In the Middle of a Miracle: Hawkins runs nonprofit for pediatric cancer awareness
Thursday, June 5, 2025
Media Contact: Stephen Howard | Director of Marketing & Communications | 405-744-4363 | stephen.howard@okstate.edu
Brooklyn Hawkins arrived at the Starlight Terrace with a purple button pinned to her dress and a poster in her hands.
As the Riata Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship began its annual Pitch and Poster competition in November, Hawkins wasn’t sure if she belonged in the group of enterprising students.
The Spears School of Business sophomore hadn’t planned on competing, but the Riata Center reached out after learning about her story. To Hawkins’ surprise, she won the Social Enterprise category, receiving $1,000 — as well as memorable feedback from the judges.
“They told me to tell my story with confidence,” Hawkins said. “That was honestly a big game-changer for me because I started putting myself out there a lot more. That was something I used to not do as much because I never really considered myself an entrepreneur.”
Hawkins was only 17 when she founded In the Middle of a Miracle, which raises pediatric cancer awareness with a focus on teenagers. In two years, In the Middle of a Miracle has built a dynamic volunteer network, awarded its first college scholarship and served as the local philanthropy for Oklahoma State University’s Oklahoma Beta chapter of Pi Beta Phi sorority.
Hawkins’ Spears Business courses and campus connections helped her channel a deep passion for nonprofit management into a statewide support system for teens.
“That was just a gap that I really wanted to fill because I know being a teenager in a children’s hospital can feel very isolating,” Hawkins said. “I wanted to let everyone know that I see them, and I have a whole team behind me that wants to make them feel seen and loved.”
Her cause is personal.
‘An eye-opening experience’
Hawkins wanted to wear something special on April 18, 2023.
Although her busy senior year at Carl Albert High School in Midwest City, Oklahoma, was in disarray, she finally had a reason to celebrate. Wanting people to know her for more than her diagnosis, Hawkins didn’t put her name or face on the sweatshirt she designed.
Instead, the soft garment displayed a wide-reaching phrase in white capital letters: “IN THE MIDDLE OF A MIRACLE.”
“In the medical field in general, there are miraculous things that happen every single day,” Hawkins said. “Anybody on the planet can be in the middle of a miracle.”
That day, Hawkins experienced her miracle. She rang the bell to signify her cancer was in remission.
About half a year earlier, Hawkins had been seeking clarity about her health. The student who typically stayed busy with soccer and philanthropy struggled to feel like her active self.
Exhausted after school, she crashed for five hours but then lay restless at night. With swollen lymph nodes and stubborn fevers for months, she received several misdiagnoses before realizing the cause of her symptoms on Oct. 7, 2022.
Clarity brought more confusion.
Hawkins had Hodgkin lymphoma, a rare form of cancer typically stemming from a mutation in white blood cells.
First, she underwent chemotherapy. Then, she had to return to the hospital for radiation, enduring months of treatment. As Hawkins missed joining her classmates for senior milestones in the fall and winter, she kept asking herself why she was facing these challenges.
“I was about to take that next step into college and gain all of that independence that comes along with that journey,” Hawkins said. “So, being put in a children’s hospital in a children’s setting that’s really targeted toward younger children was definitely an eye-opening experience.”
Hawkins praised her nurses for treating her like a 17-year-old instead of a young child. Still, it was difficult to feel like a near-adult in a setting where patients regularly receive fanciful coloring books and sit on pint-sized playroom furniture.
Teenage patients needed to hear from other teenagers.
As Hawkins came to this realization, she also tried to imagine her future. Once an aspiring college soccer player, she started thinking deeper about her other passion: giving back to the community.
“I knew there was a bigger picture,” Hawkins said. “I could feel it in my gut. I was just searching for what that looked like.”
As a high school student volunteering with multiple organizations that benefit Oklahoma kids, Hawkins envisioned herself someday creating a nonprofit, perhaps when she was 30 or 40.
After ringing the bell as a newly cancer-free 17-year-old, Hawkins changed her perspective. The spirited teenager immediately had an urge to be active again.
“Just having my battle where there were so many times I wasn’t able to do a lot of the things that I wanted to do,” Hawkins said. “I just jumped at the opportunity as much as I could because it was something I used to take for granted.”
When Hawkins received a flood of community requests for her custom shirts in violet — the cancer ribbon color for Hodgkin lymphoma — she had a bold idea. What if she pursued her career goal before starting college or even receiving her high school diploma?
Hours of research commenced, and on May 5, 2023, she spread the word.
In the Middle of a Miracle was launching.
Building blocks
Hawkins knew she belonged at OSU.
Since she wasn’t playing soccer at a small college, she saw Stillwater as the place to nurture her ultimate dream. Spears Business offers a management degree with a business sustainability and nonprofit management option, making her choice easy.
Although Hawkins arrived on campus as a nonprofit founder and director, she had yet to realize the depth and breadth of classroom lessons that would enhance her skills. Now, she understands how different aspects of her business education link like a puzzle. Hawkins added marketing as a second major, helping her boost In the Middle of a Miracle’s social media presence.
