Torkin Wakefield, BeadforLife Director, has been a social activist since her college days. Her career of public service started as a Peace Corps volunteer in India. Working collaboratively, Torkin has co-founded many organizations that help poor or marginalized people. These include AIDS, Medicine and Miracles, a national organization of education and community building for people living with HIV/AIDS; Wellspring, a holistic healing center; The World Sits Down to Dinner, a hunger-advocacy experience; Hollyhock Retreat Center in British Columbia; and BeadforLife.

Torkin was the director of People’s Clinic, a clinic for the medically indigent. As a psychologist and public health administrator, her life interests span personal health and well being to cultural and social change at the community and national level. An inveterate traveler, Torkin has lived and worked in India, Nepal, Mexico, Kenya, and Uganda. Torkin’s ability to involve others in creating a better world makes her projects dynamic and effective. She weaves the power of the story and the vision of a better world to release the inherent generosity of people in the resource-abundant world.

Torkin has two adult children and one grandson and is married to Dr. Charles Steinberg, an AIDS physician. They reside part-time in Kampala, Uganda and part-time in Gold Hill, Colorado.