Join the Mended Little Hearts Care Bag Drive

Imagine finding out that your child has a congenital heart defect. This happens to about 40,000 new families each year. In fact, congenital heart defects are the most common birth defects in the United States.

Children are often sent to another city where a hospital can perform open-heart surgery or other procedures. Parents may have nothing more than the clothes they are wearing and the contents of their wallet or purse with them as they sit by a hospital bedside hoping that their child survives.

Mended Little Hearts provides care bags to let families know that we care and that they are not alone. Families are connected to a caring support network and given educational materials to help them cope.

You can help by having your organization collect items for care bags (listed below). Here is how it works:

• Grab a big bin or a box and put it in a central location at your place of work. Put the flyer and the list of items on the bin.
• Send out these two attached flyers to people in your organization.
• Ask them to donate the items listed on below by placing them in the bin.
• If they want to donate money (which is ALWAYS helpful for some of our branded items), ask them to go to www.mendedlittlehearts.org/carebags to make the secure donation. Each care bag costs about $35 to Mended Little Hearts.
• If you would like to do a Care Bag Drive, find your local Mended Little Hearts group or CHD support group and ask the leader where you can take items that are collected. Also, make sure that the group can use all of the items. Some hospitals will not allow certain items in their care bags.

Items for Mended Little Hearts Care Bags

• Snacks (non-perishable)—granola bars, Lance’s crackers, Cup O’Soup, ready-made soup, oatmeal packets, canned fruit, etc. (Many parents sitting by a child’s bedside could use something to eat.)
  
  Travel-sized Toiletries
  • Shampoo
  • Toothpaste and toothbrush
  • Hand lotion
  • Shower/bath gel
  • Deodorant (for men and women)
  • Chapstick
• Chocolate
• Gum
• Mints
• Tissues
• Single-use laundry detergent
• Disposable cameras
• AA Batteries
• Playing cards
• Sudoko puzzles
• Crossword puzzle books
• Coloring books
• Crayons
• Magazines (for women and men)
• Stress balls to squeeze
• Stuffed bears
• Flip flops (size 9)
• Earplugs
• Heart pillows (that children can hold to reduce pain after surgery)
• Baby blankets

Mended Little Hearts is looking for sponsors for the bags themselves, water bottles, pens, and journals. If you are interested, please contact Jodi Lemacks at jodi.lemacks@mendedlittlehearts.org.

If you would like to donate money for care bags, please click here to make your secure donation. You can also send donations made out to "Mended Little Hearts" to:

Mended Little Hearts
2012 Care Bag Drive
8150 N. Central Expressway M2075
Dallas, TX 75206

Thank you for helping our families!

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Congenital Heart
Advocacy Day 2013
Join us March 18-19 in Washington D.C., to educate Congress about congenital heart disease. Register today.

CHD Awareness Week
February 7-14, 2013.
Read more.