Hope Unscripted
Hope Unscripted is a podcast from Hope Cancer Resources that brings real conversations to the forefront of health, prevention, and community care. Through honest discussions, expert insights, and personal stories, we explore what it means to live well, before, during, and beyond cancer. Each episode dives into topics like cancer prevention and education, survivorship, wellness, and the realities people face every day. You’ll hear from survivors, caregivers, healthcare professionals, and community voices, all sharing perspectives that inform, empower, and inspire. Whether you’re looking to learn, support someone you love, or simply take better care of your health, Hope Unscripted creates space for meaningful conversations that meet people where they are — unscripted, supportive, and rooted in hope.
Hope Unscripted
Ep. 1 - Hope Starts Here: Chuck Hyde’s Cancer Story & Vision
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What if the most powerful cancer support starts before you set foot in a clinic? We launched Hope Unscripted on World Cancer Day to share a straightforward promise: we’ll be your first stop for clear guidance, practical help, and steady human support through every step of the cancer journey. Chuck Hyde, our CEO, opens up about the mission that drives him, the personal losses that shaped his resolve, and the simple systems that make a life-changing difference: rides that show up, gas cards that bridge the gap, gym coaching that builds strength, and counselors who help families breathe again.
We get specific about whole health and why it matters. Cancer care doesn’t end with a prescription; it begins with access and continues with adherence. Our eight-van fleet runs more than 30,000 miles a month so patients don’t miss appointments. Our team helps with medications, dental referrals impacted by treatment, tobacco cessation, and support groups for both patients and caregivers. We walk through education and prevention with the same clarity, from sun safety and reading sunscreen labels to annual skin cancer screenings that catch problems earlier and improve outcomes. The aim is practical: reduce risk where we can, detect sooner when possible, and surround treatment with tools that work in real life.
Northwest Arkansas is growing fast, and cancer cases are growing with it. Today there are tens of thousands of active patients in the region; tomorrow there will be more. Not everyone needs everything, but most people need one timely answer; transport, counseling, a class, or a warm handoff to a partner. That’s why our website leads with two doors: I need help or I want to help. Whether you’re looking for support or ready to volunteer, donate, or contribute in-kind to our care closet, there’s a clear path to jump in.
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World Cancer Day Launch
SPEAKER_01Hi, everyone, and welcome to the very first episode of Hope Unscripted, a podcast by Hope Cancer Resources.
SPEAKER_02Today we're launching on February 4th, which is World Cancer Day, which is really exciting and good timing for us. It's a day that reminds cancer patients that they're not alone and everybody has a different story along that journey.
SPEAKER_01Hope Cancer Resources is a local nonprofit located in Springdale, Arkansas. We're on the busiest street imaginable, Sunset Avenue, right past Chick-fil-A, right past Sam's. You literally can't miss us. Busiest street there is. Today we're kicking off this series, and we are super excited to welcome the one and the only Mr. Chuck Hyde. Welcome, Chuck.
SPEAKER_00Really glad I'm here, I think. So you think absolutely.
Meet Chuck Beyond The Job
SPEAKER_01All right, Chuck. Let's kick this off. So I want people to get to know the real Chuck. So tell us, who are you, Chuck, outside of work?
SPEAKER_00Uh, I'd like to be able to say uh with full integrity, I'm a dad and a husband first. Um, I'm blessed to be married to my high school sweetheart. We've got uh two uh kiddos that are young adults now, and uh, you know, just doing that well matters a lot to me. And so it starts there. Uh things that I love to do, you know, just where do I spend my time, you know, I'm a sports junkie. I mean, I just uh, you know, we watch ESPN a lot in our house, and um, it's that in the food network. You know, that's basically what's the only thing that's ever on in our house. So spent a lot of time doing that, uh surrounded by a great group of friends. Uh, my faith is very important to me in terms of who I am. And just uh so yeah, I mean, I uh uh it's pretty simple and pretty boring, you know. Uh I call my mom, you know, every week and it's like, well, what's new? Like, well, kind of like the same as last week.
SPEAKER_02So it has to be a surprising fun fact about you. What would somebody be shocked to learn about you?
