Want to help?

I am a member of a small group called Mended Little Hearts. We meet once a month on Wednesday night and we are all families with heart babies. We have nine and ten year olds who have been through multiple surgeries already and then we have pregnant moms just beginning down this road. My reason for this is post is this, we are having a party! February is National Congenital Heart Defect Awareness month and we are celebrating by doing something big to get the word out about these amazing kids. We want to give the kids who have been through way too much a really fun night out and we also want to draw attention to ourselves and let people in the community see that there is a problem, but there is also something to be done.

Jon came home from school last night and was telling me about a video he had to watch in his low vision class that was supposed to teach them as future doctors how to be sensitive to families who have blind, or otherwise "imperfect" children. He was absolutely disgusted and said it did not even begin to capture what it is like to hear your child is sick. He is even writing a letter!! My point is this, I can not tell you enough how alone you feel when you find out your child has an illness that you did not see coming.

Mended Little Hearts, and these women in my group in particular, want to help new families who are just finding out. They want to help researchers have the funds to begin to do studies that could improve mortatlity rates that are still too high. They want to support older kids who have been living in bodies that just are not working - that keep them from playing football at recess, or running with their friends. This party is to get as many families in one room as possible so that we can all hear how we can help right now.

When you are in a situation that takes away all of your control, finding out that you can do SOMETHING, like arranging decorations for this party,is amazing. FINALLY, something to do. Some way to help!

Soooo, I am in charge of decorations for this party. A good friend of mine, Sheaghlah is helping me and together we are calling around, writing letters and asking for donations of things like, paper, flowers, poster board, markers, scissors, balloons, letters, stencils, tissue paper, anything we can use to create a heart themed party for 150!

Why do you care? You may be asking. Well, if you are wanting to help these families out, here is a great chance! We are going to write a letter and if you want to take it to your local florist, party city, or grocery store, that would be awesome! If they give you something, send it to me! I'll pay the shipping! If you want to donate money (because aside from decorations, we are having food, a dj, a clown, a magician, raffle prizes, putting together care packages for families in the hospital now, and goodie bags for the kids) let me know! I can tell you how to get it to the group! We are hoping to get everything done for the party through donations, but extra money will help us be able to do some great things if we are offered discounts!

Please email me or call me or respond here if you are interested!
Emily_Hebda@yahoo.com

Here is the website for the national Mended Little Heart organization:

mendedlittlehearts.org