DES MOINES, Iowa – Mary Van Heukelom believes everyone has a calling in life, and hers is all about helping cancer survivors thrive.

When exercising with Van Heukelom, get ready to work up a sweat.

Members in this total training class can handle it. Because even though they’ve survived the worst, they’re being taught by the best.

“Everyone that’s touched by cancer, if you say Mary Van Heukelom they know who you’re talking about,” survivor Lynn Sandoval said.

“She just opened a whole of classes, a whole of opportunities for me to really feel like I could get back in shape and feel better about myself after treatment,” another survivor, Martha Gelhaus, said.

Van Heukelom has been working with cancer survivors for the past decade. Before that, she was a public school teacher.

“I consider myself still a teacher, still an educator,” Van Heukelom said. “Now the topic is different and my audience is different.”

An audience that completely changed her career path and life, all because of a transformational journey.

Back in 2011, Van Heukelom helped lead the original team of cancer survivors that went to Mount Everest Base Camp through Above and Beyond Cancer.

“I think the shift was the first time, the very first class I was able to teach and work with a group of cancer survivors,” Van Heukelom said. “It was from day one, life-changing for me. There was a different element of energy and authenticity in that space that I had never experienced before in my life.”

After the trip, she was offered to be the program director at Above and Beyond; helping people after they survive cancer by connecting them to free fitness, nutrition, and wellness programs.

She leads some of the classes, but never expected what she did for work would become what she had to face in life.

“And it was in 2021, right after my 50th birthday, that I had my first cancer diagnosis and then a year later, my second cancer diagnosis,” Van Heukelom said. “So, with both of those, a colon cancer and a breast cancer diagnosis, I felt that this has continue to enhance my understanding, of course, firsthand of the journey of a cancer survivor, which in turn I believe has allowed me to expand and deepen my compassion and my service to cancer survivors and the community.”

A community that’s sometimes tough to be a part of, but one that’s more bearable because of people like Mary Van Heukelom.

“She inspires me,” Gelhaus said. “She makes me feel that I can do it, that I can push myself and I can achieve more than I thought I could.”

“She is my favorite person in the world. She literally saved my life,” Sandoval said. “She’s so inspirational. She’s like my mom. I’m older than her and she’s like my mom. She keeps me going and she’s just so positive.”

“We have our blood family and then we have our community of family, and I really believe in every person I’ve met as a part of my family and there are even people in this world that I haven’t that that are part of the family of humanity,” Van Heukelom said. “And so, if there’s anything I can do in this space to make humanity better. That is my job.”

A job done by a mom, wife, and friend that many would say is remarkable.

“I want people to know that that I care about them,” Van Heukelom said. “How we greet somebody matters. How we how we communicate with somebody matters. Again, it doesn’t have to come with a title, a position, a role. It’s about humanity and how we interact with the people around us. All matters.”

For Van Heukelom, it’s just a way of living life. A gift she knows not to take for granted.

“I find it remarkable that I get to be here today. I find it remarkable that I have opportunities, and I know that I have been given opportunities that other people don’t. And so that’s where the remarkable is.”

Van Heukelom will head off on another transformational journey next month to Patagonia, Chile, with a team of 29 survivors and caregivers.

If you want to learn more about Above and Beyond Cancer, click here.