SPEAKER_00Um so the question there is, is what do I want the two of you to know about me that you may not know yet? Um you both know that at music, like I love music because there's uh it's always on in my office, right? It helps me work, I get a better rhythm. I just love that. I uh how much what people would be surprised probably the the range of stuff that's on my playlist. Uh because there's a lot.
SPEAKER_02I've noticed. I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there it's it's it's and people sometimes like we're in a meeting and it's playing like then people stop because something comes on. So that's it. But I I think the part that you might not know is that so my mom was growing up always singing still today. She's 88. She sings a lot all the time, just around. My dad was country music, you know, gospel quartet type stuff, and just always on. My sisters were pianists, uh, we were all in the band, we were all in the choir growing up. So you may not know that I used to play the alto sax. You know, I was a saxophone. I I sing a lot, I used to sing a lot more. Um, I'm not gonna break out into some here, but uh yeah, sing in the in the car, sing in the shower, sing at church. Not a word.
SPEAKER_02Very interesting.
SPEAKER_00So it probably, yeah, you probably don't know that just how deep music runs for me.
SPEAKER_01So our pulley meetings are gonna get a lot more interesting. Yeah, especially the WhatsApp, right?
What Drives The Work
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Well, we had the what was the what was the thing? It was all about that all about that. All about that shirt we do. We did it, we did that thing at the tomb meeting. So yeah. Because you know it's all okay. All right, let's move on.
SPEAKER_01Let's talk about what motivates you personally. You've been with Hope Cancer Resources about a year and a half now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So what motivates you every day? Why do you get up out of bed and why do you come to Hope Cancer and do the work that you're doing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it it sounds like just the right answer to the question is our mission, but it is our mission and our and I would say our team. You know, we're surrounded by people who really care about our work and they're really good at their jobs. Um, when I uh got hired, my sister went onto our website and she was looking at our roster of folks, and she's like, wow, those people have a lot of initials behind their names. And we do. We've got, you know, highly credentialed, uh, highly trained professionals that do what we do. Uh, and so we're really good at it and we do really important work, and and and that motivates me. And so at this point in my career, what did I want to be a part of? I wanted to be around really excellent people who do their jobs well, they take it seriously, and they're really good at it, and we're doing something that matters. And so for me to come in and contribute something to that uh matters a lot. Um, we'll maybe get into it later, but you know, cancer has affected my family just like so many. I don't know, I don't, I don't know anybody that could sincerely say I don't know someone with a cancer story. Yeah. And so my family is no different than that. And so um, yeah, that's that's why I get up. I love coming to work. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01I thought you were gonna say that your favorite thing about coming to work was the fact that your office is literally right next door to mine. You know, I'll cause you're down the women hallway. You're in the development hallway.
SPEAKER_00Well, here's the thing. I was I wasn't gonna do this, but since you went there, this is rock, this is hard place. I'm stuck in the middle.
SPEAKER_01All the time. And all you listeners out there, you know, notice we put it right in the middle, too. So I was that we can't, he can't do it.
SPEAKER_00No, y'all are y'all are great at your jobs, we're doing, you know, and we have a lot of fun. That's the thing. We take our jobs seriously, but there is ban banter is real. We have a lot of fun, we have a lot of fun at each other's expense, good natured, and we move on. But it and and it keeps work that can be heavy, it brings some levity to it that helps sustain us, and I think that's an important part of our work and our workplace. And uh, you know, and I'm one that usually a lot with my head down because we got stuff to do, but it is fun to laugh at work and do it here. So yeah.
