by Kate Asbury Larkin
I met Ashley McCrary when she moved to Auburn from Memphis, Tenn. in 2017, five years after she lost her right eye to a rare cancer called Ocular Melanoma (OM). The first thing I noticed about her wasn’t her glass eye; it was her personality. Her positivity. Her attitude of gratitude. And most of all, her smile.
Even though her genetic markers almost guaranteed her cancer would recur at some point, for the time being, she was beating the odds and had no evidence of disease. Life was good.
In early 2020, on a rare elevator ride (Ashley hates elevators after an unfortunate incident with a mouse), she struck up a conversation with two Aflac agents (because, seriously, Ashley will strike up a conversation with anybody) and they convinced her to let them pitch their insurance products to her. They talked to her about a cancer policy, which she was sure she didn’t qualify for due to her diagnosis eight years earlier. She learned, however, to qualify for an AFLAC plan in Alabama, all you had to do was be five years cancer free and have no new diagnosis within 30 days of signing up. She discussed it with her husband, Dave, and purchased the cancer policy in August. Sixty days later, her cancer was back with a vengeance, over 100 tumors in her liver.
This time around, the treatment Ashley needed was not available locally. To get it, she would have to travel to Philadelphia, Penn. monthly. No matter how imperative the treatment was to save her life, the expense of the travel could have prevented her from going and/or devastated her family financially. But she had that Aflac policy and, as promised, it delivered.
“My policy filled in the gap with flights for both of us (Dave), our hotel, and our food. The money they gave us for travel even covered our Ubers and all that stuff,” Ashley said. “I did that for eight months.”
Unfortunately, the treatment she was on became ineffective, but additional genetic testing showed Ashley qualified for a clinical trial. The catch? She would have to travel to Philadelphia once a week for treatment. That’s right…weekly. As in, three days every week. To date she has traveled to Philadelphia, 207 times.
All of this might sound like doom and gloom, but really, you just have to know Ashley to see that this story is filled with hope, joy and generosity that goes well beyond a medical drug.
Ashley McCrary is one of the most vivacious, friendly, God loving people you’ll ever meet. She makes strangers her new best friends and not only meets them, but truly gets to know them.
She learns all about the lives of each person she interacts with every week. She knows the security and newsstand workers at both the Atlanta and Philadelphia airports. Her regular Uber drivers happily schedule their rides with her to and from the airport every Sunday and Tuesday. She loves the hotel staff, and of course, all of her amazing caregivers at the Bodine Infusion Center at Thomas Jefferson Hospital.
In addition, she reaches out to other patients receiving treatments while she is in the center. She learns about their conditions and hears their stories. Oftentimes, doctors and nurses ask Ashley to reach out to specific patients who are struggling and need encouragement. She is the ultimate encourager and is always honored to help.
“I have numerous friends who weren’t as fortunate as me, Ashley said, they didn’t have a cancer plan and traveling for treatment became too much of a burden. One patient was a mom of four, the other, a mom of three,” Ashley said. “The one from Chattanooga (Tenn.) was a homeschool mom and her husband was a fireman. They had set up a GoFundMe account, were having bake sales, and had firemen collecting money at traffic lights, just to raise money to pay for the travel expenses for her trips to get treatment. But it wasn’t enough and she could no longer afford to continue.”
And it wasn’t just those two. There were others who were searching for financial options or for treatment opportunities closer to home. It all weighed heavy on Ashley’s heart. Very heavy.
In August of 2022, Ashley joined in on an online support group call. When she realized the subject of the call was mental health, she almost hung up; after all, Ashley’s mental health was one thing she was sure she had under control.
“Then the professional started asking questions, like, ‘How are y’all doing with not working?’ And ‘how are you filling your time?’” Ashley said. The social worker asked, “Do you feel like you have a sense of purpose?’ and ‘Are you able to look long-term?” Ashley realized she was struggling more than she realized and she had difficulty thinking “long term.”
