SIR MIX-A-LOT'S FORMER DANCER NIKKI GANE-BUTLER Helping Women in Crisis Rebuild Their Lives

As Nikki Gane-Butler fled across the country from Atlanta to Seattle in 2008—with her favorite Madonna CD for comfort and little else—she wasn’t sure what the future held.

- LIAM QUINN

A successful dancer for the rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot in the early 1990s, Gane-Butler had since left the entertainment industry and fallen into a relationship that became abusive. Escaping meant leaving her job and home behind in Georgia, as well as her two dogs, whom she didn’t get back. “You never decide, ‘Hey, I’m going to be homeless,’” she says. “But you find a window of freedom, and you dive through.”

In those early months back in her hometown of Seattle, Gane-Butler worked three jobs before she was able to secure a place to live—and then decided to make sure other women in similar situations didn’t face the same obstacles. She still vividly remembers a moment in the winter of 2011, as she settled into her new life, when she spotted a woman in need outside of a shoe store. "It was like I saw myself," Gane-Butler says. She decided to buy some toiletries for the woman, who thanked her and soon cleaned herself up. Gane-Butler, about to celebrate a birthday at the time, was struck with inspiration: "I sat at the edge of my bed later, and I said, 'Okay, God, I had the first 40 [years]. You get the next.'"