Defining Hope Cancer Resources
SPEAKER_02I agree a hundred percent. Um, for someone who might just be learning about hope cancer resources and what this is, how would you describe what hope is?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think, I think for people that are now having to confront cancer, right? They've got a diagnosis. Uh, most of the folks we we deal with uh are are in in treatment and they've you know they've been they've been given that diagnosis. Um and so while we don't do anything medical uh directly, right, we are the support function around that. And so um, yeah, comprehensive is is a word we use a lot. And so we're we're talking about um, you know, what can we do to help with access to the physical um diet and what you know, the the fit cancer first is physical, right? And so how do we get people to access to care? How do we, and that's access to their prescriptions, you know, and supporting that. Uh it is um our gym. I know we're gonna talk to Hannah later, uh, you know, and what we do for personal training and uh and um and fitness, tobacco. There's a lot of things we do physically uh to help supplement and help improve outcomes. And research continues to show things that, you know, this is what improves outcomes, is you if you stay on your treatment plan on time, you don't you're not late for appointments, you don't miss appointments. Uh, you can get your prescription now. So we, I think, play a complimentary role first in how people can get better physically. Then there's the emotional component, right? How do we provide the right level of emotional support to someone who, whether you're the person with cancer or you're a loved one and you're a caregiver, that affects it. We're all doing and the people in my life that have battled cancer, it's not just the person with the diagnosis, it's everyone. And so we actually help that group of folks too, right? In terms of that emotional support, counseling, support groups, workshops, all the things that are down that road. And then uh I think it's again the adjacent, right? How can we help navigation? Because it's complicated and it's scary. If we can take complicated and make it simple, and if we can take scary, uh, make it feel safe. And I think our team does a really good job of that. So that's in a nutshell what we do. I would say this one time early in my time at Fed Hope Cancer, one of our teams, team members said, Um, I want to we want to be the one-stop shop for cancer support. And I said, Hey, can I can I um can I edit that just slightly? And yeah, sure. It's like, can we be the first stop shop? Because when you're the one-stop shop, then we've got to do everything, right? And there's no need because there's other cancer serving sort organizations in Northwest Arkansas that do great work that is different than ours. So we can help referral, we can help navigate because there's no point in having the redundancy, right? So, but if if when when a person in a in a in a doctor's appointment or when someone at church or their neighbor or at the soccer's and it's so-and-so has just got diagnosed with cancer, do they know about hope cancer resources? That should be the first thought if we're doing that well. And then we may not be the answer, but we know how to get them to the answer.
Support Beyond Medicine
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love that. You know, Chuck, today's a pretty special day. February 4th, it's World Cancer Day. Um, and also February is National Cancer Prevention Month. And so tell us a little bit, like, what does that mean to Hope Cancer Resources? What does that mean to you as the leader of Hope Cancer Resources?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I uh it's, you know, I mentioned a minute ago, most of what we do is from once a diagnosis has been made or treatment is is active, right? And so I would say downstream of an of a diagnosis, most of what we do is is helping someone on that journey. Um, I've been asking the question with our team, with our board, as y'all know, what's what role do we have upstream of that? How can we get ahead of that? So when you think about support, educate, prevent as a tagline, support's pretty clear. We've developed that muscle very well, not instead of, but in addition to how can we do more in the education and prevention space? And the things, the things that I've been just struck by in my 18 months here is I've continued to learn more about what people are experiencing, is um how many choices we have available to us just as people every day that can reduce or mitigate our exposure or mitigate our risk of cancer in the first place. Or early upstream detection. If we can get someone through a screening or through resources where we catch something at stage one instead of stage three or four, we know the outcomes are better. Right. And so I just feel like we have a mandate to increase that uh in in a way that um is again, it doesn't detract from those that are now in the fight.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But it's how do we help promote people's awareness to the choices we have available to us?
SPEAKER_02So now that you're in this new role, 18 months is a long time, even as a new one.
SPEAKER_00It's longer for our staff. There's like dog years, there's chuck years. I mean, yeah, I get yeah. Ask anybody. I'm guilty. I totally agree with that. Yes.
SPEAKER_02But what has surprised you the most stepping into this role of this organization coming from previous?
