We work closely with the Child Life Specialist to bring normalcy to Pediatric Heart Patients & Heart Families/Heart Angel families in the hospital & during recovery. is the product of a Sacramento family, the Kaufman’s. Curtis and Patricia Kaufman are the parents of Kimberly Kaufman. Kimberly is an otherwise healthy woman who was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in November 2004. Kimberly i
s not a transplant candidate for medical reasons. Kimberly remains a heart patient and has a less than normal life expectancy. The Kaufman family is mindful of the experience that they – and hundreds of other families – have endured and are enduring. They have learned that these families and patients, particularly the youngest patients, need help. For this reason, the Kaufman family formed “Angels for Hearts”. The Kaufman family learned that while a child is in the hospital there is no sense of normalcy. Children need to maintain a sense of normalcy to aid them in their recovery process. Angels for Hearts attempts to bring the normalcy those children are missing while they are in hospital heart units. Angels for Hearts provides gifts to patients, ages 0-18 years of age in the pediatric heart units at local hospitals during Christmas. Angels for Hearts works closely with the Child Life Specialists at the hospital to make sure that the ‘wishes, wants, and needs’ of the pediatric patients will be fulfilled. Angels for Hearts helps by supplying gifts to the hospital, specifically the pediatric heart unit, and, with the help of the Child Life Specialists, delivers the gifts to the pediatric heart patients. Angels for Hearts is dedicated to reminding heart kids that first and foremost they are kids before they heart kids and that their dreams are only limited by their imaginations. Angels for Hearts funding comes from personal contacts, family, friends, corporations, small businesses, organizations in the community, and emails. Since 2006, Angels for Hearts has raised just over $400,000 dollars and been able to provide gifts and donations to the pediatric heart patients at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Stanford, CA, Sutter Childrens center Sacramento in Sacramento, CA, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco, in San Francisco CA and UC Children’s Hospital, in Sacramento, CA. Angels for Hearts is incorporated as a charitable, public benefit corporation, for the purpose of helping pediatric heart patients regain some sense of normal while they are in the hospital. Angels for Hearts is a Non Profit 501(c)(3) organization.