Love with all your heart this Valentine's Day
February is not only the home of Valentine’s Day, but it’s also (fittingly) American Heart Month, a time to raise awareness about heart health and promote a healthy lifestyle aimed at preventing heart disease.
In honor of American Heart Month, we’d like to shine the spotlight on Hopeful Hearts, a fantastic foundation that teaches us why celebrating those we love is essential not just on Valentine’s Day, but every day.
To Adam and Terra Chez, the topic of congenital heart defects hits very, very close to home. Their lives are intrinsically shaped by the experience of raising three children affected by Congenital Heart Defects (CHD). The condition eventually robbed them of one of those children.
The Chez family turned the death of their daughter into a force for good- as a calling to take action and help others, so in April of 2008, the Chez’s founded Hopeful Hearts to honor the child they lost, as well as their two surviving children. It’s a labor of love crafted to provide help and support to the hundreds of thousands of kids affected by CHD, and the families who care for them.
Hopeful Hearts helps build both awareness and support for all families that have been affected by CHD in many ways.
Helping fund research for heart valve replacement, promoting early detection, and supporting families financially for the care involved from the corrective surgery through the long road to integral healing and recovery, are just a few.
Hopeful Hearts is a beacon of hope for families with children who are affected by CHD, helping to put the focus not on what could have been, but instead on what can be.
Through the foundation, they have also been able to get legislation passed that requires prenatal screening to include heart defects, as many times, a heart defect can be repaired in-utero.
Visit their website or follow them on Instagram @hopeful_hearts_foundation for more information about the foundation and how you can help. It’s a great place to educate yourself about CHDs and the impact they can have on the life of a family.