Proceeds

Precious Hearts is a Maine based support group for families caring for children with congenital heart defects. Our donation was used towards gift baskets to families whose children are undergoing surgery at Maine Medical Center.

Tammy Pralicz, a mother to 3 children with congenital heart defects, delivers the baskets to families. Tammy writes:

On May 6, 2005, my then 4 month old son went in to Maine Medical Center for what would be his first open heart surgery. After surgery, he went to PICU for recovery. Surgery day is definitely "dear in the headlights" day for us parents because even with all that we were told with what would happen during recovery, we are not prepared for the visual impact when our kids come back swollen, on a ventilator and with so many tubes and wires everywhere. I remember Pam came into my sons room holding this bag and she explained to me that she belonged to this Precious Hearts support group - she said that this group wanted to give me this bag that had information, resources, gift certificates to the cafeteria and a few other things that might come in handy during my time there and also that it had an information pamphlet on this Precious Hearts group and if I would like to join, I could do so by simply filling out my information and returning it to the hospital. So, I thanked Pam for the bag and she left. Turns out, the bag was very helpful. With the notebook and pen, I wrote daily - who my sons nurses were and what happened to him each day, with the crossword book I helped my then 3 year old find letters of the alphabet, she thought the hand sanitizer was just the greatest thing because she didn't need water to clean her hands, the Helpful Links pages were exactly that - helpful (there is so much information on the web!), the gas card and the cafeteria gift certificates were appreciated that's for sure. With all the the "stuff" that was in the bag, what meant the most to me and my family was just simply knowing that we are not alone in this, that there are other families around us in similar situations. What Pam brought to us was not just a gift bag, it was in invitation into an extended family - that's what this Precious Hearts group is to us.