For more than a decade, Kris Crawford and her dogs have been serving their community through For Pits’ Sake, the San Jose, Calif.-based nonprofit organization Kris founded in 1997. Together, Kris and the “girls”—American pit bull terriers Cheyenne, Dakota and Tahoe—have completed more than 200 search and rescue missions, including the disappearance of Laci Peterson and the space shuttle Columbia disaster. They also do therapy and rehabilitation work with the elderly, the disabled, and with abused and special-needs children.
Determined to prove the worth of her dogs and their breed, Kris also started multiple outreach programs. Designed to reduce the number of dog bites, Safety Around Dogs teaches children how to interact with dogs. Knock Out Dog Fighting, a youth intervention program, partners with professional boxers and mixed-martial artists to teach kids to respect and stop cruelty to animals and humans alike. For Pits' Sake even has a rescue facility to house dogs rescued from dog fighting operations and other cruelty situations.
A 1994 honors graduate of the Virginia Tech interior design program, Ann Porter, CKD, started her design career in the northern Virginia/Washington, D.C., area before moving to Naples, Fla., and opening Kitchen Studio of Naples. She specializes in custom cabinet designs for home interiors, but says the kitchen is her favorite room.
With an eye for the refined and unusual, Ann writes a design blog, KitchAnn Style, and Ask Ann, a blog for the Naples Daily News.
