Giving Back

A large storage room located off the main school gymnasium at Carrie’s school, Greenwood Lakes Middle, was renovated for use as a fitness center for the students and staff of Greenwood Lakes School. The transformation went beyond a new coat of paint and new carpet. Rita hired Denise McCabe, a local artist to paint a unique mural. It covers one 40-foot wall and features 14 athletes, including a basketball player, a swimmer and a runner. The mural depicts Carrie in a cloud overseeing the room. Carrie’s neighbor and best friend, Amy Hill, who was also killed in the 2000 crash, appears in the mural as a jogger. The fitness room at Greenwood Lakes is equipped with 30 stationary bicycles, some donated by the Foundation. The Carrie Brown Foundation donates scholarships to students to attend the YMCA Camp Wewa for one week each summer. The teachers at the school decide who receives the honor of this scholarship award.

A donation of 6 computers was made to Heathrow Elementary School in Carrie’s memory. At this school, through the Learning Disability Program (SLD PROGRAM) headed up by Mrs. Linda Albury, Carrie overcame a reading learning disability. She became an honor-roll student when she was mainstreamed in 1998. The computers are located in the Special Learning Disability (SLD) Center, which previously only had old, hand-me-down computers because new computers are always allocated to the gifted programs first. These computers were deliberately designated to be used as part of the SLD Reading, Math and Language Arts Programs at Heathrow Elementary School. The Foundation awards a student from this program a scholarship to attend the YMCA Camp Wewa for one week during the summer.

Wewa Outdoor Center is a 40-year-old YMCA camp in Apopka that Carrie loved. $20,000 was donated for the purpose of rebuilding and relocating the camp’s ranges for rifle-shooting and archery – two sports at which Carrie excelled. Carrie holds the summer records for 1999 and 2000 in both riflery and archery marksmanship.

The Brown Family also helped fund the construction of a 40-foot climbing tower, a first for the camp that hosts 160 campers a week in the summer. Goliath, as they call this mountain among the trees, has nine different climbing sides each with a specific difficulty level. This climbing wall is the largest outside climbing facility in the South East United States. There is a “zip” line attached to the top s of Goliath that sends it’s rider out and over Mud Lake. The ride is a block long and is thrilling for all participants.