Leslie Boyd was a newspaper reporter covering social justice issues such as poverty, mental health and health care for more than 25 years when her son, Mike Danforth, became ill with colon cancer. It was Stage 3 by the time it was discovered because he didn't have access to medical care. He had a birth defect -- a pre-existing condition -- so he couldn't buy insurance at any price. After his death in 2008, Leslie founded the nonprofit, Life o' Mike, which became WNC Health Advocates.
She created Patient Pals & Family Friends to help people who have illness and disability and feel isolated and forgotten.
She created True Stories as a way to educate the public about our nation's broken health care system and to put faces on the problems. The old reporter in her understands the importance of stories in making people understand the need for change.
Leslie continues the fight to 28-243-6712gain access to quality care for everyone as president and director of WNC Health Advocates.
leslie@wnchealthadvocates.org
828-243-6712

Chelsea Kouns is a certified birth and post-natal doula with a passion for making birth easier and safer for women who can't afford a private doula.  Her idea of starting a nonprofit to provide doulas to low-income women coincided with Leslie's idea to find a way to offer the same service, so they joined forces by adding Start from Seed as a program to WNC health Advocates.
In the first year, Chelsea and her volunteers attended dozens of births. The women were referred to us by area clinics and Mission Hospital. They were either uninsured or on Medicaid. Several were teenagers and most were unprepared for birth.
Start from Seed trains new doulas, giving them the experience they need to become certified under the supervision of experienced doulas, so it also creates jobs.
chelsea@startfromseed.org