Yarrawonga’s Brooklynn Dowling has been recognised nationally as the 2025 GI Cancer Trials Member Fundraiser of the Year.
What began as a deeply personal way to honour her father has grown into a remarkable journey of compassion, determination and hope, with Yarrawonga’s Brooklynn Dowling now recognised nationally as the 2025 GI Cancer Trials Member Fundraiser of the Year.
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For the young nurse and Royal Australian Air Force medic, the award is not about accolades.
It is about love, loss and legacy, ensuring her father Jim, and her uncle Gavan, are remembered in a way that helps others facing gastrointestinal cancer.
Brooklynn never set out to become an award-winning fundraiser.
Her motivation was to ensure her father’s story, and the stories of others like him, were not forgotten.
She grew up in Savernake in the Riverina and attended Sacred Heart Primary School and College in Yarrawonga.
Today, when not in uniform with the Australian Defence Force, Brooklynn works casually as a nurse at the same Yarrawonga clinic where her mother served as practice manager for more than two decades.
Brooklynn’s fundraising journey began when she was 15, and her uncle Gavan was diagnosed with multiple myeloma.
He lived with the disease for two years before passing away at 52, the first of two profound losses that shaped her purpose.
Seven years later, at 22, Brooklynn lost her father Jim to oesophageal cancer.
He was 61.
“He was very stoic, a genuine farmer; he loved the community,” Brooklynn said.
“He would always help out; he played football, helped cook barbecues for the local hall.
“He was very community minded and would do anything for his girls, my sister and I, and my mum.”
That same quiet generosity has guided her own approach to fundraising.
It began modestly, selling horse manure from the family farm gate, raising funds over time.
She later took on her “little marathon” running laps around the farm as preparation for the Air Force and wrote letters to family, friends and neighbours sharing her father’s story.
Brooklynn’s efforts were inspired by the loss of her father and uncle from cancer.
“I did not think it was going to raise $53,000,” Brooklynn said.
“I was expecting maybe $10,000 at most.”
“What made it powerful, was its honesty,” she said.
“It’s genuine, I’m a real person on that poster so it’s very relatable.”
One of her most meaningful events was a morning tea at the Australian Defence Force School of Health, where conversations about oncology and clinical trials extended beyond fundraising.
Oncology isn’t a big focus in training and Brooklynn said it was just nice to speak to like-minded clinicians.
Beyond fundraising, Brooklynn has become an active advocate in the GI cancer community, working with major research and patient organisations and contributing to national advisory groups.
Through the Community Advisory Panel, she has seen research she helped shape become real clinical trials.
“It gets very humbling,” she said.
“I wish it could have been my dad, but it brings a tear to my eye knowing I’ve helped others.”
Her message is simple; that there’s always hope.
She encourages even small fundraising efforts, saying they drive advances in treatment, and without those fundraisers there wouldn’t be advances in clinical trials.”
Her advice is to start with what mattered to the person being honoured, and for those facing cancer, to speak up and explore all care options, including clinical trials.
Brooklynn hopes to one day run a full marathon to continue fundraising.
When asked what she would say to her father, she doesn’t hesitate.
“I love you so much. I’d do anything for you.”
Congratulations to Brooklynn Dowling, recipient of the 2025 GI Cancer Trials Member Fundraiser of the Year Award, whose compassion continues to make a meaningful difference to people living with GI cancer and their families.
