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Outreach With A Wrench In Homer, Alaska

The generous Brant Torsen at Boog's Automotive shop.
Nathan Rott for NPR
The generous Brant Torsen at Boog's Automotive shop.

Brant "Boog" Torsen can't fix everyone's cars for cookies. Wouldn't have much of a business if he did. But he knows that when you've got a repair garage in a place like Homer, sometimes folks need a little help to make sure the town's nickname — "The End of the Road" — doesn't apply to them.

That's why Boog's done everything from "fixing engines to replacing turn signal bulbs," for nothing more than handshakes and once, a plate of double chocolate chip cookies.

"I wouldn't look it," Boog says with a pat on his oil-stained shirt, "but I can't bake worth a lick."

Nathan Rott was the 2010 recipient of The NPR/Washington Post Stone and Holt Weeks Fellowship.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Nathan Rott is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk, where he focuses on environment issues and the American West.