Eighteen months. That’s all the time Gio Green was granted with her baby Jack before he passed away in April 2024. However, through her, his legacy lives on. Green is the founder of Jack’s Friends Foundation and Little Lighthouse Oklahoma City—both organizations prompted by Green’s journey into motherhood and navigating care for a child with special needs.
Green remembers preparing for Jack’s arrival after learning he had a serious heart condition and a high probability of being born with Down syndrome.
“I just thought, ‘This is the little boy that I’ve been dreaming of having, and just because something is changing, it doesn’t mean that I can’t adapt,’” she said.
Her adaptation manifested in a pinboard overflowing with research, ideas, blog posts and other resources, which she hung in her office (she was a highly successful business consultant servicing clients worldwide at the time). She began building a network to learn from other families’ experiences, which led her to Little Lighthouse Tulsa, an amazing tuition-free school serving children with special needs. After Jack was born, he joined the program, attending Little Lighthouse Tulsa once a week for a year.
“It just boggled my mind that we had this opportunity in Tulsa, but not in Oklahoma City,” said Green, adding that she repeatedly shared thoughts on bringing Little Lighthouse to OKC with her husband Carter. “I guess I was annoying him with the idea, because he said, ‘Why don’t you just open it?’ … I don’t think he realized what that propelled in my brain; it was a light bulb going off.”
With her husband’s encouragement, Green stepped away from consulting to pursue opening Little Lighthouse Oklahoma City. After many meetings and piles of paperwork, plans for the new school were well underway—and then, the Green family suddenly and tragically lost baby Jack. The community was heartbroken for them. At the time, many encouraged Green to cancel the upcoming Little Lighthouse fundraiser, which was sold out.
“I still felt like this was my calling, and I felt like I not only owed it to Jack, but also to myself to see this through,” said Green. “Although I had lost Jack, I couldn’t imagine quitting on all the other children, all the other little boys and little girls.”
She used the event to reassure everyone that she was even more committed to championing the school’s opening. Since then, Green has raised more than $1 million for Little Lighthouse Oklahoma City—and fundraising continues as it purchases the necessary property, furniture and supplies to open in January 2026.
“Sometimes I don’t even feel like I have to sell the mission,” Green said. “I show pictures of the beautiful kids we get to serve, and sometimes videos, and I say, ‘This child was not able to walk just a couple months ago, and because they’ve been able to receive our education and curriculum in Tulsa, we know it’s working.’”
Green also founded Jack’s Friends Foundation to share the Down syndrome research and resources she gathered with other moms. As Green thinks about the children who will thrive through Jack’s Friends Foundation and Little Lighthouse Oklahoma City, she smiles. Jack Green made this possible. His legacy lives on.
