Heartwheels

Taku Hanson was born and raised in Seattle, served his tour in the U.S. Army, and settled in Kalispell to be near his sister's family. He, his wife Brenda, and their son Tomas were founding members of this chapter, back when we were the Montana Sea Hawkers. Like every Sea Hawker, they earned their names: Heartwheel Hawk, Brenda Hawk, and Tomas Hawk.

In May 2023 the family came home from the Sea Hawkers banquet where Brenda had just been named Sea Hawker of the Year by the international booster club. Taku hadn't felt right during the trip, so he went in for testing. The diagnosis was stage 4 colon cancer that had already spread to other organs. He decided to fight it.

Heartwheels started in an infusion chair. The clinic put Taku in a children's treatment room for his chemo, and sitting there got him thinking about the kids who usually filled it. The next treatment day he brought a Hot Wheels car and asked the nurse to pass it along to whichever child was in. A little while later a frail boy walked in, still hooked to his IV, to say thank you. He told Taku the car made the hours easier, because now he had something new to play with.

Taku went home and told Brenda and Tomas about the boy. They cried, then talked for hours, and landed on the name Heartwheels. The goal was simple: a small metal car for every child going through cancer treatment. Brenda started a Heartwheels Facebook page. They collected cars around Kalispell, bought more with their own money, then asked Sea Hawkers everywhere for help. Chapters around the world started shipping boxes. By the end of 2025, more than 5,000 cars had gone to kids at Logan Health Children's.

The staff there told the family what it was doing. Parents and kids were sitting together playing with the cars in the children's cancer center. Kids started arriving looking forward to picking out a car instead of thinking about why they were there. Adult patients began bringing cars of their own to hand to the kids getting chemo beside them.

Taku gave his time in plenty of other places too. He visited veterans in the hospital who had no one else coming to see them, and he and his family supported Mikayla's Miracles and Blessings, Special Olympics, and Down syndrome buddies. He kept it up while he was in treatment himself, the way Paul Allen asked all of us to leave the world better than we found it.

At the start of 2026 the doctors told Taku the cancer was moving faster. What he wanted was for Heartwheels to keep going without him: one car, one smile, for every kid before treatment. He passed away on April 10, 2026 with Brenda and Tomas beside him, just after learning he had been named Sea Hawker of the Month.

Brenda Hawk and Tomas Hawk are carrying Heartwheels forward, and they want it to grow. Rest easy, Taku. You made the world a better place.