RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — A West Palm Beach teen is going above and beyond to help families of babies in the neonatal intensive care unit — all while trying to become the first deaf African American student to become an Eagle Scout in Palm Beach County.
As part of the final step in becoming an Eagle Scout, Parker has to do a community service project.
It's fitting he chose to help prepare care packages for families with children in the NICU, because he was born premature, weighing 1 pound, 4 ounces at birth. He spent the whole year in the unit and he lost his hearing at about 15 months. At 2, he received cochlear implants to assist in hearing.
At 15 years old, he has had 78 blood transfusions and 47 surgeries, including two brain surgeries.
Parker is a junior at Jupiter High School, where is also involved in Junior ROTC.
In honor of NICU Awareness Month, Parker and other community members put together the care packages at Riviera Beach Preparatory School on Saturday to deliver to the NICU at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach.
The packages include journals, Bibles, travel kits and snakes, just to name a few.
"He's actually my hero," his mother Erika Parker Garrett told WPTV reporter Briana Nespral. "For a child to go through all of this being developmentally delayed, having all of these blood transfusions, and he’s also deaf as well, for him to go through it, no behavioral problems, no issues. If he can do it, we can do anything
The care packages will be delivered on Sept. 15, which also happens to be National Neonatal Nurses Day.
He plans to return to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore where he was born to give out packages to families there in the NICU.
WPTV digital producer Allen Cone contributed to this article