Adozen years ago, Tom and Jen Hanrahan were dealing with the frustration of infertility, wondering if they would ever have a child to enliven their quiet house. Their house is quiet no more. The Hanrahans are the happy parents of eight children—five adopted, three biological—and considering all they’ve been through, it’s easy to see why Thanksgiving is Jen Hanrahan’s favorite holiday.

Haggai Brown was a sophomore in high school with two small children when she chose to put her education on hold. “It was more important for me to take care of them,“ she said. Now, she’s 27 with seven children, including a stepson, to care for. But in May, she received an associate degree in social sciences from J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College with her children proudly watching.

Each day in the African-American communities across the United States, three children are killed by firearms, 292 babies are born to teen-age mothers, 794 babies are born into poverty. These statistics from the Children’s Defense Fund frighten Raymond Neblett. “They make me want to cry,“ he said. They also inspire him to act, and for that, he is thankful.

For Angela Lee, the memory from last year is still fresh—too fresh some days. She was painting her store, Wilson Lee Interiors, preparing to open it in a month. She was alone, the radio keeping her company. It was Sept. 15, 2008. The news came on and Lee’s slight trepidation that any business owner feels before opening their doors was transformed into abject fear.

True Luck knows good fortune when it comes her way, and she doesn’t mind saying so. “I’m a miracle child,“ she said last week. Terrell Harrigan, seated across from her mother, agreed. She, too, knows good fortune—and a good place to sit. The “canal room” in Luck’s Windsor Farms home, complete with a sweeping view of the Kanawha Canal and the train tracks that run just beyond it, is better than the place the two spent a good bit of their time two years ago: the VCU Massey Cancer Center.