It’s not every day that an elderly man asks you to pierce his testicle, but for Wendi, it’s all part of the job. The piercer and owner of Kingpin Studio has been in the business for 11 years, ever since she discovered her small, ambidextrous hands made her perfect for the job.

Need your dog walked, your kitchen organized and your business promoted? Call Leigh Anne and Paula. The owners of You Time Solutions (youtimesolutions.com) coined the phrase lifestyle logistics to describe their array of services, which cover everything from adjusting a chair to helping launch a nonprofit. “We are the solution for people’s busy lifestyle,” says Paula, who founded the company in 2007. “We’re the way to get them from point A, which is ridiculously busy, to point B, which is relaxed.” Adds Leigh Anne, “We make time for what they love to do.” From helping an Alzheimer’s patient get dressed to preventing a house fire, the pair strive to bring order to chaos, and at a price that’s budget-friendly. But for these ladies, it’s a labor of love. Says Paula, “We have this ridiculous passion, and I would say it’s absurd, to just make people’s lives easier.”
 

Walk into Terra Blue, Sarah’s downtown store, for a cup of coffee, and you may leave with a new outlook on life. Her official title may be owner, but for many of her customers, Sarah is also a sounding board, spending hours with someone who is, whether they knew it or not, looking for guidance. “They don’t even know that they’re looking for me, and when they come in, it just hits them and they’re like, I need to be here. And a lot of times all they need to do is sit, have a cup of coffee and unwind.” And if coffee and conversation won’t do the trick, Sarah can help them choose healing stones, herbs or, rarely, a spell to alleviate their problems, along with the masks, candles, soaps and other items she makes. “It’s not a part of my job, but it’s a part of my job as serving humanity.”
 

When Steven was downsized from his finance job a year ago, Christine took the reins and opened Uptown Cheapskate, a high-end consignment store that caters to teens and young adults. With Steven’s role in the back office, “I’d say we’ve spent more time together in the last year than we have in the previous 10 years,” he says.

Christine: “Going into this, we knew that I had the fashion and the retail background, he had the finance background, so it just worked perfect. We make a great team.”

Steven: “She’s a very warm and compassionate person. It’s just one of those things when you’re around her, you can sense a goodness about her.”

“Remember to laugh” reads the glass at Kneaded Energy massage school and practice, which Bill and Shelley own. It’s the secret to their marriage as well, from their barbecue-themed road trip to their surprise wedding with invitations scribbled on napkins. “We live in a different world,” says Bill. “Everything we see is funny.”

Shelley: “We’re passionate about our work, so that makes the day easy to be together, because we are doing what we’ve always wanted to do.”

Bill: “We can just look at each other and know a thousand words that we are saying to each other.”
 

“I don’t regret becoming a firefighter,” says Dee Ann. Of the five women in her 1978 training class, she was the only one to stay 30 years, rising to the rank of deputy chief before she retired from the Greensboro Fire Department in 2008. While fears about the close sleeping quarters initially led a few of her male colleagues to request transfer, Dee Ann earned their respect the way any self-proclaimed tomboy would – by not being afraid to get dirty. “We were the first class so everything we did was scrutinized. Male or female, you have to show that you can do the job, so we were watched. Was it all easy? No, but I couldn’t have asked for a better group, a better organization to work for,” she says. “I don’t know that I could have found another profession that would suit me as well as the one that I had.”
 

“I don’t regret taking a strong ethical stand with my business,” says Adrienne, president of Atlantic Webworks marketing and design. It’s a position that has earned her local and national awards, but it can often mean losing money. The company won’t charge for referrals, won’t take customers whose business plans are ill-conceived and won’t take jobs from clients’ competitors. “We lose money 100 percent of the time on that. And that’s okay, because you gain it later,” Adrienne says. She started her company out of her home in 1997, at a time when the Web was in its infancy, and now boasts more than 300 clients. But her attitude toward her customers hasn’t changed. “Ethical choices are never convenient, when you think about it,” she says. “The ethical choices that I’ve chosen to make are, in my opinion, my small way of making the world the way I think it should be.”
 
 

Her love affair with the Bard started in the 9th grade, and she’s been devoted to him ever since. Now Martha, as outreach education artistic associate for the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival, has the opportunity to reach a new generation of fans through programs that bring his words out of the past and off of the page. “A play, if you just pick up the text of it, is already missing a huge part of it, which is the action,” she says. So the trained actress, freelance director and former teacher leads Shakespeare to Go, a 60-minute classroom version of a famous work, and Hands-On Shakespeare, which helps teachers make the plays more relevant to today’s teens. “The Taming of the Shrew” with a “Beach Blanket Bingo” vibe? Sure. “I want students especially to not think of it as old-timey, Martha says. “We’ve brought them Shakespeare without all of the old-timeyness and baggage.”
 

