Caroline Toole
His Strength, Her Mission
Caroline Toole’s older brother, Jonathan, is her best friend and hero.
The two grew up as typical siblings but became especially close when the pandemic started in 2020. “We were spending more time together, so I began to understand him better,” she recalls. “We realized how much we need each other.”
Jonathan’s early years were difficult. At three years old, he began having multiple seizures—sometimes hundreds each day. He was diagnosed with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a rare and severe form of epilepsy. Jonathan spent two years at a children’s hospital in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, working through many developmental challenges before eventually becoming seizure-free.
He continues to defy expectations. Doctors once told the family Jonathan wouldn’t live past 15; today, he’s 26. He was told he’d never drive, yet he now drives a big truck to his full-time job at a restaurant, where he’s worked for seven years. “My brother is one of the smartest people I know, and he’s thriving now with great peers and friends,” Caroline says. “Life is still hard, but he has a great family and friends to support him.”
Caroline loves talking about Jonathan and spreading awareness about Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. At age nine, she started selling homemade bracelets to support the Lennox-Gastaut Foundation. Now a marketing student at Haslam, she put her skills to work in 2024 by raising more than $2,000 from 80 individuals in one month through a successful fundraising campaign. Caroline spoke to fraternity and sorority groups, family members, and others to spread the word. “Many of my peers didn’t know what Lennox-Gastaut syndrome was,” she says. “By the end of the fundraiser, they had learned a lot.”
Caroline also serves as fundraising and merchandise chair for the UT chapter of Best Buddies, a program that supports students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and promotes a welcoming campus, especially in out-of-classroom activities. One Best Buddies initiative pairs an IDD student with a volunteer. “Being part of Best Buddies allows me to further my connection with people with disabilities,” Caroline says. “They enrich my life, and like Jonathan, push me to be a better person every day.”
