On June 20, dozens of Chippewa Valley residents gathered outside Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire to protest proposed Medicaid funding cuts — cuts that threatened the rural hospitals their communities depend on.

The rally brought together patients, healthcare workers, and families who understood what losing a rural hospital means: longer drives in emergencies, fewer specialists, and neighbors who don’t make it because help was too far away.

WQOW and WEAU both covered the event. It was the beginning of what would become one of CVI’s most sustained campaigns — healthcare advocacy that would eventually reach ABC News, prompt a White House response, and put rural Wisconsin’s healthcare crisis on the national map.