80 Time April 6–13, 2020JASON
MARSH
Kindness through
scienceWhat makes life
meaningful? Why
do people do good?
The Greater Good
Science Center at
the University of Cali-
fornia, Berkeley, has
grappled with such
questions for nearly
20 years, translating
and sharing research
on social-emotional
well-being so that
those outsideacademia can put
it to use in their
daily lives. While
many cultures have
wrestled with “the
good life,” the cen-
ter’s aim is to create
a common language
for discussing the
answers; they also
recently launched a
Bridging Differences
project to share
science- supported
techniques for
facilitating dialogue
across divides. By
connecting people
doing that research
with the people who
need it most, says
Jason Marsh, execu-
tive director of the
center and editor in
chief of its magazine
Greater Good, “we
can do so much
more good in the
world.” —M.C.PAUL RAMSEY
Getting resultsWatching the corona
virus crisis grow, Dr.
Paul Ramsey, the
CEO of UW Medicine,
knew the University
of Washington’s virol
ogy laboratory was
scientifically ready
to process COVID 19
tests. What it
needed was people.
So, on March 13,
Ramsey emailed the
UW Medicine com
munity asking
for volunteers.
Qualified indi
viduals from a variety
of backgrounds
dropped their
research to help,
and the lab is now
processing COVID 19
tests 24 hours a
day, seven days a
week. Ramsey says
UW Medicine has
achieved a turn
around time of under
12 hours for results
and hopes to eventu
ally get through
10,000 tests a day.
And the volun
teerism isn’t limited
to the lab: retirees
have returned to
work, and a UW data
base connects com
munity members who
want to be helpful.
“Communities come
together in times of
crisis,” Ramsey says.
“So I’m pleased
and proud but not
surprised.” —M.C.JIN-YA HUANG
Cooking up communityJinYa Huang’s parents were Taiwanese immi
grants who owned a Chinese restaurant, Egg
roll Express, in Dallas, where her mother used
the kitchen to train other immigrant women to
cook. After her mother died in 2015, Huang, a
photographer, wanted to honor her and to help
some of the refugees whose stories she was
telling in her work. The result was the catering
company Break Bread Break Borders. Huang,
49, recruits women from refugee communities
who love to cook. Her organization helps them
get foodservice licenses so they can start
their own businesses, and anyone who hires
the catering company can opt to hear from
them about why they left their homes. “We are
putting a face on food,” Huang says. —B.L.JAYDE POWELL
Guardian angelJayde Powell was heading home to Las Vegas
for spring break on March 13 when her mom
ended their call so that amid COVID-19 fears,
she could check on their elderly neighbors.
The exchange got the 20-year-old thinking.
That day, she created ads for Shopping
Angels, a network to link seniors and immuno-
compromised people to volunteers who can
deliver groceries and essentials. It soon “sur-
passed what I ever could have imagined,” she
says. Within a week, the group signed up more
than 2,900 people across the U.S. who want
to be volunteers. Powell, a premed student,
ex pected to resume classes online March 23
but plans to keep the program going “as long
as people are wanting to help.” —S.M.BEN FINK AND PAULA GREEN
Personal politicsThe 2016 election prompted mutterings that
Americans should escape their echo chambers,
but few did so as purposefully as a group called
Hands Across the Hills. In 2017, rural voters
from Letcher County, Kentucky, in Trump ter
ritory, traveled to meet with rural voters from
Leverett, Mass., part of Clinton country—not to
change each other’s minds but to better under
stand one another’s thinking. “People are really
curious,” says Ben Fink of the Letcher County
Culture Hub, who helped organize the meeting.
“We humanized each other,” says Paula Green,
a conflictresolution expert who was on the
Massachusetts side. The summit became an
annual tradition; the group plans to meet for a
fourth time in 2020—after the election. —K.S.UWR.uniters.indd 80 3/25/20 4:24 PM