Art for a Heart Club
Tuesday July 01, 2008 05:13:25 PM
In February, 2008, two sophomore high school students, Zoya Pang and Sun Kim established a new student club at their high school. They wanted to bring together students who really wanted to work creatively and collaboratively as a team, with every member contributing. The result is the Art for a Heart club. In just a few weeks, they gathered together 35 members ranging from freshmen through seniors. The club members create paintings, pottery and other art which the club sells to the public. The proceeds are then donated to the charity that inspired the creation of the club - The International Children's Heart Foundation.
Their ambitious first goal is to fund three ICHF children's surgeries through the sales of their club's student art this year. Since February, the club has raised $1,500 to sponsor their first surgery for a child from Nicaragua. With only 2 1/2 months left in the school year, the club is working hard to raise the $3,000 for the second and third surgeries. Read the story of their first sponsorship-Reuben Marinez Calero, a 6-year-old living in Nicaragua who got a new lease on life in May, 2008.
The club's story began with Sun, who was taking an Advanced Anatomy class at the local city college, Santa Monica College, where she and her classmates dissected human cadavers and researched different kinds of surgeries. In her research, Sun found ICHF's website babyheart.org. Sun and Zoya were so inspired by Dr. Novick's child saving work and the way he worked -- with collaborative, volunteer medical teams that Art for a Heart was created almost immediately. Dr. Novick was so pleased with the Sun, Zoya and the club that he is personally visiting the club during the week of March 10th.
ICHF thanks Heather Hitt for her pictures.
