A beach girl from New York, young woman with a heart for the elderly and a beauty who is nothing but humble? Meet Renee Smith. Contradictions make a lovely package. And, she has a bucket list that will surely touch your heart.

It’s only fitting that Terri Reiff manages a fitness center called Powerhouse Gym Family Facility, because among the best words to describe her, “powerhouse” is perfect. Her energy level is off the charts, her dedication to health and fitness is enviable and her devotion to her job is of the highest standard.

It has been said that strength is the product of struggle, and often it’s our deepest pain that empowers us to grow and find our highest self.  When tragedy enters our lives, each of us must find our own ways to cope.

Five years ago, Elisabeth Nantz sat by the living room window, sipping coffee, staring out at her son Regan’s memorial garden. Cuddling his beloved beagle, Petey, she made a decision: through the rubble of immobilizing grief, she would blaze a path back to joy.

“The big thing is, you can move on from a terrible tragedy, and you have to really be scanning for what will help you do that. You have to find what you love and go out there and give it to yourself,” Elisabeth said.

Flipping her arm gracefully over her head, she assumed a perfect New York, New York stance! Beneath pixie bangs, her twinkling eyes were filled with mischief. Caroline Campbell is on a mission!

Karen Matthews and Joanna Yarborough make a striking pair of women, even when Joanna is not wearing her elaborate pink wig. Their bigger than life faces can be seen together on both sides of the pink truck that makes pick-ups for the Cancer Awareness Foundation/Off Island Thrift Store throughout Hilton Head, Bluffton and Hardeeville.

Cushioned by soft green grass, gazing up at the dimming sky, I watched and waited. There it was! "Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. Wish I may, wish I might! Have this wish I wish tonight!"

Through stars, birthday candles, dandelions, Santa, and wishbones, we express our earnest desires, wishing they come true. Since its inception in1980, Make A Wish America has touched the lives of thousands of ill children by miraculously fulfilling their wishes.

We all have a story. Oddly enough, only a handful of people in this world know all the details that make up the colorful reality of our lives. I often wonder, as I brush shoulders with the woman next to me at the deli counter, what is happening in the hearts of strangers that I bump into all day long. I'll think to myself, "Is this woman, who also has a liking for peppered turkey, a woman of great wisdom?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." This is the question asked by Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (II,ii,1-2.)  But for Kathy Deringer, legally changing her family name-Deringer was a random name she found in a phone book-was her declaration that she was no longer the child of brutally abusive parents.

At around midnight on a mid-April evening, a young mother/business woman coddled her three-week-old son close to her. Sometimes he nursed, but mostly he lay uncomfortably in her arms.  By daybreak, Jane Jude knew something was not right with her second child. Moms and experts know very well about "mother's instinct." It is a well-documented phenomenon where a mom can either sense, or know, when something is amiss with her child, even when no one else can.

Imagine your marriage gone sour. Condescending remarks make you begin to feel like a worthless human being. Add to that physical abuse-often begging medical treatment-but you don't dare go because the police will get involved, and your husband has threatened you with your life if you "tell." You are trying to hold it all together for the sake of your children and looking good to your community. You have tried to leave before, but the stalking and harassment threats are so scary.