The mental health counselor began talking about ways to improve the mental health of those on the call, and one of the ways was to do something for others.
“The social worker said what I’ve said a thousand times,” Ashley noted. “She said, ’On your worst day, there is always somebody worse off than you are.’” The Social Worker suggested, “If you focus on somebody else, it will take the focus off how big your own problem is.” She then encouraged us each to develop a hobby and talked about things like gardening, birdwatching and pickleball. At the end of the conversation, she mentioned watercolor.
Ironically, Ashley had seen a class being offered on Instagram; 27 watercolor classes for $27. She decided to sign up, she took the online classes, and she found a new love – and a new talent.
In February of 2023, Ashley started painting cards with uplifting and encouraging Bible verses. Her original thought was to send them to friends who needed a pick-me-up. She began giving them away, and friends wanted more. She packaged some sets of greeting cards and began selling inspirational prints in acrylic frames. She thought she would post some of her artwork on Facebook to see if any friends might want to purchase anything. And something incredible happened.
“It just took off!,” Ashley said. “I mean, the next thing I knew, I had a ‘gazillion’ orders and more than $10,000 in sales. That’s when it hit me: “What if I could use all the money to help people travel to receive treatments?”
Ashley reached out to her good friend (and attorney), Kim Hudson, of the Hudson Family Foundation, and the two worked together to create the Eye On Grace Foundation, a 501c3 organization with a single mission: to provide money for patients, and a companion to travel to wherever they needed to go for treatment for ocular melanoma.
“I found out there are other organizations that do travel assistance, but some of them have a max of $1,500, which I knew wasn’t really helping much,” Ashley said. “For most of the travel grants available through other organizations, patients have to prove hardship, turn in tax forms, and complete a lot of paperwork. Sometimes there just isn’t time for that. A person may get scans that indicate the need for them to begin treatment the next day. We can assist them in booking flights and hotel rooms, and we can get the money to them immediately.”
An Eye On Grace travel grant is very simple. The foundation requires a verified treatment letter from the patient’s doctor and a plan of care which typically is provided quickly. The foundation finds it valuable for the person with OM to have a care giver or friend accompany the patient.
“For me, sometimes I go into a doctor’s appointment and what they say and what I hear are two different things,” Ashley said. “To have another set of ears with me is really valuable, and I think having that emotional support is just huge. It can all be really tough.”
The foundation pays for anything related to the trip: gas, if traveling by car, flights, Ubers, hotel rooms, and food – up to a total of $1,000 per person per trip. Recipients can receive up to $10,000 a year, with a $25,000 maximum per person.
“Once we began offering the grants, word spread pretty quickly and it’s been so sweet,” Ashley said.
In less than a year, Eye On Grace has sponsored more than 65 people and almost 180 trips for the OM patient and their “plus one.” Several patients have benefited from grants that covered multiple trips.
“We’ve helped ocular melanoma patients in Canada, Norway, and of course, all across the United States,” Ashley said. “As of now, we haven’t had to limit it. I never want to over promise and under deliver, so as long as we have the funds and the requests have met the criteria of a thousand dollars or less, we’ve been able to meet every need.”
The Eye On Grace Foundation’s motto is “keep your eye on grace” based on II Corinthians 12:9 which states, “My grace is sufficient for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Ashley shares how we can not worry about tomorrow. We only have grace for where our feet are planted right now. She encourages those receiving these grants to focus more on God’s grace than the difficult journey they face. The Eye On Grace Foundation is the perfect reflection of Ashley McCrary who is an encourager and a helper. Even as she faces her own life-threatening challenges, she has found a significant way to help others – to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Always with a positive attitude. Always feeling blessed. And always, with a smile.
To learn more about the Eye On Grace Foundation or to make a donation, go to the foundation’s website: www.eyeongracefoundation.net. You can also purchase Eye On Grace merchandise at eyeongrace.com where all proceeds go to support the mission of the foundation.
