I’m headed to Australia. First, I’ll change Australia. Then, I’ll change the world.
~Kara
Smart, athletic, funny and adventurous, Kara MacDougall was an excellent student and born leader who lived every energetic minute of her life to the fullest. While living in Australia as an exchange student during her senior year of high school, she was diagnosed with liver cancer, and died a few months later at 17. She painted these colorful flowers as a thank-you to a family that sent her money for Christmas, and used the money to buy presents for her family and friends. Kara never had the opportunity to deliver the painting, but her family made prints of it to distribute to friends and kept the original at home, where it remains a lasting keepsake of Kara.
Kara MacDougall was a magnet—a ball of energy that drew people to her in bunches.She was smart, opinionated, thoughtful, impetuous when she wanted to be, highly athletic, funny, adventurous, and a natural leader—a driving force in school, her social circles, and on the athletic fields where she competed fiercely. She spoke loudly for what she believed in, and you always knew where you stood with her, but you had to move fast, because she never stood still.
It was not surprising, then, that she chose to become a foreign-exchange student in her senior year of high school, attending school in Australia. In typical fashion, she took her adopted school by storm, changing attitudes and parts of the student culture. Kara’s spirit proved not just infectious, but transformative.
Perhaps that’s what made Kara’s unexpected cancer diagnosis and untimely death that much more difficult to bear: the communities that knew her and loved her couldn’t accept that someone who had meant so much—who had given them so much—would no longer be there with them, or for them. Not surprisingly, in addition to the local outpouring of sympathy that followed Kara’s passing, her Facebook page was filled with testimonials from her classmates and friends in Australia, unanimous in their grief-stricken tone that the young woman they knew for such a brief time had opened their minds and made an enormous impact on them and their school.
Kara touched many, many people in wonderful, positive ways. Through the Kara Fund, we want to share the spirit, energy, and love she exuded every day of her life, in the hope that our efforts can help others live more fulfilling lives. Kara would have wanted nothing less.
I’m headed to Australia. First, I’ll change Australia. Then, I’ll change the world.” That was Kara’s bold proclamation before she left the U.S., on her way to Australia as a foreign-exchange student. Here, Kara stands at the peak of the famed Sydney Harbour Bridge which, at 503 meters, is the fifth-longest spanning-arch bridge in the world. The striking Sydney Opera House is behind her. Kara, determined as always, made this impressive climb—which took well over two hours—just a short time before she was diagnosed with cancer.
