Jake’s Story: The Stranger Who Changed Everything

Who is Jake Lee?

I was asked to join the Smiles for Jake board a little over two years ago, by Sarah and Ryan. I grew up in this community, I’ve seen the effects of what this cause is really about, and I wanted to help in whatever way I could. I own Vision Electrical Services in town—we employ about 25 people—and I’m always looking for ways to give back.

I chose a personal spot for this conversation. This is where my daughter is buried. I grew up a block from here. I coach kids at the baseball field. This is the heart of my community—and it’s the heart of why I do this work.

Jake on the conception of Race for Grace, now called Miles for Smiles.

Grace

My daughter was born in 2010. She had a congenital heart defect, and we went through surgery to repair it. She came through it, we went home—and then something happened. She developed blood clots around her heart that released and caused a stroke. It was too much. She became brain dead. We lost her a week before her first birthday.

We wanted to memorialize her, to keep her memory alive in a positive way. So in 2012, my family started Race for Grace ourselves, now known as Miles for Smiles. It began as a simple idea—get people together for a fun walk, get some t-shirts, find a few sponsors, raise some money. We honestly thought it might just be a handful of people. Instead, friends, family, strangers, and the whole community showed up in numbers we never expected.

That first year we donated to the Ronald McDonald House—a place that had meant so much to us during those three weeks in the hospital. The race kept growing every year after that. We gave to Faith’s Lodge in Wisconsin, a place for terminally ill kids or grieving parents to stay, free of charge. They had been hit hard by a storm around the time of the race and needed to repair damages that insurance wouldn’t cover, which we provided. Eventually we settled into sponsoring the Brighter Days Foundation, a local organization similar to Make-A-Wish, and that partnership carried on for years. Almost every year, no matter how big or small the race got, our community raised meaningful funds for kids and families who needed it.

Grace also has money set aside through the Brainerd Community Foundation—the beginning of what we hope becomes a scholarship fund in her name once she would have graduated.

As the race kept growing, it became more than my family could run on our own, so we handed it over to the Brighter Days Foundation, who ran it for a few years. Eventually it came back around to Smiles for Jake, which has now run the race for the past two years, renaming it Miles for Smiles. What started as one family’s small walk for one little girl has become something so much bigger than any of us expected—and it’s still hers, at the heart of it.

The Ronald McDonald House and Faith’s Lodge

2026 Miles for Smiles

My Own Bad Days

What makes Smiles for Jake personal for me? Jake could have been one of my own kids. I’ve struggled in my own way. I’ve had those bad days. I’ve had those bad thoughts.

It took the right person to put me on the right path—and it happened in the strangest, smallest way. It wasn’t a program. It wasn’t a hotline. It was a stranger, a friend of a friend, having one small conversation with me at a time when I was lost. That conversation redirected who I was and what I was doing. That’s all it took. One person. One connection.

I don’t even know that person anymore. I never really did. But I think about the fact that our smile—Smiles for Jake—might be making that same kind of impact for somebody else right now, somewhere I’ll never see. I don’t have all the tools. I don’t know all the answers. I just want to do what I can to help, because somebody once did that for me.

What “We Are All Jake” Means to Me

I never knew Jake personally. But I think “We Are All Jake” means we all have bad days. We’re all in this together. Some of us have worse days than others, some of us have better ones—but we’re all human, and none of us are exempt from that.

Suicide is not an option. That’s why mental health awareness has to be there for everybody—whether that’s a stranger calling 988, someone reaching out online, or a random person who happens to say the right thing at the right time. People just need to know those resources exist.

Our Family Now

After we lost Grace, we felt that absence immediately—not just her, but the shape of the family we thought we’d have. We had a son right away. Then we felt that same pull again, so we had another. The boys are fourteen months apart. And we still felt like we were missing our girl, so we tried one more time—and we ended up with twin girls.

So today we have four kids. The girls are eight. The boys are thirteen and fourteen. It’s a handful—a good handful. The boys grew up at the ballpark where I coach. We fish, we’re on the water constantly. My family is loud and full and everywhere, and Grace is part of every bit of it.

We talk about hard things in our house. My kids know about suicide. We talk about it openly. We tell them it’s okay to have a bad day—I have bad days, they have bad days—and sometimes all you can do is say, “today’s not a good day,” and let the people around you support you through it.

It’s not easy to find the right words to tell a child something that maybe they shouldn’t have to hear. But the truth is, this is reality, and we owe it to our kids to talk about it anyway—whether that’s using the tools Smiles for Jake offers, or just talking to another parent first about how to even bring it up.

How You Can Help

I’d tell anyone who hasn’t supported Smiles for Jake yet: this is a community. We’re all in this together. What happens to one of us touches all of us, one way or another. Supporting this cause is just supporting your own community.

Support looks different for everybody. Some people give their time. Some give financially, to help cover the cost of the work we do. Some just show up emotionally for the people around them who are struggling. All of it matters.

What gives me hope is watching the shift happen in the younger generation. They’re more willing to talk about this than my generation ever was. It’s growing from the ground up, kid by kid, family by family—and that gives me real hope for where this is headed.

If you take one thing from Grace’s story and mine, let it be this: it only takes one person, one conversation, one small moment of someone showing up, to change everything for someone else. Be that person for somebody. And if you can, help us keep showing up for this community—by giving, volunteering, or simply talking about it a little more openly than the generation before us did.

Smile on,

Jake

If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out. You don’t have to have all the answers—you just have to be willing to show up. Support Smiles for Jake’s mission by donating, volunteering, or joining us at Miles for Smiles.