There’s a question I keep coming back to this week, and it’s not mine. I’ll credit it in a minute. But it’s the kind of question that makes you stop mid-scroll and actually think: what am I doing right now, advocating or activating? And is the moment asking for something I haven’t fully stepped into yet? I don’t have a clean answer. But three people this week gave me a lot to work with. Here are the advocates I’m spotlighting in Vol. 12.
Tonia Yelder LinkedIn
This week, Tonia Yelder signed her name on the final beam of a new cancer center at KU. She’ll frame it modestly — she works there, she’s an MPH student, it was a meaningful milestone for the institution. All of that is true. But she also did it as a survivor. And I need you to sit with that for a second, because I think it’s easy to scroll past. Tonia put her name on the steel that will hold up a building where thousands of people will one day receive the news that changes everything, and then, if they’re lucky, the treatment that helps them through it. She was once one of those people. Now her name is literally in the structure. That’s not a photo op. That’s not a feel-good story for a press release. That is as full-circle as this work gets, and it deserves to be named out loud. Congratulations, Tonia. What a thing to have your name on.
Beth Wagmeister
Beth Wagmeister asked a question this week that I genuinely haven’t been able to shake: advocate, or activist? It sounds like a semantic debate until you sit with it long enough to realize it isn’t. Beth’s been an advocate for most of her life: educating people, explaining systems, nudging decision-makers toward change. And she’s been good at it. But somewhere along the way she started noticing that suggesting change, when the need is already obvious, starts to feel like a kindness to the people who should already be acting. Her line, “advocacy opens the door, activism walks through it,” is one of those things I wish I’d written myself. I want to be clear: she’s not arguing one is superior. Neither am I. But most of us, if we’re honest, can feel which one a given moment is asking for. And the harder work is usually admitting it when the moment is asking for the one we’d rather not do. Follow Beth on LinkedIn. She’s asking the right questions.
Lindsay Barad LinkedIn
Lindsay Barad found PMP Pals the way most of us find the communities that matter most to us, as someone who needed one. PMP Pals supports people affected by pseudomyxoma peritonei and appendix cancer, which is a rare and often isolating diagnosis. Lindsay walked through that door looking for help. This July, she joined its board of directors. I think about this arc a lot in advocacy: the patient who becomes the resource, the person who came looking for a lifeline and eventually helps hold it out for the next person. Lindsay is bringing her background in marketing and fundraising to this community now, which means more reach, more resources, more people finding PMP Pals before they feel completely alone. There’s something quietly powerful about that. She knows exactly what the community gives you because she received it. Now she’s part of carrying it forward. That’s not a career pivot. That’s a calling.
If you know someone doing work like this: patient advocates, caregivers, community builders, people turning their hardest chapters into something useful for someone else; nominate them. Reply to this post or drop a note at advocacyatwork.com. And if someone forwarded this to you and you want to get it every week, hit subscribe. This community exists because people keep showing up for each other. Thank you for being part of it.