“It’s been really cool to see the way I can apply things from my classes into my nonprofit work,” Hawkins said. “I see all the behind the scenes for my nonprofit every single day, but seeing how other nonprofits work and studying how they market and how they reach their target audiences has been something that has helped me.
“Over the past year, you can just see it through how much the organization has grown. It’s helped me and my team be able to target our audience better and fill that gap better.”
Although In the Middle of a Miracle’s programs support kids of all ages, Hawkins put teenagers at the front and center because she saw a need.
Hawkins said she wants to provide a voice for teens.
In the Middle of a Miracle does this in numerous ways. Hawkins leads a teen board of about 45 volunteers in grades eight-12, allowing hospital patients to receive support from peers in their age range.
Parker Wheeler, a teen board member and senior at Edmond Memorial High School in Oklahoma, can relate to the teenagers he serves. After spending two years in a hospital because of hemophilia and autoimmune diseases, he understands In the Middle of a Miracle’s value.
“It really resonated with me deeply,” Wheeler said. “I love their mission of teens helping teens.”
Some steps are small and meaningful, like decorating Oklahoma Children’s Hospital for the holidays and filling gift bags with items that appeal to teens. Others, like In the Middle of a Miracle’s application-based scholarship program for cancer survivors, have the potential to be life-changing.
Establishing a scholarship was one of Hawkins’ early goals because she knows the difficulties that persist for teenagers after cancer treatment.
“You have to make a lot of decisions about your future,” Hawkins said. “Financially, that can be really intimidating when you’re going through super-intense treatments, and that can take away a lot of opportunities.”
In spring 2024, Oklahoma City Community College student Rylie Tran received the inaugural In the Middle of a Miracle scholarship.
To raise these funds, In the Middle of a Miracle offers merchandise sales and philanthropy events throughout the year. Hawkins stays busy as a full-time student juggling multiple roles with her nonprofit, but she remembers a lesson from her entrepreneurship course with Richard Gajan, a Spears Business associate professor of professional practice.
To build a business or nonprofit from the ground up, he advised, you have to maintain passion for it. If you lose your passion, then it won’t work.
When Hawkins began to feel overwhelmed, the OSU community helped her rekindle that passion.
‘A lifetime journey’
As a college freshman, Hawkins returned from winter break unsure if she could continue In the Middle of a Miracle.
She was grieving the loss of a family member, and it was difficult to run a nonprofit as the lone leader of her teen board. Then, her Pi Beta Phi sorority sisters surprised her.
They had selected In the Middle of a Miracle as the chapter’s local philanthropy. Now, Hawkins has a larger team to amplify her mission, and she can delegate duties among executive board members. Cadance Burke, an OSU freshman who manages the nonprofit’s website, has followed Hawkins’ journey since they attended Carl Albert together.
“Brooklyn is one of the most driven, passionate people I’ve ever met,” Burke said. “She really gives her all to everyone else, so she loves to see people thrive and loves to give back. That’s what makes her perfect for the role.”
Hawkins’ bubbly personality shone as she greeted students beside Theta Pond during her In the Middle of a Miracle tabling event in September. It was Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, so Pi Beta Phi organized a slate of fundraising events culminating in a Friday pickleball tournament. Students flocked to the Colvin Recreation Center to play, and the philanthropy week raised more than $5,000 for In the Middle of a Miracle.
Hawkins has also incorporated Pi Beta Phi’s national philanthropic effort, “Read > Lead > Achieve,” into her nonprofit, launching a literacy program. In the Middle of the Miracle is distributing hundreds of books to hospital patients, from children’s board books to teen novels.
Some are informative, helping teenagers understand their health or learn about therapy dogs. Other books distract patients from their hospital setting and introduce them to fun, fictional worlds.
“Everything you can imagine, there’s a book for it,” Hawkins said.
The partnerships don’t stop with Pi Phi. In the Middle of a Miracle has teamed up with Oklahoma high schools, including Carl Albert and Norman, for philanthropy events.
“We want to paint the state purple,” Hawkins said.
For Hawkins, that phrase signifies much more than the Hodgkin lymphoma ribbon color. In the Middle of a Miracle’s purple shirts unify pediatric cancer patients, regardless of their condition, to show that they aren’t alone.
“I’ve seen firsthand that your journey with cancer, especially when you hit it in your younger years, it never ends,” Hawkins said. “It’s a lifetime journey, so that’s how it is for everyone, but especially for teenagers.
“Those are the prime years of your life. You’re discovering yourself. You’re figuring out who you are, making those big life decisions. It’s super important to make sure that they know they’re supported throughout their future journeys.”
Whether she’s speaking to high school students or business leaders about her nonprofit, Hawkins conveys that passion. After winning her Pitch and Poster category, Hawkins competed in the Riata Center’s Business Plan Competition, where she received the Richard L. Tourtellotte Family Scholarship. This spring, she also won the Women for OSU Student Philanthropist of the Year award.
Hawkins gains confidence with each elevator pitch.
“Everyone has a connection to the mission,” Hawkins said. “It’s just different for every audience, so I’m learning how to tell it confidently. For whoever connects to it, it’s a different story and it takes a different direction every time.”
Story by: Hallie Hart | Engage@Spears magazine
Photos by: Devin Flores, Adam Luther and provided Video by: Devin Flores