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The 7090 District Gift of Life Board of Directors announces the beginning of the annual sale of chocolate hearts. This sale begins each year before Valentine’s Day and continues again for Mother’s Day in May. The hearts are solid chocolate – either dark chocolate, orange chocolate or milk chocolate.Gift of Life "GOL" began in 1975 when a Rotary club on Long Island brought a child from Uganda to the U.S. for life-saving open heart surgery. The idea spread to other Rotary clubs. District 7090 began its own Gift of Life program in 1993 under District Governor Dr. John Rydzik and was approved as an IRS 501 ©(3), New York State Exempt Organization and Revenue Canada as a Charitable Organization. From that one Rotarian in Long Island’s quest to help a child with a congenital heart defect, the program has become a worldwide movement embodying 77 GOL international programs throughout the world. Over 50,000 children from 78 countries have been treated. District 7090 became a charter member of GOL International in 2011. 98.4% of all donations directly support our programs and 77 Rotary districts with 324 Rotary clubs participate.
It takes a contribution of $5000 to help one child obtain the surgery required. In 2009, the emphasis of GOL, bringing one child at a time to either Buffalo or Toronto for surgery, moved to the next level – empowering and training healthcare professionals and developing cardiac surgery centers in areas where they did not exist. At present, two fully developed cardiac surgery centers exist – one in El Salvador, Uganda, and Romania. Centers currently under development for a sustainable pediatric cardiac program include Jamaica, and Bolivia. The following are countries of focus that are not yet ready for consideration as centers but where work is being done: the Dominican Republic, Kosova, the Philippines (Manilla and Cebu), Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan. Despite the Pandemic, our work has continued.
The need is so great that we must try to save these little lives.
Training for local medical teams is provided by volunteer pediatric cardiac surgeons, pediatric anesthesiologists, and pediatric intensive cardiac care nurses. Our District helps with the development of these centers when we can raise enough money to do so. It takes a lot of money to develop these centers. Raising money to help is always a problem. It takes a lot of hearts sold to get enough money to provide surgery for just one child. Fortunately, many clubs in our district have been generous in buying hearts and a few have made donations to our District 7090 GOL.
The chocolate hearts really bring our cause to the forefront by promoting the motto of “Buy a heart, save a heart.” Recently one club donated $5000 for a second time in support of surgery for one child. A few other clubs have also made significant donations. A policy of confidentiality does not permit us to release those names publicly. We are hoping that other clubs will also consider making donations as well as having individual members buy hearts. Board members are currently making visits to district clubs, and we hope that 2022 will be a successful year in sponsoring surgery for more than one child’s life and in support of the establishment of pediatric cardiac sustainable centers.
To find out more about the parent program, go to https://www.giftoflifeinternational.org/