Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan McCunn.
Hi Megan, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
You never expect to wake up sick one day and never get better. That is, all too often, what happens for hundreds of thousands of Americans living with autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or endometriosis, two that I have. They can be born with them, develop during childhood, or later on in life. In my 20’s, my RA progressed and I was no longer working, no longer riding horses. I felt ineffective, a shell of my former self. One theme that regularly surfaces in the chronic illness community is how isolating it is. I didn’t want anyone else to feel alone the way I did, to navigate the struggles of insurance denials/appeals alone, to face the back + forth of chronic pain blindly in the night. I wanted to help.
I started in pageants as a way to elevate my voice and platform; to fundraise, to advocate for patients, to develop programs to help them in their daily struggles against their chronic pain.
I took one step at a time, from a 5k to live-painting at a community art event where I advertised a fundraiser for the Arthritis Foundation. I started selling my art to fundraise as well, I was named my state’s Honoree of the Arthritis Foundation’s Jingle Bell Run 5k the following year, where we raised $140,000 for programs such as advocating for patients’ rights and developing programs like Walk With Ease & Yoga for Arthritis, in which I would become certified in 2019.
As Miss Iowa for America 2019, I had hoped to reach many more people with Yoga for Arthritis, but the world had other plans. I like to work one-on-one with people since chronic pain is so individual. Most of my outreach was virtual; leading a warm-up for the Arthritis Foundation’s spring 5k Walk for the Cure 2020 and developing a themed practice for a sister queen’s fundraiser walk for the Victoria’s Voice Foundation.
Moving to Minneapolis in 2021, and taking Directorship of Iowa for Mrs. America, Mrs. American, and Miss for America Pageants, it has been a big year. I have been fundraising with my watercolor postcards, as well as through my CrownJewels Swarovski jewelry sales where my profits are donated. I invite anyone + everyone to promote their nonprofit/charity/cause/etc. in a brief interview and open a sale link just for them, profits from those sales are donated to their NPO and they receive a gift certificate for something for themselves. People are also entered for giveaways.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Everyone has struggles. It’s so important to be kind. My own chronic pain condition has had its ups where it has improved, and its downs where it has worsened greatly (usually during a period of step-fail with a prescription causing me to lose the ability to walk, or break out in psoriasis, though that launched Glowganix, a natural self-tanner since spray tanning can be drying. Necessity->Invention). A divorce, a Cat 5 hurricane, moving to a better job market; all hurdles to be surmounted, with an end goal in sight.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
While I enjoy painting with acrylic/oil/water and am known for my use of many colors, and variegated technique, I also specialize in personal styling + consulting and put it to good use as Iowa’s state pageant director for Mrs. America Inc. My educational background is diverse; I like to think of my generation as “the Barbie generation- I can be…anything!” My degree is in Business/French, and I’ve completed a program on Climate Change, but I’ve also been a Dental Assistant and Manicurist, in addition to a Yoga Instructor specializing in Yoga for Arthritis, all of these things requiring classwork, certification, and licensing. I can write grant proposals, sponsor letters, create things from acrylic/silicone/etc., then paint, and even rhinestone them.
I’m most proud of how far I have come in just a few years, and how things have evolved into bigger and better projects. What started as a yearning to help but not knowing where to begin, multiplied exponentially with each step I took. It’s not so much taking a great leap of faith all at once, but getting a running start and you’re footing along the way. If you have an idea, plant it; it may germinate eventually, in a year, maybe four.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs, or other resources you think our readers should check out?
Favorite Tech: AMI App, Reminders App (obsessed), Happy Planner (IDK how I lived without it before), Zoom, SocialHub.
Favorite Books: Love The Hobbit, Black Beauty…. stories of resilient main characters who face adversity, overcome hurdles, and remain themselves in their purest forms, also they’re tales that have stood the test of time.
Pricing:
- Watercolors start at $10
- Glowganix $13
- CrownJewels fundraise $0
- Regularly priced Touchstone Crystal by Swarovski pieces start around $24, with many specials and sale pieces, and any time you spend $100, you get to add another piece for 50% off.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://touchstonecrystal.com/crownjewels
- Instagram: @iowamonarch @crownjewelstcs
- Facebook: @iowamonarch
- Other: iowapageant.info glowganix.cococart.co
