Meet Richie

At five feet tall and eighty pounds, Richie didn’t look like the best player on the basketball team, but his spirit and love for the game always remained. Born with Cystic Fibrosis (CF), a genetic respiratory and digestive disease, Richie was in and out of hospitals for the duration of his life. 

At age 6, Richie became one of the youngest CF patients to ever receive a double-lung transplant. For eight years, Richie enjoyed a healthy life thanks to an anonymous organ donor. But at age 14, Richie’s body began to reject his lungs, despite his medicines and he died of CF-related causes at age 17. 

Richie’s prolonged life was due to the generosity of a family who donated their child’s lungs. Please help support the Foundation in an effort to save more lives like Richie’s.