For Kim Lindgren, cancer is personal so she volunteers for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.

“I do it in part because I lost my mother to cancer in 2012,” the Bowling Green woman said. “I don’t want people to lose their loved ones.” 

Lindgren will join more than 700 cancer patients, survivors, volunteers and staff from all 50 states and nearly every congressional district for the ACS CAN Leadership Summit and Lobby Day in Washington, D.C. The multi-day conference starts Sunday and ends on Capitol Hill on Sept. 13. Lindgren has represented Kentucky’s 2nd Congressional District since 2012.

“It’s neat to be surrounded by people who want to make the fight against cancer a national priority. We go into meetings with our congressmen and senators to talk about how your tax dollars should be spent,” she said. “We do our meetings as a team. We all share our story. It can be a powerful moment.

“We spend a lot of time educating ourselves while we’re there. When we go in there we have an idea of what we’re going to say,” she said. “I take a picture of my mother with me. This is a person who means the world to me. It’s devastating.”

Erica Palmer Smith, Kentucky government relations director of ACS CAN, the advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society, said the participants are all passionate and work year in and year out to make sure cancer is a national priority.

“It’s a training and leadership summit. On Tuesday, all those volunteers will be visiting with their congressional officers,” she said. “The issues they will be talking about range from cancer research fund to palliative care to colorectal cancer screening.”

National lawmakers need to hear from volunteers and constituents so that patients can have a voice, Smith said.

“We want to make sure they know about issues important to patients,” she said. “We want less patients to have to suffer from that disease.” 

Lindgren agreed.

“We’re hearing the words ‘you have cancer’ too much. Cancer incidence rates are going up 31 percent,” she said. “I believe that. I hear it too much that they have cancer or somebody they know has cancer.”

Lobbyists at the summit have three “asks,” Lindgren said. One of the things they’re asking for is for Congress to support a $680 million increase for the National Cancer Institute.

“This is part of our One Degree program. We’re intending to get $1 billion dollars for the National Cancer Institute. There is so much momentum in what’s happening in cancer research,” she said. “The only way we stop is to fail to raise money for the cure. When Congress is making a decision about spending money, they’re spending my money. They’re spending your money.”

Lindgren believes the National Cancer Institute funding will be the easiest to come by because of how it’s done.

“The money we’re asking for is not a bill itself. I feel confident about this going forward,” she said. “It’s important we have support from both sides of the aisle to get these moving forward.”

Another “ask” is to support the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act, which would help make treatment for people with chronic illness more effective.

“It can be a scary and frustrating thing to go through an illness. Going into the hospital they know that palliative care is the standard,” Lindgren said. “It would save money as far as insurance. It would educate people about palliative care. It would be an incentive for doctors to do palliative care. We’ve been working on it for a couple of years.”

The third “ask” is for Congress to support moving barriers to colorectal cancer screenings. The screenings would be free for people on Medicare.

“If you’re on Medicare you go in and discover a polyp the doctor is going to remove it. The coding changes to diagnostic and the patient wakes up and owes several hundred dollars. This is happening to a population that can’t afford it,” she said. “It’s causing people who need to be screened to not be screened. Congress has to pass this act in order to fix it. The people in Medicare say it has to be mandated by Congress. They can’t just go in and fix the loophole.”

The lobbyists don’t run into people who don’t support the bills, Lindgren said.

“We’ve got sponsors from both parties. It’s a matter of getting bills to move through Congress. Bills are introduced, assigned to a committee and don’t make it out of the committee,” she said. “Everyone has jobs. They have so much on their plate. They don’t have time to get everything done. There are challenges to that, especially since it’s a presidential election year.”

While in Washington, lobbyists will also participate in an event call the Lights of Hope celebration, which will honor people touched by cancer and those who have lost their battle, Smith said.

“It’s a celebration of hope. Volunteers like Kim have been selling those lights,” she said. “Last year we had 30 lights of hope from Bowling Green on the National Mall. Last year there were 20,000 lights.” 

The advocates of ACS CAN aren’t going away, Lindgren said.

“It energizes me. It makes me know what I do and what I’m helping other people to do. They see us year after year. We’re in this to win it. We’ll keep seeing you until we do this,” she said. “It will make the lives of people who are cancer patients easier if we find a cure for cancer. That struggle to deal with a disease that can be so devastating on a daily basis, I can’t even imagine. We can’t find a cure soon enough.”  

— Follow features reporter Alyssa Harvey on Twitter @bgdnfeatures or bgdailynews.com.