This One Is Personal: Why I’m Running the BCU Visionary of the Year Campaign

I don’t write this kind of post very often. Most of the time, this blog is about protecting your home, your car, your family’s finances. Today it’s about something bigger than all of that.

Twenty-five years ago, I watched lymphoma take my grandmother, Jessie. She wasn’t just my grandma. She was the one who filled every room with humor and love, who made every holiday feel special, who had this magical ability to make each one of us feel like we were her favorite. When she got sick, I was young enough that the adults tried to shield me from the details. But you still feel it. The hospital visits. The quiet conversations. The waiting. The watching someone you love get weaker and not being able to do a single thing about it.

Losing her shaped how I see time, family, and what actually matters. And it left me with a question that has never gone away: What if there had been better treatments? More options? More time?

That question is why I’m running as a candidate in the Blood Cancer United Visionary of the Year campaign.

What Is the Visionary of the Year Campaign?

BCU’s Visionary of the Year is a fundraising competition where candidates like me rally their communities to raise money for blood cancer research and patient support. Every dollar raised goes toward accelerating life-saving research, funding breakthrough therapies and clinical trials, and providing financial and emotional support to patients and families who are in the middle of the fight right now.

Blood cancers, leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma are still disrupting lives every few minutes. Children. Parents. Grandparents. Friends. People who deserve more time, more moments, more of the things that matter.

Our team’s goal is to raise $100,000 between March 18th and May 30th. That’s a big number. People who know me know I don’t do anything halfway, and I’m not starting now.

Three Events. One Cause. Come Out and Show Up.

We’ve built a full slate of events to make this fun, not just a fundraiser. Every ticket, every raffle entry, every donation goes somewhere that matters.

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Can’t Make It? You Can Still Help.

1. Donate directly to my campaign at pages.lls.org/voy/mid/wichita26/mshook — or mail a check to me at 3931 N Ridge Road, Suite 102, Wichita, KS 67205. No gift is too small.
2. Share this post and my campaign links with your network. The more people who see it, the more we can raise. Tag me @inked_insurance_guy on social.
3. Keep blood cancer patients and families in your thoughts. There are people in this community fighting right now. That matters too.

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Grandma Jessie Would Have Shown Up

I think about her a lot during this campaign. The way she took care of everyone around her. The way she showed up. If she were here today, she’d remind us that showing up for each other is what matters most.

This is one of those moments to show up.

No gift is too small. No act of support is insignificant. Every contribution moves us closer to a future where more families hear the word survivor.

Let’s kick cancer’s ass together.