Gregory Boyle is an American Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world. He has received the California Peace Prize and been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. In 2014, the President Obama named Boyle a Champion of Change. He received the University of Notre Dame’s 2017 Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics. He is the acclaimed author of Tattoos on the Heart, Barking to the Choir, and The Whole Language. Cherished Belonging is his fourth book, and he will be donating all net proceeds to Homeboy Industries.

Katie Ledecky is a record-breaking swimmer who has represented Team USA at three Olympic Games and six world championships, and won her first Olympic gold medal in 2012 at the age of fifteen. Her combined seven Olympic gold medals and twenty-one world championship gold medals are the most ever won by a female swimmer. She was the most decorated US female athlete at the Rio and Tokyo Olympic Games, and she is widely regarded as one of the greatest Olympians and sportswomen of all time. In 2024, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Born in Washington, DC, and a long-time resident of Bethesda, Maryland, Katie is a graduate of Stanford University and is currently training in Gainesville, Florida, in an attempt to qualify for the Olympic Games in Paris in the summer of 2024.