From Fort Worth to the Front Lines

Brooke LoCoco, Fuel Relief Fund Chief Marketing Officer and Board Member.

Today, we sat down with Brooke LoCoco, Fuel Relief Fund’s Chief Marketing Officer and Board Member.
Fuel Relief Fund was founded on a simple but challenging idea: in a disaster, someone has to source fuel, navigate damaged infrastructure, and get it where it can help most. Today, it remains the world’s only charitable organization focused exclusively on providing fuel in natural disasters and complex emergencies.

That work is built in real time through local relationships and on-the-ground problem-solving—just as it was when founder Ted Honcharik first responded after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
For Brooke, the mission is both deeply personal and firsthand. From Haiti after the 2010 earthquake to Texas after Hurricane Harvey, she has seen what fuel can make possible in a disaster—and now brings her marketing and strategy experience back to the organization as CMO.

What do you remember about your experience in Haiti?

When the 2010 earthquake happened, I was 15. My dad was already on the ground in Haiti, and the plan was for me to travel there with another deployment team member and meet him. As news coverage continued, though, almost everything coming out of Haiti focused on the danger: aftershocks, instability, and the difficulty of getting help into the country. About a week before we were set to leave, the person traveling with me decided it was too dangerous to go.

My mom was incredibly nervous about sending me—bless her. But my dad felt strongly that it was something important for me to see and understand.
And it did.

At 15, Brooke traveled from Southern California to the Dominican Republic before joining her father on the drive into Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

At 15, I flew by myself from Southern California to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, where I met my dad. From there, we made the long, all-day drive into Haiti together. I was a student at Riverside Polytechnic High School in Riverside, California, and the distance between my everyday life and what I was about to see felt enormous.

I had grown up with so many things that felt ordinary—safe housing, clean water, electricity, school, and the comfort of knowing my family was nearby. In Haiti, I saw families who had lost what little they had and communities trying to survive amid unimaginable loss.

My dad has always said he is the luckiest man he knows. Haiti was when I finally understood what he meant. It is not just about feeling fortunate in your own day-to-day life; it is recognizing how extraordinarily fortunate we are in the larger context of the world, and how much we can take for granted without even realizing it.

Brooke visits children at an orphanage in Haiti, where Fuel Relief Fund provided fuel to help keep clean water running.

I remember visiting an orphanage where we provided fuel for its generator so the children could have clean, running water. The remaining staff were so grateful. At the same time, the children were overjoyed over a simple dollar-store bag of colorful, uninflated balloons I had brought for them to play with.

It was so simple and joyful, and yet so heartbreaking.

What do people misunderstand about fuel relief?

When people think about disaster relief, they naturally think about food, water, shelter, and medicine. All of those things are essential. But people often do not think about fuel.

Fuel is the infrastructure that keeps everything else moving. It powers generators, helps purify water, lets people charge their phones and contact loved ones, enables transportation and emergency operations, and the list goes on.

One moment from Haiti has stayed with me ever since. We provided fuel for generators that brought light to an entire tent city. They were similar to the generators I had seen used during ordinary club soccer practices back home—something I barely noticed then. In Haiti, that same kind of generator meant safety for an entire community. A woman came up to my father and I and said, “You don’t know how many rapes you’ve prevented tonight just by the safety of this light.” Hearing that at 15 years old was incredibly impactful. It made clear that fuel does not just power equipment. It helps restore safety, connection, and dignity.

What does serving as Fuel Relief Fund’s CMO and a Board Member mean to you?

I have seen this work both internationally and closer to home. I now live in Fort Worth, Texas, where my husband and I are both proud TCU graduates. After Hurricane Harvey, we drove down ourselves to help. Seeing Fuel Relief Fund serve communities in Texas made the mission feel both global and deeply personal: this work can support families halfway around the world and families in our own backyard.

Brooke and her father, Fuel Relief Fund founder Ted Honcharik, at a 2015 fundraiser supporting disaster fuel relief.

Fuel Relief Fund has always been powered by volunteers who give their time, skills, and resources because they believe in the mission. I have volunteered in different ways over the years—from helping with deployments and golf tournaments to supporting the organization creatively behind the scenes. Now, as a Board Member and CMO, I am grateful to bring the skills that have shaped me back to an organization that has shaped me since I was young.

My background in Film, Television and Digital Media and Theatre at TCU taught me how to create, communicate, tell stories, and connect with people. In my professional role at Koddi, a commerce media company—combined with my MBA from TCU’s Neeley School of Business—I have continued to grow in marketing, strategy, and digital media.

For me, serving as CMO means pairing storytelling with the strategy behind building awareness, reaching new audiences, forming meaningful partnerships, and turning attention into sustained support for disaster relief.

If you are looking for a way to make a difference, you can donate, volunteer your skills, or simply help spread the word.

Fuel saves lives.