shirley Kniss were never blessed with children of their own, but Shirley considered all her students her children. During her 35-year teaching career, primarily at Waterloo’s Kingsley Elementary School, Shirley influenced, nurtured, and impacted over three generations...

Waverly was a young community in the late 1800s when the Rathe family made it their home and a generational tradition of giving back began. Today, the community is thriving and Dr. Ann Rathe, a psychiatrist at Waverly Health Center,...

Pauline Barrett was a pillar of generosity in the Cedar Valley. The impact of her giving, along with that of her husband Dr. Sterling Barrett, has rippled across the community they loved.In 1994, Pauline established the Pauline R. Barrett Fund...