Our Cause

Immediately following Brooke’s accident, a trust was formed to help fund Brooke’s recovery, but upon her passing, the BrookeStrong Foundation was created in her honor. The Foundation supports the mission of saving and improving lives through organ donation as Brooke did.

Although there have been many advances in the field of donation and transplantation due to enhanced medical technology, a critical shortage of organs available for transplant still exists.

Last year, nearly 28,000 lives were saved due to the generosity of organ donors. Today, more than 115,000 children and adults await life-saving transplants.
In Florida alone, more than 5,500 people are registered on the transplant waiting list.
More than 25,000 tissue donors and 40,000 cornea donors provide life-enhancing gifts every year, yet hundreds of thousands more continue to need these precious gifts.
Every 10 minutes another name is added to the national transplant waiting list, and 8,000 deaths occur every year in the U.S. which is an average of 22 lives lost each day due to the lack of organs available for transplant. Eight-two percent of patients waiting are in need of a kidney.
According to national research conducted by Donate Life America, more than 95 percent of Americans support donation but only 58 percent know the steps necessary to designate their wishes twice over.

Brooke’s organs were donated to many individuals in need:

Her heart was given to Carol Wright, a mother of 4 and grandmother of 3 in Wisconsin
Her pancreas and one kidney went to Kate Fillppo, a young lady who had diabetes
Her second kidney was donated, but the recipient is unknown at this time
Her liver was received by a husband, who is a father of an 11-year-old daughter
One of Brooke’s corneas was donated to a 75-year-old man who lives in Central Florida
Her other cornea to a 74-year-old woman, also from Central Florida who told us that now she can see the “wonders of God’s beautiful world and see more clearly the faces of my precious family.”