Slavery. Racism. Violence. These are not your typical children’s book themes, but then Carole is not your typical author. A poet since the first grade, she found her niche writing children’s poetry as a young mom of two. Now she’s the author of 35 books, most inspired by true and tragic events, including 2008’s “Becoming Billie Holiday,” a labor of love that allowed Carole to give voice to her lifelong muse. The Fayetteville State professor finds inspiration in the pages of history, whether it’s recent, as in “First Pooch: The Obamas Pick a Pet,” or from biblical times, for 2010’s “The Beatitudes: From Slavery to Civil Rights.” “Children have a much stronger sense of justice than adults do,” Carole says. “My objective is not to shock young readers, but to nudge them to justice by showing them what happened in the past, so that we won’t repeat the same inhumanities against each other.”
 

“Knowledge is power.” That’s why as a parent educator for the Good Beginnings for Teen Parents program of Family Life Council, Sebrina makes it a point to answer every question her young moms and moms-to-be might have. Her goal through the eight-week program is to give girls the tools they need to be effective parents and the confidence to achieve the same dreams they had before they became pregnant. Through the program’s scholarship fund, she’s able to help make those dreams a reality. “Whatever it is that they were meant to do in life they can still do. It may take them a little bit longer to get there, but they can still get there.” To help fund the scholarship program, contact Sebrina at scookedavis@flcgso.com.

“To be effective and prepared for parenting one must possess skill and knowledge. This program has allowed me to extend the opportunity to a young mother that she may be empowered in her parenting and womanhood, that she and her child will have a chance at success and lead productive lives.”
 

When Faye founded Hospice League of Alamance-Caswell in 1989, she had six volunteers and no budget. Two decades later, she has raised nearly $10 million to build a home to provide care for dying patients, a home she hopes to expand with six new rooms. As president of the only all-volunteer hospice league in the country, she coordinates 500 volunteers and multiple events, all without accepting a dime for herself. “People say, ‘Why in the world do you work for free?’ and I say, ‘My payment is out of this world.’ ”

If you can begin to imagine the discomfort and loneliness of a patient meeting the end of life’s journey on a mattress on the floor or of a lady dying in an attic, you can understand my passion for Hospice. As a trained patient care volunteer for Hospice, I have cared for patients living with these and other unbelievably tragic conditions. My dream was to raise the money to provide a Hospice home where these patients could die with the dignity they deserved. I have been blessed to see this dream become a reality.     

“The little things are the big things.” That’s the message of Jennifer’s blog, Balancing Beauty and Bedlam (beautyandbedlam.com). As a mother of five, she shares her secrets for frugal yet fabulous living, and she’s living proof that it works, from her $2 Goodwill outfit to her $500-a-month grocery bill for a family of seven. Her practical ideas have taken her beyond the blogosphere to speaking engagements and a writing gig for a new online women’s magazine, (In)Courage. “I found, especially with this economy, I really had a voice that people wanted to hear.”

On easier meal-planning: Set the timer for one hour, then cook and freeze as much as you can. “In one hour of just concentrated time, I was able to break down certain kitchen tasks enough that I was going to get eight meals out of that one hour.”

Whether you’re dressing for an interview or staging your home to sell, Kim can help you get results. The owner of All About Image spent 20 years in the home furnishings industry before starting her own business three years ago, helping home buyers see a property’s inner beauty. “The economy has definitely made people realize that in order to sell the house it has to be in tip-top shape and it has to look great, and they need some help doing that.”

On choosing a focal point: “Look at what feature is the most prominent in the room, then create your conversation area around this space. If a room doesn’t have a significant feature, you can create a focal point by adding a piece of artwork, floating shelves to showcase a collection or groupings of framed photographs on a wall.”

In a quiet, sunny studio on South Elm Street, Tonya is redefining strength. As one of only two muscle activation technique specialists in the state, she helps “re-educate” and realign the muscles to alleviate pain and prevent injury. “My goal is to make sure that people can play hard. I always tell them, ‘Play hard, I’ll see you soon.’ ” Her own workout routine consists of the daily Pilates classes she teaches at her Get Fit studio, but she also loves the elliptical trainer, hiking and pushups. “I really love Pilates because it’s taking the mechanics of the body, taking what you have and helping people get stronger with what they have available to them.” Whether she’s teaching teachers at Kiser Middle School or simply coaching her clients one-on-one, Tonya’s “Keep-it-Simple-Sweetie” message is movement. “What keeps you young is movement. The more active you are, the better off you are.”