In 1971, Sister Berta Sailer and Sister Corita Bussanmas recognized a need for quality childcare and early childhood education for low-income families in Kansas City's urban core. Powered by compassion, determination and plenty of elbow grease, the two women set out to address that need, founding what would later become Operation Breakthrough. Forty years later, the award-winning, nationally accredited child development center, located at 31st and Troost, serves more than 500 children daily. The agency that the two Sisters of Charity started in their living room with almost no financial resources now has a professional staff of more than 150 and a budget of $8 million.

A passionate leader and scholar, Leonard Zeskind has worked for more than three decades to curb the influence of racism, anti-Semitism and white supremacy groups in the United States. He is a lifetime member of the NAACP and has served on the board of directors of the Petra Foundation and the Kansas City Jewish Community Relations Bureau. In 1998, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation named him a Feloow and provided him with a "Genius Grant." Today, Leonard is president of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR). He is also an author, having written Blood and Politics: The History of White Nationalism from the Margins to the Mainstreatm, and also a period column for Serachlight magazine, published in London. He's written for The American Prospect, Rolling Stone, The Nation, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, among other publications.

Thomas Bloch, former CEO of H& R Block, transformed his career in 1995 and becane an inner city teacher. Five years later, he cofounded University Academy, a public charter school in Kansas City, where he has taught 7th and 8th grade math. The Academy has grown from 200 students in grades seven through nine in its first year to more than 1,000 students in K-12, and became the first school in Missouri to receive a ten-year extension of its charter. Over the last six years, all but three graduates of the Academy have gone on to attend college, an almost unheard-of success rate for an urban school. Tom is the author of Stand for the Best, a memoir about his journey from CEO to inner-city teacher and school founder. In the book, he shows what can be accomplished when teachers, students, and the community all stand for the best. Along with his father Henry, who himself was honored as a Distinguished Citizen by Harmony's predecessor NCCJ, Tom and the Bloch family have built a legacy of giving back to the Kansas City commmunity.