Yankee Magazine’s November/December issue includes a story called “Angels Among Us 2009,” by Ian Aldrich, featuring four New Englanders who have made a significant difference in the lives of others. Vershire, Vermont, resident Wynona Ward is recognized for founding Have Justice Will Travel (HJWT), a free legal clinic for abused women and children from low-income families. The American Bar Association calls attorney Ward, now HJWT’s executive director, a “road warrior” in the fight against child and spousal abuse. Started 11 years ago, today HJWT operates five offices around the state, employs five full-time attorneys, and has served more than 10,000 people.
“It’s about empowerment, and it’s something we hope to expand not just to other areas of Vermont but to rural areas across the country,” says Ward in the article. “When these women get away from the abuse, they just bloom. They become assured and confident, and want to help other people.” In 2006, Yankee Magazine ran its first “Angels Among Us” article, which resulted in such positive reader response that editor Mel Allen decided to continue the tradition of recognizing New Englanders who make a difference.
“The story spotlights the unselfishness of ordinary people who are makinghuge differences in the lives of people around them,” said Allen. “They’re ordinary people, our neighbors really, helping others—not for fame or fortune, but because there’s something inside them that says it’s right to do so.”
The other New Englanders profiled in “Angels Among Us” are Bill and Anna Spiller, owners of Spiller Farm in Wells, Maine, who over the last few years have donated the largest amount of produce to the Maine chapter of Plant a Row for the Hungry, a program through which farmers donate a portion of their crops to local food banks, soup kitchens, and service organizations to help feed people in need; Ron Whitcomb and Don Sullivan, who organize peer-led post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) group sessions at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Providence, Rhode Island; Wynona Ward of Vershire, Vermont, founder and executive director of Have Justice Will Travel (HJWT), a free legal clinic for abused women and children from low-income families; and Boston, Massachusetts, resident Kara Rainey, who volunteers 10 to 15 hours a week teaching art and organizing field trips for The Home for Little Wanderers, the nation’s oldest child and family services agency.
Yankee Magazine was founded in 1935 and is based in Dublin, New Hampshire. It is the only magazine devoted to New England through its coverage of travel, home, food, and features. With a paid circulation of over 350,000 and a total audience of nearly 2.5 million, it is published by Yankee Publishing Incorporated (YPI), one of the few remaining family-owned, independent magazine publishers in the United States. YPI also owns the nation’s oldest continuously produced periodical, The Old Farmer’s Almanac.
