GFB News Magazine

Turning heartache into service

by Jay Stone
News Writer

Posted on October 13, 2026 6:59 PM

By the time Zach McCann, a Banks County Extension agent and active Farm Bureau member, died of colon cancer on Aug. 8, 2025, his wife, Lindsey, had recognized a glaring need in the course of cancer treatments that had little to do with which medicines to use, which doctors to see or what therapies to consider:  Handling everyday life.

While the vicious disease is stealing away tissue, it’s also stealing time. Lindsey, a nurse, already knew how time-consuming the treatments could be. As Zach’s journey moved toward the end, another reality set in: While the patient is confronting the treatment protocols, everyday life gets more difficult. 

“We were just kind of going through it and we were like, ‘We don’t know what to do.’ There was no roadmap,” said Lindsey, who spoke at the GFB Young Farmers & Ranchers Summer Leadership Conference in July.

Things like getting the lawn mowed, transporting children to school or extracurricular activities, shopping for food, pet care, house cleaning and more, all become secondary and sometimes left untended.

“We have the doctors, the medical team, our community, but we never seemed to get any real time together that wasn’t dealing with cancer or household responsibilities,” said Lindsey, who said it became routine for her to get off an overnight shift at work, drive Zack to Atlanta for chemotherapy, sleep in the car during his treatment, then drive home. 

After Zach passed, Lindsey sought ways to ease these burdens for cancer patients and their families. Out of this came NAMEIT (Nurture Against Major Events, Illnesses and Treatments). Lindsey’s business is aimed at connecting families with partner businesses in their communities.

Through a NAMEIT registry, patients build a list of services they need from a network of local businesses. NAMEIT facilitates crowdfunding to cover the costs. Friends, family and even strangers can make donations, which are used to pay businesses for their services. 

“A patient will go online and create a registry,” Lindsey said. “They will choose a company they want that signed up in their area, and their community will crowdfund to cover the expenses for this company.” 

NAMEIT has a Keep It Ag registry to connect farming families of cancer patients with volunteers to help with field work, livestock care, equipment operation and harvest support to help keep the patient families’ farms running. Lindsey encourages farmers to participate as registered businesses to provide fresh, nutritious foods to cancer patients and their families. 

She also urges young adults to pay attention to health issues, particularly colorectal cancer. 

In Zach’s case, doctors the McCanns consulted felt he was too young for colorectal cancer. He was 32 when he died. By the time it was diagnosed, he was at stage four. 

Lindsey said people under age 45 are at low risk for colorectal cancer, but nationwide 68 people under the age of 50 are diagnosed with it per day. When it’s detected at stage one, colon cancer is 97% curable. 

“It’s the most curable cancer there is,” she said.

For more information about NAMEIT, visit https://nameitregistry.org.

To honor her laste husband, Zach McCann, Lindsey has created a registry to support cancer patients'                                                  families with house and yard tasks and farmwork. /Photo courtesy of Lindsey McCann