Articles about Jack Stories

December 04, 2024

Emerging From Our Local Roots: A Spotlight on Chris Burke

At Jack’s Caregiver Coalition, we’re passionate about supporting caregivers and celebrating their strength. In 2025, we’re launching One Million Strong, an ambitious campaign aiming to raise $1 ...

Sequel Makers: A Conversation with Eric Schlueter By Mike McGarry

Although Eric is ten years younger than me, he is one month my senior in grief. His wife, Melissa, died on June 1, 2023, from complications caused Fanconi Anemia (FA), a condition she’d lived with ...

October 26, 2023

Empty The Boxes, A Sequel Makers Pilot Program Story

Jeff Myhre I love making stuff happen. So I was particularly excited on a sunny unseasonably warm Monday morning to welcome Heather Erickson into my home to pilot one of the new Sequel Makers ...

August 08, 2023

Community Partner Spotlight: Colon Cancer Coalition

In 2011 I was living in Virginia and my wife Sarah was diagnosed with colon cancer. Photo taken one month after Sarah's diagnosis. In 2013, we moved from Norfolk, Virginia to Eagan, Minnesota. Our ...

JACK-TO-JACK RENOVATION REFLECTION FROM CHAMPION DUSTIN CESAREK

A meme I found on the Internet once read “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.” I don’t know about you but that is some solid advice that I regularly don’t follow. However, that doesn’t mean you should ...

Spotlight on Dustin Cesarek: A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Spotlight on Dustin Cesarek: A Jack Story Presented by AARP A Jack's Founding Story, Part 3 It seems like cancer has always been a part of his life. When he was 11, his 25-year-old sister, April, was ...

December 09, 2021

Spotlight on Justin Nicolay: A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Spotlight on Justin Nicolay: A Jack Story Presented by AARP A Jack's Founding Story, Part 2 September, 2013 - he was 8 months into it. Michelle, his wife, had been diagnosed with an aggressive form ...

September 20, 2021

Spotlight on Allan Hammell: A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Allan Hammell has always liked to fix things. He’s good at it. It’s a trait that has served him well, in his personal life and in his career as an engineer and project manager. “When I encounter a ...

September 20, 2021

Spotlight on Eric Schepers: 2021 Caregiver Cup Winner

In the cancer world the saying no one fights alone is commonly used, that is a true statement as your caregiver is right next to you. Going through each treatment, scan and scare. They go through the ...

Spotlight on Kyle Woody. A Jack Story Presented by AARP

A Jack's Caregiver Coalition Founding Story, Part 1 From Left to Right: His sisters Liz and Tressa, his mom Doris, his dad Anthony, his sister Allison It started many years ago in Houston Texas, ...

A Conversation with a Caregiver, Presented by AARP

A Little Light in Heavy [It started slowly as we caught up to where we had left off the last time we talked.] [Just] Mike: The last time we talked, we were talking about the fact that guys, in ...

January 13, 2021

Spotlight on Dan Cramer: A Jack Story Presented by AARP

The first time he met her, she laughed in his face. It was a cold, January morning in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, in 1992. Dan Cramer was working for a political campaign at a Democratic meeting at the ...

December 01, 2020

Spotlight on Eric Schepers. A Jack Story Presented by AARP.

“I remember being in the doctor’s office,” Eric begins. “The oncologist and healthcare coordinator came in, and I knew it wasn't good by the look on their faces. Ashley was holding Madelyn when we ...

November 19, 2020

Spotlight on Andrés Parra. A Jack Story Presented by AARP

It wasn’t a big thing. Many people may not have even noticed it. They might have just turned their heads, stared through the dusty, bus windows and gotten lost in the Peruvian mountainside and the ...

November 09, 2020

Spotlight on Nick Meysembourg. A Jack Story Presented by AARP

The Meysembourgs came into 2018 on a high note. Their daughter, Mila, was born 3 months earlier, in October, and Nick just became partner in a sales company he’d worked at for over 11 years. They ...

September 13, 2020

Spotlight on Tom Scott. A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Tom Scott: Giving all he had and finding all that matters most. Dani, Tom, Emmett, and Mia A lot has changed for Tom in the past 3 years. Three years ago, his wife, Dani, was diagnosed with breast ...

September 13, 2020

Spotlight on Logan Greene. A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Logan Greene: Talking a lot and saying more. In a year of monumental, global upheaval, where COVID-19 grips the world, and calls for social justice tear at the fabric of our society, people want to ...

August 13, 2020

Spotlight on Erik Therwanger. A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Erik Therwanger: caregiving, one goal at a time. Building on the momentum of hope. Erik Therwanger is all about setting goals and meeting them, then building on that momentum to do even greater ...

Spotlight on Brian Zahn. A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Brian Zahn: From real love to real loss, to learning to live again - for their son and because that’s what she would want! Somewhere between classes, tests, parties, and everything else that goes on ...

Spotlight on Mark Mattson. A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Mark Mattson: Looking back with fondness and love. Looking forward with courage and resolution, knowing that she will always be with them! Mark & Teri - August 2019 High school sweethearts They ...

Spotlight on Ishmael Israel. A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Ishmael Israel: Dreams interrupted by parent’s worst nightmare. Waking up every day now, thinking: ‘it’s the first day of the rest of my life.' Ishmael Israel has spent much of his life helping ...

Spotlight on Rich Anderson, A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Rich Anderson: Breaking down, reaching out, living each moment to its most, every day. It was 2017, two years into their cancer journey, and Rich was feeling the weight of it all. He was struggling, ...

Spotlight on Bob Hinkle, A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Last time I saw Bob, he was sharpening an axe and practicing trick throws at an axe-throwing event hosted by Jack’s. Here I was, several years later, in the Dunn Brothers across town in Eagan, just ...

February 27, 2020

Spotlight on Michael Greene, A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Michael Greene: Cancer caregiving, but then dealing with life, too. And then finding himself.

February 08, 2020

Spotlight on Alan Christensen, A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Alan Christensen: On living life in fast forward. I met Alan at his St. Paul home in mid-December. He and Sara, his wife, had moved there in early 2018, 4 months before her first symptoms began and 5 ...

January 02, 2020

Spotlight on Chris Meuleners, A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Chris Meuleners: happiness, sadness, hope, despair, and places between. Caring for his wife, Amanda, who has been fighting AML Leukemia for over two years. Like the flip of a coin, never knowing if ...

December 06, 2019

Spotlight on Tony Peterson, A Jack Story Presented by AARP

Tony Peterson: Between Seasons Tony Peterson loves all things outdoors and nothing beats duck hunting in the fall. To him, true beauty is a crisp fall morning, with the sun coming up over the swamp ...