Photo:Shuran Huang
Shuran Huang
01of 08Katy Perry & Angela LercheRony AlwinShe’s one of the best-selling musicians of all time, butKaty Perryhas always dreamed of leaving a legacy beyond her No. 1 hits. In 2018 the pop star andAmerican Idoljudge, 39, launched theFirework Foundation— which hosts annual summer sleep-away camps and partners with theBoys & Girls Clubs of Americayear-round — with her older sister Angela Lerche, 41. “The arts gave me such a different perspective than the one I grew up in. It expanded my mind and gave me confidence,” says Perry.Growing up, their family struggled financially. “We relate to [these kids] so much,” says Lerche, who serves as president of the foundation. Five years ago, they welcomed the first group of middle schoolers to Camp Firework, where kids from underserved areas surrounding Los Angeles participate in songwriting sessions, shoe design workshops and choreography classes.Perry and Lerche encourage the kids to take what they’ve learned, including mental health tools like Transcendental Meditation, back into the real world. “We [want to] support these young people throughout their whole educational journey,” says Perry. “I’m so grateful for my gift as a musician, but if in a hundred years nobody knows Katy Perry or the song ‘Firework,’ but they know what the Firework Foundation is, then I’ll have fulfilled my purpose.”
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Katy Perry & Angela Lerche
Rony Alwin
She’s one of the best-selling musicians of all time, butKaty Perryhas always dreamed of leaving a legacy beyond her No. 1 hits. In 2018 the pop star andAmerican Idoljudge, 39, launched theFirework Foundation— which hosts annual summer sleep-away camps and partners with theBoys & Girls Clubs of Americayear-round — with her older sister Angela Lerche, 41. “The arts gave me such a different perspective than the one I grew up in. It expanded my mind and gave me confidence,” says Perry.
Growing up, their family struggled financially. “We relate to [these kids] so much,” says Lerche, who serves as president of the foundation. Five years ago, they welcomed the first group of middle schoolers to Camp Firework, where kids from underserved areas surrounding Los Angeles participate in songwriting sessions, shoe design workshops and choreography classes.
Perry and Lerche encourage the kids to take what they’ve learned, including mental health tools like Transcendental Meditation, back into the real world. “We [want to] support these young people throughout their whole educational journey,” says Perry. “I’m so grateful for my gift as a musician, but if in a hundred years nobody knows Katy Perry or the song ‘Firework,’ but they know what the Firework Foundation is, then I’ll have fulfilled my purpose.”
02of 08
Kali Reis
Justin J Wee
So Reis, now 37, worked to paint a compelling picture of some stark truths: that Indigenous women are 10 times more likely to be murdered than women of other ethnicities and that more than four out of five have experienced violence. She began advocating for MMIW at conferences, on social media and even during fights, with special insignias stitched to her trunks. “It wasn’t like I set out to be an activist,” she says. “I just was using my voice with the platform I had.”
In 2021 she saw that platform get larger with her film debut inCatch the Fair One, about a half-Native American, half-Cape Verdean boxer tracking her abducted younger sister. Her performance caught the eye ofJodie Foster,who suggested Reis for the role of Evangeline Navarro, an Alaskan state trooper of Iñupiaq heritage, onTrue Detective: Night Country; next she’ll play a Native woman inWind River: Rising. “I keep getting these opportunities to voice the voiceless,” she says. “The stories that are going to be [shared], the faces that are going to be seen, the truths that are going to be told — I’m so excited for all of it.”
03of 08Deborah SzekelyMonique FeilTwo months shy of her 102nd birthday, wellness pioneer Deborah Szekely is redefining what it means to live long and prosper. “The morning I turned 100, I laid in bed and said, ‘Here’s this great gift. What am I supposed to be doing with it?’ And I couldn’t think of anything special, so I just got up and kept doing my job.”That job has been the one she’s practiced for more than eight decades: helping people understand that good health is within everyone’s reach. It started at home. Szekely’s mother was vice president of the New York Vegetarian Society and fed the family a diet of raw foods, years before terms like farm-to-table and organic were commonplace. “In school, nobody wanted to share my whole wheat bread and chopped nuts, so I felt myself a pariah — and then I decided I’d become a flag-waver,” Szekely says.She founded wellness resortsGolden DoorandRancho La Puerta— and she’s taken her healthy message wide ever since, championing for school lunch programs to serve more nutritious, plant-forward meals and working with Congress on initiatives to educate children on health and fitness. “Anyone can have a healthy routine,” says Szekely. “You don’t need the fancy equipment — only a little motivation to make yourself a priority every day.” Szekely still walks an hour every day, relishes a pescatarian diet and gives lectures on holistic living. “If you do all these things, you can be my age, still active and having fun. And I am having lots of fun.”
