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 diagnosed with leukemia. She was living in Minnesota at the time, so his family moved from Las ...

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 of Stage IV melanoma in February. They had an infant son. Treatment options were limited and would be ...

How A Caregiver Can Help A Loved One Apply For Social Security Disability Benefits If you are a caregiver to someone that has a medical condition that prevents them from working you can help them file a claim for Social Security disability benefits. Social Security disability benefits can help them ...

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 problem, that’s when I go into ‘problem-solving’ mode,” says Allan. And that’s usually the end of the ...

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 same emotions as a cancer patient whether they show it or not. For example, my last scan Eric asked ...

Jack’s has partnered with Jasper to offer a unique experience to you, caregivers, as well as those you care for. It’s an interactive website to help you track patient symptoms, mood, health, appointments, and access educational materials as well as live weekday chat support. You can track your own ...

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, where he grew up. He was the oldest in the family, with 3 younger sisters. His mom was a mother of 4 by ...

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 general, don’t like to ask for help; they basically don’t reach out, even when they need help. One of your ...

What my caregiver means to me: I can’t say enough good things about my caregiver. We started out on this journey with 5 broken bones in my spine. I’ve been in a wheelchair, a walker, or cane and he absolutely did everything for me and our two children. He does so much with and for our kids. I know ...

Help Us Reach Our Goal Ashley's gratitude story was told in support of our MN Springs 4 Caregivers campaign. With your help we'll meet our goal and make 14 more stories of gratitude like Ashley's possible. Donations are being matched up to $5,000 thanks to a generous challenge grant from an ...

What my caregiver means to me: When asked: What does my caregiver mean to me? I froze. I didn’t know what to write. I was overwhelmed by emotions and thoughts and memories. Can I tell you something? Before Chris and I were even married. I got really sick.

What my caregiver means to me: Everything. I can’t imagine going through life, let alone life with a terminal diagnosis, without Dan. His love, support and commitment has been unwavering since my Stage IV breast cancer diagnosis in 2018. He shows up everyday with his caregiver hat on. He brings ...

2021 Board of Directors

As a founder of our organization, Justin has been around since before we even sent the paperwork into the IRS 7 years ago. "In January 2021 he handed over his seat as the chair of our board and treasurer, the official roles he's been playing for us since December of 2014. His agenda for handing ...

As a founder of our organization, Dustin has been around since before we even sent the paperwork into the IRS 7 years ago. "In those days there was just three of us: Dustin, Justin Nicolay, and me. We all had a slightly different vision of what Jack's should be known as, what its purpose was, and ...

Our 2020 Volunteer of the Year, Mike McGarry! A caregiver himself, Mike took the lead on Jack's blog in March of 2019. Since then he's published over 40 blog posts. As a testament to the power of his stories they have raised over $20,000 for our mission! If you have an idea for a story please email ...

I remember meeting Dan over the phone in the summer of 2018. He called us right away after learning about his wife Cassie's metastatic breast cancer diagnosis. Soon after, he showed up at our Caregiver Klatch and became a regular. And soon after that, Dan was volunteering to help us expand the ...

To try and list all of Alan's volunteer contributions would be impossible! It's less one big thing he does and more lots and lots and lots of smaller things. Lots of less flashy things in the background that we often take for granted. "Bottom line is we can count on Alan. For honest and well ...

"I love this picture of Rylie. She's "in the zone" at our first ever in-person gathering last year during the pandemic. To put this in perspective Rylie has led the marketing efforts for our annual fall fundraiser for years (formerly known as JCBC and now known as Cold Ones 4 Caregivers). The ...

Randy has spent much of the 3+ years since his wife Brenda’s death from bile duct cancer figuring out what life should look like now. A former corporate IT drone, Randy splits his time these days grieving, grief mentoring, amateur photography, cooking 101, retiring, and providing tech help to ...

I remember the first volunteer gig Pat did for us in 2016 at our big fall fundraiser. She was posted up at an elevator at CHS Field with a key to operate it in case anyone needed it. I'm pretty sure she sat there the whole day bored to tears while everyone else was having a ball. I felt terrible ...

Kathy joined us on our mission in 2020 and she is so much fun to work with! She came to us with a passion for serving caregivers and a desire to put to work the hard won wisdom she's earned about the complexities of our healthcare system. She almost single handedly created the Care Navigator ...

I'll never forget the first time I met PattiJo. The primary thing that stood out to me after hearing her story was that she had more jobs at one time than anyone I had ever met in my entire life. And before long, there she was, asking me about how she could volunteer for Jack's! Honestly I was ...

One of the most terrifying things for us last year during the whole COVID-19 ordeal was how in the heck are we going to raise the funds our mission requires without the ability to gather our supporters in person? Everyone is saying do it virtually but how in the heck do you that?! Enter Chris ...

I first met Mark at our Stupid Fast Go-Karting program on July 14th 2019. He had come to us as he and his three kids were facing the end stages of his wife Teri's metastatic breast cancer. They went on to experience that unspeakable loss on October 1st, 2019. Since then, Mark has gone on to become ...

Rachel is a social services advocate that works in the mental health and substance abuse world. She has a master’s degree in social work and a health educational specialist certification. In 2011 when Rachel was 28, her husband Grayson was diagnosed with leukemia. Rachel was a caregiver, advocate, ...

I first met Logan in January 2020. He had just learned about his loved one's diagnosis and engaged with us right away. That quickness to reach out, unfortunately, is a rare thing for us as an organization to experience. More often than not, guys have been doing the caregiver thing for years before ...