Prevention And Early Detection
SPEAKER_00Um, I think what surprised me is just the prevalence of it. You know, when you look at some of the stats and how many active cancer patients there really are in Northwest Arkansas, and then really we're a capacity, like we've got wait lists on some of our services. We can't do more because we don't have the people or the time or the money, the space, whatever. Um, and we're still serving a fraction of the active cancer patients in Northwest Arkansas. And there are there are patients that may just not need ourselves. And that, and that's that's that's wonderful. I'm glad they've got alternative uh support systems. That surprised me, but then you start thinking about all the growth projections in Northwest Arkansas and where that's going to take us, like how we keep up with that uh has been surprising. Uh, I think some of the surprising again, just things that I didn't know. Like, I didn't know that a lot of commercially available sunscreen was actually contained things that create toxins for your skin when exposed to the sun. That doesn't pass the Sayout Out Loud test for me. Sorry, right? But like if we can go, oh, here's how you read a sunscreen label, and we could teach people that. Like, that's exciting to me. That's surprising. I did not know that. I've, you know, I started wearing sunscreen light in my life, which has created my own needs for treatment, yeah, frankly. But um, I didn't know those kinds of things. So it's it's this discovery of information that is everyday people. I don't know that we pay them close of attention. Or maybe we don't care. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02So many things that are just daily in everybody's life that you wouldn't think about, having a risk to anything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. My goal this year, I do not make news your years resolutions, but my goal this year is every morning before I do my makeup, I'm wearing sunscreen. And I have been consistent. I'm so proud of myself.
SPEAKER_02So I've hope not. No, I have been to do that. I'm very proud of myself because you know, you do think about it so things that things that might support you.
SPEAKER_00My dermatologist said, here's your moisturizer. So I moisturize every day, y'all.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, but it has sunscreen in it, the right kind, that, you know, um keeps me from having to continue to deal with uh some of the you know carcinoma that I've had cut out for me. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02Smiley did that.
SPEAKER_00You didn't know that. I moisturized.
SPEAKER_01He moisturized. All right, Chuck. We're gonna get real serious for a minute.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01And it's gonna be kind of a vulnerable moment. Okay. And I'm gonna ask a lot of you um, because I know we all have a personal cancer story around us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
Surprising Lessons And Risks
SPEAKER_01And so I want you to share with our listeners your cur your reason and your personal story around cancer.
A Personal Family Cancer Story
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh, you know, I mentioned my own, you know, when I I talk about my skin cancer, those are inconveniences, right? And they're real, but it's inconvenience. Let's be let's be let's be real about that. Uh my wife uh has been and for years uh been diagnosed, or not diagnosed, not the right word, uh, identified as super high risk. So she does things that most don't have to do, even on the preventative scale, right? And so she's been fortunately, we've never had, we've had some like, hey, there's something we gotta take a look at, but we've never had the that news of we've got to address cancer. So we're we're thankful for that. So, but that's I would say that's always there for us. Um, but three years ago, um, you know, my family, uh, my sister lost her husband Brad, and my wife's sister, Emily, lost her husband, um, Brent within eight weeks of each other. Yeah. Um, Brad was 60, Brent was 50. Two great guys, gone way too soon. Uh, wives, kids, the whole bit, right? They're they're communities, both active in their communities, and just pillar type guys, and you know, they lived in parts of the state that didn't have hope cancer resources. And, you know, so as and then as a as a as a brother and a brother-in-law, as a um an uncle, as a dad, and then explaining to my boys, you know, because they were early teenagers at the time, and um, you know, you explain like like this is what happens, and and and you know, bang, bang, eight weeks within, and you know, each of them really different, they uh very different experiences with cancer. And one of the things I've learned is that every story is unique, every experience is unique, and there are common threads uh that I think anybody experiencing that would would identify with. Uh, it was just devastating. And um so I've seen through my family what it's like to deal with that today, uh then and after, you know, again, because you know, cancer still is there for my family. Uh, you know, like they're still two empty seats at the table for a couple of homes there. And and um that grief is real and all that. That the and and for us as a family, you know, um, it's just there. So I saw what they didn't have access to. And to think that at hope we can provide those things to people here in northwest Arkansas. So we can't and we can't do it, but we can do this and we can do it really well. And those gaps don't have to be there for people. And so it's deeply personal for me. But I don't know what I mean. So that's what we gotta do. Thank you. That's what we get up. That's what we get up and do.
SPEAKER_01I know that's hard to talk about. Appreciate you sharing that. I'm gonna shift this just a little bit because you said a lot of important things right there about care and the things that we do, we can do them well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But let's talk a little bit about access to care and whole health in Northwest Arkansas.