03of 08
Deborah Szekely
Monique Feil
Two months shy of her 102nd birthday, wellness pioneer Deborah Szekely is redefining what it means to live long and prosper. “The morning I turned 100, I laid in bed and said, ‘Here’s this great gift. What am I supposed to be doing with it?’ And I couldn’t think of anything special, so I just got up and kept doing my job.”
That job has been the one she’s practiced for more than eight decades: helping people understand that good health is within everyone’s reach. It started at home. Szekely’s mother was vice president of the New York Vegetarian Society and fed the family a diet of raw foods, years before terms like farm-to-table and organic were commonplace. “In school, nobody wanted to share my whole wheat bread and chopped nuts, so I felt myself a pariah — and then I decided I’d become a flag-waver,” Szekely says.
She founded wellness resortsGolden DoorandRancho La Puerta— and she’s taken her healthy message wide ever since, championing for school lunch programs to serve more nutritious, plant-forward meals and working with Congress on initiatives to educate children on health and fitness. “Anyone can have a healthy routine,” says Szekely. “You don’t need the fancy equipment — only a little motivation to make yourself a priority every day.” Szekely still walks an hour every day, relishes a pescatarian diet and gives lectures on holistic living. “If you do all these things, you can be my age, still active and having fun. And I am having lots of fun.”
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Helen Christoni & Emma Heming Willis
Geoff Moore
05of 08
Laney Crowell & Jordan-Risa Santos
NEIL RASMUS/BFA.com
“These topics are stigmatized,” says Santos, 32. “We’re trying to support a deeper understanding.” Adds Crowell, “Human rights are being stripped [away]. When that happens, you end up with a lot of very passionate people who want to create change. We’re putting our stake in the ground.”
06of 08
April Babcock & Virginia Krieger
When April Babcock and Virginia Krieger see how their advocacy groupLost Voices of Fentanylhas grown in the past three-and-a-half years, it shakes them. “We cry,” admits Krieger, 59, whose daughter, Tiffany Robertson, died after unintentionally ingesting fentanyl in 2015 at age 26. “When we grow, it means more loss, more suffering, more families and children going through this.”
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Marlee Matlin
Josh Telles/August
Matlin quips it doesn’t require “rocket science” to make a difference, just more collaboration between deaf and hearing people. In that spirit, she will continue to “make noise for access,” as she puts it. “It’s just part of who I am.”
08of 08Angela BassettJohn RussoBehindAngela Bassett’s many successes — including more than 100 credits in nearly four decades in the business and an honorary Oscar — are long days, tough choices and an unwillingness to accept reductive roles. With two college-bound teens at home and scant time off from shooting her hit series9-1-1, “you have to know what to say no to as well as what to say yes to,” says Bassett, who often leaves her home before the sun rises and returns after dark.Some days, she says, “I feel a little guilt in that, but also I hope that what will come out of that is that [my kids] see a mama, a woman, a Black woman achieving her dreams, having success. They’ll see that hard work pays off. And they’ll be about that life for themselves.”Beyond the example she sets at home, Bassett has also been an advocate for heart health since her mother Betty, who had type 2 diabetes, died in 2014 from heart disease. Spreading the message of the link between diabetes and cardiovascular disease is important, Bassett adds, “because African Americans deal with a great deal of stress just going about day-to-day living. And it impacts us tremendously.”
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Angela Bassett
John Russo
BehindAngela Bassett’s many successes — including more than 100 credits in nearly four decades in the business and an honorary Oscar — are long days, tough choices and an unwillingness to accept reductive roles. With two college-bound teens at home and scant time off from shooting her hit series9-1-1, “you have to know what to say no to as well as what to say yes to,” says Bassett, who often leaves her home before the sun rises and returns after dark.
Some days, she says, “I feel a little guilt in that, but also I hope that what will come out of that is that [my kids] see a mama, a woman, a Black woman achieving her dreams, having success. They’ll see that hard work pays off. And they’ll be about that life for themselves.”
Beyond the example she sets at home, Bassett has also been an advocate for heart health since her mother Betty, who had type 2 diabetes, died in 2014 from heart disease. Spreading the message of the link between diabetes and cardiovascular disease is important, Bassett adds, “because African Americans deal with a great deal of stress just going about day-to-day living. And it impacts us tremendously."
John RussoFor more of PEOPLE’s Women Changing the World, pick up the March 11 issue, on newsstands Friday.
For more of PEOPLE’s Women Changing the World, pick up the March 11 issue, on newsstands Friday.
source: people.com
