The Metro Philly Chapter of It's My Heart began in honor of my strong son, Zachary.  When Zachary was in the hospital as a newborn, I was thinking of ways that I could help the other families in the hospital.  I talked to my husband about it, and we began researching starting a non-profit.  I came across the It's My Heart page.  After looking at every aspect of the page to find out all the particulars of the organization, I contacted National about setting up a chapter.  I was getting everything in order to start things moving when my son had to be re-hospitalized.  While he was in the hospital, the chapter had to take a backseat as his medical condition was on its own roller coaster.  Zachary earned his angel wings in December of 2008.  After his passing, It's My Heart became my time that I spend with Zachary.  Since then, we have made huge steps in growing our chapter. 
  The Metro Philly Chapter has 3 children's hospitals within 45 minutes, one of these hospitals being Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.  CHOP is a big hospital where a lot of procedures and research take place.  We currently are providing comfort bags to the hospital.  We are working towards providing other necessities for the families.  We also have taken a stand to donating a certain percentage of all our fundraisers to research. 
There are a lot of heart families between Philadelphia, Southern New Jersey and Delaware. Our goal is to reach out to as many as we can to assist them in any way possible.  We all know what it is like to be that parent, sitting in that hospital room praying that your child is going to live a normal life.  An example of ways that we have helped our heart families is when our chapter provided Christmas for one of our heart children who is awaiting a new heart and lungs.  Not only did Santa Clause bring Riley and his brother gifts, he brought them in style.  Two fire departments and two ambulances brought Santa and the gifts to the O'Brien family.  This evening was covered by two different news stations. 
Our chapter is currently planning our largest fundraiser of the year.  The 2nd Annual Zach's Tracks for the Heart CHD Awareness walk will be held on September 25, 2010 at the Philadelphia Zoo. Other events that we have held and are planning to hold this year are, Social for Hearts that was held on February 27, 2010 and we are planning a Vendor Fair for November of 2010. 
  As a chapter, we have put together a very successful first walk.  We have reached out to many heart families and our biggest accomplishment was seeing the smile on the O'Brien's faces when for just one night, they could truly not worry about awaiting organs and see the smiles on their children's faces.  I was not able to give my son his first Christmas since he was only a little over 9 months old when he became an angel so seeing Riley's face let our chapter know that we pulled together and accomplished something huge in the eyes of a child. 
  In the future, our chapter has many goals.  We are always looking to expand our volunteer base.  Our volunteers are a large part of how we are able to accomplish our plans.  Our walk is always high up on our goal list and we spread so much awareness planning and during the walk.  This is also where we raise the most money which means more money to put towards research.  Thirdly, our goals always aim to assist heart families in the area. 
The Metro Philly Chapter has grown over the last year and a half and we have high expectations that it will continue to grow.  We are aiming to be one of the most recognized non-profit organizations for Congenital Heart Defects in the Metro Philly area.