Access To Care And Transportation
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I think I think one of the things that's great about where we live. I mean, there's so many good things about Northwest Arkansas, but you know, as it becomes more the investments that are being made in healthcare in our region are staggering. And it's we're so blessed to have that kind, those kinds of resources, um, not just in our healthcare systems for just everyday you know needs, uh, but the specialists that come, our oncology practice here. I mean, Highlands does such a good job in what they do. But like, and there, and there's a spirit of um regionalism that has, again, you think about sort of the we'll call it the founding fathers of Northwest Arkansas from a regionalism standpoint, like that expresses itself in very real ways in so many aspects around Northwest Arkansas, and healthcare is one of them. Well, more and more we see uh again, I think access to care. Like, let's let's be real for a minute. As affluent as a region as we have, as many resources as we have, there are still people in great need who don't have the same access to care that everyone has. And I think that's a fair statement. Um, for sure. Now, if what solution can we provide in terms of solving for access? We went to uh uh you know I you might remember this a couple years about a year and a half ago when I s we were started, we went to a um or one of the regional, it was a the council had sponsored, it might have been U of A, but anyway, it was uh they're like, what problem are you solving? There was an entrepreneurial question. Well, you if you're an entrepreneur, you better solve a problem. Don't they have the solution looking for a problem? This solves a problem. Well, access to care can is a problem we can help solve. So for us, transportation is one of the ways in which we can solve the access to care problem. Our van fleet does that every single day. So we're eight vans running every day, um, over 30,000 miles a month. Yeah, um, all the different routes we run, I mean, and and and what that looks like, that gets people to treatment that could not otherwise get there. Again, to the earlier point, it keeps them on schedule. They aren't, they aren't late for an appointment. Appointment isn't delayed and it's not missed. That's improving outcomes. So getting people who wouldn't even have the physical route, and we've got we've got different forms of transit. I'm not, I'm not saying that that's not there, but I think that um getting people access, getting people access to their prescriptions. We know what medication does in this country, and we know that, you know, medication related to cancer, super expensive. If we can help offset some of those kinds of things, if we can help people get to a dental appointment because the treatment needs have affected them from a dental, we can help with dental support, right, in those kinds of ways. Um, and and maybe it's not, I don't need a ride, but it's man, gas. And I've got this many appointments. Um well, we can help you with gas cards, right? To help offset some of that cost. So we've got in ways in which just getting people to their appointment is is is huge. I think the other part of that, you know, sort of building on this, and I think we're going to sort of this whole health question, and we're we're super fortunate in our region that we've got a whole health conversation going on in northwest Arkansas. It's been going on for several years. It's an emphasis, it's a regional priority, and I love that. I would argue uh be bold enough. Enough to say hope has been doing whole health for 16 years. And it goes back to it again, while we aren't doing the medical treatment, we're surrounding that with whole health support of lifestyle choices, nutrition, uh person, you know, fitness and taking care of your body, emotional support. Um, what is that? What am I what am I doing there? Uh, the psychological components of what it means to face cancer and deal with it. We are taking a holistic view. And again, while we can't do it all, we have subject matter experts in these areas that can surround this medical experience, if we want to call it that. And I think that's a whole health expression. And I think we do that pretty well. And um, and so I think we're already consistent, and I would argue um be bold enough to say we're uh the uh a working example of what that can look like in our region.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So I pulled some stats recently, and the American Cancer Society just released their 2025 annual report. And in Arkansas alone last year, there was almost 20,000 new cancer cases just in Arkansas. Yeah. And that ranges from any different type. They they have them all broken down individually and what each one looks like. But why do you think it's so important for our community to pay attention to that and all right?
