Brooke Lahr was a young woman who found her calling early in life, by age 25, and spent years striving to give hope to the future of marginalized children who general society has forgotten. Brooke lived her life by the slogan, “It’s not charity. It’s responsibility.” She very much lived by the thought “I am my brother’s keeper”.
Brooke was born in Indianapolis, on February 25, 1988 to Colleen and Mark Lahr. She was a lifelong parishioner of St. Gabriel Catholic Church and a student there through middle school. She attended Fulton Junior High School, Ben High School, and Bellarmine University. Beginning in grade school and continuing through high school she was involved in volleyball, swimming and softball, but she was more than just an athlete. She participated in show choir and Key Club. It is through these activities that she learned the lesson of teamwork and playing her role. At Bellarmine University, Brooke began to bring actions to her awareness of injustice in the world. She began to participate in causes that she felt would make a difference in the lives of marginalized people, particularly the children. Brooke joined a small but powerful group of missionaries in a trip to Guatemala through “Hearts in Motion”. From that time on, Brooke’s mission in life was to help those in need. Upon graduation from Bellarmine in 2010, Brooke continued her life of helping others through her work with the Passionists Volunteer International (PVI) when she lived in Honduras for 14 months with five other PVI volunteers to assist the marginalized children and women in a small town of Talanga. It was here that Brooke shed her “American values” and helped meet people in their own reality to make a better life for children. One of the projects that the PVI group helped develop is a lunch program for children called Comedor Infantil, “The Children’s Dining Hall.” The Comedor Infantil is a place that the town’s children can go to receive a hot meal each day. The Comedor has become independently self-sustaining since the group left Honduras in the fall of 2012. Children were Brooke’s passion.
After leaving Honduras, Brooke’s passion grew, as she sought to find other outlets for helping those in need. She spent six months caring for a sick aunt, worked for the charity organization “Connect 2 Help” and then accepted a program coordinator position for Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH) in Cuernavaca, Mexico. NPH is a Central American Organization that specializes in helping children through orphanages and education. Brooke linked the needs for the orphanage in Cuernavaca to donors and contracted the work to be completed. She loved the fact that she could bring resources to the area of need for the betterment of children. Although her work was office centered, she took time each day to be with the children of the orphanage. She played, worshiped and loved the children of the orphanage.
Unfortunately, Brooke’s mission in life was cut short on April 21, 2013. She left this world before her mission was complete, but she left us with a blueprint on how to ease the suffering of innocent children.