A handwritten note is still a powerful tool to Misti Coker. She sends them to those fighting cancer across the United States and even Canada.
"Sometimes, as a cancer patient, you feel alone," Coker told a small group of Pine Bluff Rotary Club members Tuesday at the Pine Bluff Country Club. "Our motto has been, the whole time, we want to show up for people."
Coker, along with 10 to 12 women known as Chemosabe Sisters, show up in the form of Joy Mail through their Personal Pep Rally organization.
Joy Mail is a gift box that includes items like chicken noodle soup, socks, prayer cards and a bracelet sent at no cost to each cancer patient.
Personal Pep Rally was inspired by Misti's daughter Lauren, whose husband Marc Stringer was the boys basketball head coach at White Hall High School when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2016. Stringer died in 2020.
"Lauren loved getting mail of encouragement when Stringer was in the hospital," Coker said. "People often underestimate the power of a hand-written note."
Box after box, Personal Pep Rally peps up the enduring spirits and brings joy to about 500 patients in about 100 Arkansas cities, as well as those in 40 states and several locations in Canada.
A woman who called Personal Pep Rally just to say thanks told Coker: "I have no one." She now has support from a group of volunteers in the Arkansas Delta.
"Just like grief, when somebody passes away, you know you have that two-week period that everybody's there, and then they tend to forget," Coker said. "That's what we do at Personal Pep Rally. We don't just show up through the first box. We show up month after month after month, that little reminder that somebody is there, and you are not alone. So much of the mental health of the patient is forgotten, and mental health is huge. Everybody needs somebody."
Through promotion of the Joy Mail, friends and relatives of cancer patients reach out to Personal Pep Rally to submit names of those who could use a box.
"I added three people last week, two from Pennsylvania and one from Wisconsin," Coker said. "I don't know how they find us, but they find us. That is our goal. We've got to get more out there to share what we do to even get more people."
Coker visited the Pine Bluff Rotary Club to solicit support for Endure the Dirt, a 5-kilometer mud run in the rice fields surrounding Mack's Prairie Wings in Stuttgart that benefits Personal Pep Rally. The race includes a Pounding the Pavement 5-k walk and run at 8 a.m., the 5-k mud run at 9 a.m. and a Mini-Mudder for grades K-2 at 10:30 a.m. and for grades 3-5 at 11 a.m.
Coker asked her son-in-law what was one thing he always wanted to do, and he wanted to take his team to a mud run as he battled cancer.
Endure the Dirt's motto is: "Cancer gets dirty but we do, too."
Personal Pep Rally also provides scholarships, monetary supplements and "memory trips" to help patients and their families get away from their current reality. For more on the organization or Endure the Dirt, visit: personalpeprally.org.
To contact Personal Pep Rally, call (870) 830-0528 or email personalpeprally@gmail.com. The organization's office is located at 1920 S. Main, Suite 107, in Stuttgart.