Whole Health In Practice
SPEAKER_00Well, I think it's it's putting numbers to what we know. Again, we said earlier, have who knows somebody with a cancer story? Most of us raise our hand, and either that's ours, it's our loved ones, or it's our coworkers, or it's our neighbor, you know, whatever it is, right? And so that's putting numbers to what we intuitively know. And those are new patients. And I think the other thing, it's what we're what we're seeing, and I've read a lot of articles recently where cancer is affecting more young people, right? It's it's happening early. Like we've kind of like, oh wow, you're retired, you're at our age and you're up along in your ears and you've got cancer. No, we're seeing it a lot in a lot earlier. Uh and you know, every good research has its reasons for why that's true. So I think it's not just that it's growing, it's where it's growing and um in what forms is it taking. And so to be able to pay attention to that, um, in northwest Arkansas, my understanding and talking with some of our uh community medical partners is that we're around 28,000 active cancer patients in Northwest Arkansas. Uh, we helped about 4,000 of those last year, right? Um we also know from every forecast, this region is going to continue to grow. So again, so we'll talk about the state. Well, let's talk about Northwest Arkansas. We know our population is gonna be over a million at whatever year. But it's it's all right, it's a matter of, you know, how at what rate are we increasing to that? It's not, it's really about what year? What's the what's the bet on the over-under of that? Well, uh, again, our medical prize of conversation at Highlands uh with their leadership team a few months ago, and uh, we were talking about five-year plan and our five-year plan, and and we were like, hey, here's our five-year plan that needs to sync with your five-year plan. And we were having those kind of strategic conversations. And one of the stats that stood out to me was that uh NIH, National Institute of Health, um, was uh 64 active patients per 10,000 in your population. So when we get to a million, and again, we're gonna be there, we we move from 28,000 active cancer patients to 64,000 cancer patients in this region. Big increase. Big increase. So we can expect that because cancer doesn't discriminate. And um so I think in that regard, paying attention to it, again, what can we do for early detection education? Maybe we can affect that 64 number, maybe reduce it by a little bit, but it's still such a prevalent thing. And so whether it's hope cancer resources or again, some of our other partnering organizations that are providing supporting cancer as a community and as a region, we've got to be able to figure out how we're gonna support that and and and help that happen because we know the need is there. We've got to have the community come along with us in in providing those resources.
Rising Cases And Regional Growth
SPEAKER_01Sure. I think that's a really good segue into what I had next for you. So last year we had a a year of reenvisioning hope, if you will. And so we rebranded the organization, went through all of that, we built a new website, and we came up with a new tagline. So support, educate, and prevent. So tell us a little bit about that and kind of where your plans as CEO is to take us uh to this next level and into the future.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I again, I think it's uh we alluded to earlier, but you know, a lot of what we've done traditionally is a lot of high touch, uh one-on-one, life on life. And I don't see that changing necessarily. I think there's a lot of that that is designed that way for a reason. So it's really about now how do we think about if we reimagine the word resource, because right now a resource could be an hour in the gym with Hannah, or it could be um in our care closet, which again, program we want to build and expand on, and providing, you know, necessary cancer-specific types of items and and and supplies to kids. So, but again, very high touch, very physical interaction. Uh, I think the more education we can do, right? We need to get into more um community rooms, if you will, uh, talking about choice, doing more workshops, more informational. But again, that could be life on life. It could also be digital. Like, you know, if we did um a one-hour workshop on sun safety, and you know, every every spring we have our uh skin crack cancer screening event, April is the 17th, or my hand over 28th. April 28th, right? Put it on your calendar. Um because it's a we've been in it for 12 years, it's a super uh great event. But again, high touch, we have our dermatology partners come in and support that program. It's fantastic. Again, and we see again about a quarter of the people that come get a referral, and we've seen we people have come back and said, I've they found in some cases very serious cancer because they came to their screening event. Well, again, high touch, but look, if we imagine if we did a workshop in person with 30 people in the audience, okay, that's great. But what if that was digital and it was on demand? Yeah. And we had a one-hour workshop webinar on sun safety, but some segment of that was in a two-minute block on how to read a sunscreen label.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
Support, Educate, Prevent In Action
SPEAKER_00Right. And so continuing to reprint all of those are resources that we could put in play. And again, I think one of the things that I think y'all did a great job, and and and we took from the idea, was inspired by another like organization in Indianapolis. Uh, around when you go to our website, you've got two navigation panes. I need help or I want to help. Yeah. That I need help is the patient or the caregiver just looking for answers, right? I need help. Where do I go? And our website takes you there. I want to help. I want to volunteer, I want to donate, I want to provide, I want to do a drive for your care closet, whatever. So taking those kinds of things more digitally. And so it I think that is obvious. Uh, and it we can make that investment, and it continues to play itself out. Um, so finding, you know, again, the skin cancer screening event is a perfect way to again prevent slash early detect. Um where else can we do that? You know, y'all ran a uh the the the wellness lab last fall. Yeah, fantastic event focused on breast cancer. A lot of people that who are in survivorship had come and just so many great resources that y'all put in in in front of people. And these were vendor, like you had your vendor fair, right? Your vendor booth, right? And people could walk through and go, oh, look, here's a product that I I can replace what I currently use. And this was this is better for me. I don't use this at all. I should do this. Or we have our nutrition station. Here's a way to handle food in ways that can actually promote that. So I think those kinds of events that can actually educate and create some positive energy around a hard topic.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think those to me, I think reimagining by what we what we mean by the word resources is massively important, particularly in the educate-prevent space.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So you just talked about all those great things on our website and that on the how I can't help. How can we get our community to show up, whether it be donations, volunteering, having those fundraising events for us, things like that.
