Monday, February 14, 2005
MOTNREAL -- Montreal Impact head coach Nick DeSantis and team captain Mauro Biello officially launched Heart Week, Monday, at Royal Vale School in NDG.
Initiated last year by the Heart of Life Fund of the Montreal Children's Hospital Foundation and the English Montreal School Board (EMSB), this program seeks to raise awareness for children who suffer from heart disease.
To officially launch this special week, DeSantis and Biello, who are the official spokespersons of the campaign for the second consecutive year, participated in a soccer scrimmage with about a hundred students who were, for this occasion, dressed in red.
Royal Vale is one of many EMSB schools where students will be outfitted in red on a specific day during Heart Week, which ends Friday, February 18. On that day, each student with a healthy heart will be asked to bring a small donation - a loonie or toonie - to help a child with a «broken heart».
DeSantis and Biello will visit about 5000 students in various EMSB schools. This year, some schools on the South Shore also joined the program.
"It's important for us to give them our help and support so that they can continue their excellent work," said DeSantis. "They are devoted to a great cause. We certainly intend to do our share, over the next few weeks, by visiting schools, and trying to create an awareness for children suffering from heart problems."
Last year, Émile Jutras, the youngest child in North America to have received a mechanical heart as a bridge to a heart transplant, helped launch the first Heart Week, which raised $10,000.
One child in 100 is born with a heart defect. This rate is 10 times higher than any other childhood illness.
The Heart of Life Fund is an organization associated with the Montreal Children's Hospital Foundation. It was created in 1997 by parents of children born with heart defects who had undergone, at birth or at a very young age, a complex open-heart surgery at the Montreal Children's Hospital.
