Letter from the Editor: It's All About Soul

We bump through Flying Horse Farms in a rare summer morning chill-around the garden of squash and tomatoes, among the campers who in sing-song voices chant Pump, pump, pump it up!, past the high-ropes course, to the teepees where a handful of teens are slowly waking.

"Good morning!" says my golf cart driver, Mimi Dane, to still-sleepy counselor Emma Barrett.

"Hi," smiles a sweatpants-clad Emma, who had spent the night at the outpost, too.

As they talk, it's easy to see why Mimi-long counted among the city's best attorneys-traded power suits for khaki shorts to run this place.

It's a place where children with serious illnesses can come and spend a week just being kids, free of charge. Where they can throw pies and shoot paint and canoe across a lake and conquer a high-ropes course in a wheelchair. Where they can live, out loud.

Their motto? Safety. Play. Serve. Respect. Try. Sealed with a high five.

I mean, seriously. Come here, sit on this cart, and I dare you to not fall in love.

I'll take you to camp with us in "The Magic Makers."

Want further inspiration? Meet Matthew Goldstein in "The Big Give." He, too, traded Corporate America to change the world, and he's doing it-while giving you a way to, too. Matt, you are the man.

Perhaps our biggest undertaking in this issue (an idea I will blame on champagne) was "The Ultimate Columbus Gift Guide." We searched all six years of our archives to remind ourselves of all-time favorite goodies, and spent months scouring shops (and five weeks worth of studio shoots) to bring you the best of the best-lots of them locally made by uber-talented Central Ohioans. (I'm actually wearing two in my photo at left: a custom Pansy Thatcher midi skirt and Bohindi pull-through earrings. Love my Columbus gals!) Anyway, we've got 100 gift ideas for everyone on your list, at prices from $1.50 to $17,000.

Of course you'll also find fashion-this time photographed at one of my personal favorite spots, The Pearl. (Brown sugar pie, anyone?)

Plus, there's a house in here that will blow your mind. (And the people in it? They're just as great. For real.)

Enjoy.