There are people who survive cancer, and then there are people who let surviving cancer transform everything they thought possible. Stacey Schwinghammer is firmly in the second category.

As the administrative and bookkeeping manager for Cleaning for a Reason, the ISSA Charity program that provides free home cleanings to cancer patients across North America, Schwinghammer brings something no job posting could have required: she has lived the mission. Diagnosed with cancer in 2010 and through three full occurrences since, she knows firsthand what it feels like to be on the receiving end of the program she now helps run.

“You feel helpless,” she says, recalling the days after surgery when reaching for a cup of coffee was beyond her.

Her story begins not in a boardroom or a clinic, but in a Zumba class in Flower Mound, Texas. It was 2013, and Schwinghammer, in the middle of treatment and committed to keeping her body moving on doctor’s orders, found herself dancing alongside a woman named Debbie Sardone, the founder of Cleaning for a Reason. They became fast friends. When Sardone learned that Schwinghammer was heading into another round of surgeries, she didn’t ask permission. She simply announced that a cleaning crew was coming.

“No, no, no,” Schwinghammer told her. “They’ve got other families.”

Sardone’s response was characteristically direct: “You can open the door, or you cannot open the door. But they’re going to be there.”

That moment, the moment she stopped resisting help and let it in, became the hinge point of Schwinghammer’s life. She had two children at home, one in high school and one in first grade. Every ounce of energy she had was rationed carefully: a shower, time with her kids, and nothing else. Having a clean home lifted something from her she hadn’t even known she was carrying.

“It gives you hope,” she says. “One thing off your list. You know there’s something to do, but there really isn’t time for rest, and cancer patients need to rest.”

She’s quick to point out that the benefit isn’t only physical. Walking into a clean home when you’re exhausted and frightened is an act of emotional restoration. It tells you, in quiet but unmistakable terms, that someone sees your struggle and shows up anyway.

Several years after her own cleanings, Sardone had more for Schwinghammer. The possibility of a part-time administrative role with the organization. The director hired her on the spot. Today, she works full-time, processing patient applications, fielding questions from cleaning partners, and serving as a bridge between two groups who often don’t fully understand each other.

That bridge work may be her most valuable contribution. When a cancer patient cancels a cleaning at the last minute, Schwinghammer is the one who helps the cleaning company understand why. “It’s not because they don’t appreciate it,” she explains. “It’s because their fever spiked, and the doctor said get to the emergency room.” And when a patient resists signing up — as many do, reluctant to accept charity, she knows exactly how to reach them, because she was once that patient.

She answers emails at night. Not because she must, but because she remembers what it was like to be waiting on an answer, carrying one more question on a list that was already too long.

The call that crystallized everything for her came from a patient who was dying. The woman had taken time — time she didn’t have — to call and thank the organization for sending a cleaning crew. “I am dying,” she said, “but having a clean home during this end, I can’t thank you enough.”

Schwinghammer was on the phone with her young daughter nearby. The child didn’t fully understand, but her mother did. “We can’t cure her,” Schwinghammer remembers thinking. “But we made an impact.”

Her message to cancer patients is simple and direct: reach out. Accept the help. “A clean home will change your world.” And to cleaning companies sitting on the fence about joining the program, she’s just as clear: “You are changing somebody’s life. You may not even know how many lives you are really affecting.”

Debbie Sardone didn’t just send a cleaning crew in 2013. She sent Stacey Schwinghammer back into the world with a reason.

Learn more and do your part to help at cleaningforareason.org