How The Community Can Help
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think there's a lot of ways. And you mentioned a couple of them there. But I think if you're as passionate as we are about cancer, and there's so many great causes in Northwest Arkansas, and wherever that people want to be generous to, we support that. You know, cancer may not be your passion, and it may be something else. And there's lots of organizations that that need help. And we've got a culture in Northwest Arkansas that is very giving, very generous, right? Um, yeah, um, the easy thing to say is make donation, but I but I think it time, like volunteers, like when we need capacity in our office and we have volunteer spots that people can, you know, handle our front desk or whatever, you know, people can, you know, stuff in envelopes on something, right? There's there's there's practical hands and feet types of things that people can do, drives for our care closet, um, helping us with in-kind donations on events, you know, uh there's all there's things that people can get involved in and all the way toward supporting patients in our clinics, because we run that volunteer program uh in our oncology practice here in Northwest Arkansas, uh in Highlands practice, I should say. But um, there's there's a lot of ways to use your gifting, right? And nothing's too menial or small. And you know, there uh it's it's that's real capacity. And so um with that growth, we need the community around us. And and there are um plenty of ways, you know, go on the website, there's those are listed, call us. Uh, we need your help because we're at capacity and we we need we need more resources to get them into the hands of people that are confronting cancer.
SPEAKER_01All right, Chuck. We've got about one minute left. So what are the final, what is one final thought that you would like to leave our listeners with?
SPEAKER_00You know, I I would tell you this. I uh I I've had more than one person say, well, you know, I've heard of hope cancer and my and my cancer, but I didn't I didn't need that, you know, or and and and whatever that meant, like it was like they had a preconceived idea. And you know, again in the comprehensive list of the things we do, it it's not so much that um any person would need all of them. Maybe they just need one thing. Yeah, maybe it's just one. And so I think that for us, I what what what's on my heart is those whatever um whatever whoever we're not helping that we could help, I'd want them to know that, you know, to have confidence, right? Borrow the confidence from the 4,000 patients, the 6,000 people overall that came to us in 2025. Borrow confidence from them to say, I'll call. I'll try that support group, I'll go to that workshop, I'll I'll give that training thing a chance. Uh I've been trying to quit tobacco. I've uh one of our testimonials, I know we're out of time, but then she was like, I'm a great quitter. I quit, I quit all the time, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's easy.
SPEAKER_00You know, uh the it's the problem is I keep going. And you know, and her testimonial was, but when I met with Lisha, she gave me the confidence. She gave me the practical tools, the reasonable goals, the things, and yeah, I've been tobacco free for however long, right? And I said, I think give us give us a chance, give us a try. Don't be, don't be nervous about what you know it is or it isn't. Come find it. I think you'll find that we've got, again, highly skilled, highly professional people who understand every story is unique. We know that. Uh, we want to be a part of your story. And that's what I hope people would understand.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we don't want anybody to ever fell along.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
A Final Invitation To Reach Out
SPEAKER_01Very well said. Well, Chuck, thank you for being our very first guest. Unscripted. I'm very excited. Um, to all of you listeners, thank you for joining in, tuning in with us today for the fabulous Chuck Hyde. I am your co-host, Jamie D. Church, and this is my fabulous co-host. I am Brittany Harmon.
SPEAKER_02And on our next episode, we'll be talking to our wellness manager, Hannah, uh, going along with the Prevention Awareness Month and all the different things that she has planned.