Best friends are always easy to pick out.

They laugh a lot, often talk at the same time and share pointed looks full of secret meanings and hidden jokes.

Pam Ehrhardt and Wendy Gronbeck, best friends for 21 years, share the same birth date, hobbies, and the same passion to help others.

When they turned 60 on Feb. 4, Ehrhardt and Gronbeck started the "60 Women Care Birthday Project" - or CARE - to encourage other women turning 60 to support women and girls with HIV/AIDS in Africa.

They raised $10,000 through a raffle and personally delivered the prize - an African motif quilt with beads made by Ehrhardt - to the winner.

But not all of their projects are service-oriented, the women said. They plan to organize a trip with all their sisters, which appropriately is titled "Seven Sisters Walk Across Scotland" as part of their 20-year tradition to find a creative way to celebrate their birthdays together.

"We both have a lot of energy and are willing to try anything," said Gronbeck of rural Williamsburg.

"That's because Wendy is fun. Everything we do will be exciting," said Ehrhardt, of Iowa City.

"Pam is tolerant," Gronbeck said, and the women shared another glance.

The women met at a neighborhood potluck and have been comrades-in-arms and conspirators ever since. Their many projects, which Gronbeck accused Ehrhardt of always accelerating to a very "large scale," have included painting houses for free, sewing 500 felt mice to distribute for the holidays, and learning to work a chainsaw to build a bridge behind Gronbeck's home.

"When we're talking sometimes, our husbands will have this hunch or fear because they know we're up to something," Gronbeck said.

- Hieu Pham