Common Ground Sanctuary is an umbrella of direct-service, crisis-intervention programs serving one of Michigan's largest counties, and Katherine White '60 has been behind much of the organization's exponential growth in recent years. White has been a behind-the-scenes problem solver, board chair--and the voice answering the crisis hotline Monday mornings for 14 years.

Asked about her involvement, she replied, "I'm a professional volunteer." She traces that to her years in Panama with the Peace Corps in the late 1960s and sees a network of roots for her volunteerism at Colby--in the quiet example of the late Professor Robert Reuman and in the "neighborhood" sensibility of the College, where she would help out someone down the hall and have the favor returned later.

White's philosophy, from the Peace Corps, Common Ground Sanctuary and other endeavors, is: "you work with someone else to enable them to express what they wish to do, and then you give them the tools to accomplish that." Other people's progress gives her efforts meaning, she said. "Hopefully, someone is in a more optimistic state than when you started."