BROOKSVILLE, Fla. — We all have to-do lists.
“A lot of work,” said George Agovino, founder of Fostering Change Foster Closet.
His list seems never-ending.
“This right now is our busy season,” said Agovino.
Five years ago, he founded Fostering Change Foster Closet, a Tampa Bay non-profit that steadily supplies about 300 kids in foster care each year with anything they need.
“It’s going great, it’s going great,” said Agovino.
We last caught up with him at his old property in Land O’ Lakes. He had to move because the landlord wanted to sell.
“We turned a thing that we didn’t think was good at the time where we were like, alright, we gotta move, we turned it into a positive,” said Agovino.
Now he’s finally got a new space for the kids, something he’s checked off his to-do list.
“It’s a 10-acre piece of land out here in Brooksville. And we built its own Fostering Change,” said Agovino.
We went out to visit it, but he wasn’t able to show us the property himself.
“It’s been definitely a crazy year,” said Agovino.
In the course of a year, his life has changed.
“They found that I have asbestosis poisoning,” said Agovino.
An advanced stage of a chronic lung disease from inhaling asbestos fibers.
“I’m going to need a double lung transplant. So my lungs are not working anymore,” said Agovino.
A shock to Agovino and his family.
“The thing that shocked me the most is I never smoked, and I never drank, and I never did drugs,” said Agovino.
His doctors think he could’ve inhaled asbestos during his time working as a mechanic, when he was a police officer, or when he volunteered in New York City after 9/11.
“Just through life, I ended up breathing in something that I shouldn’t have breathed in,” said Agovino.
He told us this as we sat in his living room.
“I’m sick,” he said, with the reality sinking in. “It’s not easy. You know it’s really not easy… what keeps me going is the kids."
He’s always helping kids in need, even now when he’s depending on an oxygen machine.
“Without this cord, it drops to where I risk cardiac arrest and things like that when your body drops and it doesn’t have the oxygen it needs,” said Agovino.
On top of helping foster kids, he has seven kids of his own. He’s not ready to die.
"I’ve got way too much to still do and way too many children to take care of and watch them graduate and get married," said Agovino.
“I gotta make sure that I’m okay. I’m not going to stop fighting,” he added.
His fight starts with another list, this one life or death.
“The Mayo Clinic had given me certain things that I need to do in order for me to have lungs,” said Agovino.
The Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville is where he’d get a transplant.
In order to get new lungs, one of the things he has to do is raise thousands of dollars for surgery and aftercare through GoFundMe.
“Saying thank you is never enough because everybody who donates is giving me life. Without the donations, I don’t get on the list. Without the list, I die,” said Agovino.
Now, a race against the clock to get on a waiting list to save his life.
“To know that somebody has to pass in order for me to live is difficult. It really is difficult. It’s difficult to grasp that I need a set of lungs, and they don’t just make them,” said Agovino.
The man who’s dedicated his life to helping others is now asking them to save him.
“How do you thank somebody for giving you life?” He asked.
One donation at a time.
“And it means a lot. It truly means a lot that I know that the community is behind me,” said Agovino.
George Agovino isn’t done yet.
“I’m going to make it, I’m going to make it,” he said.
