This year, correlating with the 2025 Eye Donation Month theme, “Everyday Heroes”, EBAA ran the Celebrating Everyday Heroes Challenge – giving individuals the opportunity to honor their personal heroes, and see them reimagined as superhero comic book characters, drawn by bilateral cornea recipient and professional comic book artist, Phil Hester.
Thank you for all the entries – all are deserving of recognition, but here are the winners!
Submitted Image
Anne Carleton
Donor Mother
VisionGift
Superhero Rendering
Anne began painting kindness rocks in her donor son Hayden’s honor—a movement that has now grown to more than 10,000 rocks shared with her community. Each rock is a small act of hope, multiplying Hayden’s legacy and sparking conversations about the power of donation.
Alexander John (AJ) Smullen
Donor Hero
Lions Eye Bank of the Northeast
AJ’s donations saved five lives through his participation in the Donate Life Program, including giving the gift of sight to another individual.
Danny Torres
Tissue Courier
Baton Rouge Regional Eye Bank
Without the timely and reliable delivery of precious tissues, the ability to supply corneas for life-transforming surgeries is severely compromised. Danny has demonstrated that couriers make or break a transplant surgery, and his dedication to and willingness to go above and beyond for our mission is commendable.
These comic book covers have been added to the promotional materials toolkit in the social media tools folder on EyeDonationMonth.org. Feel free to use, share, and post, as you see fit.
For more of Phil Hester’s work, see his Facebook page.
