Save a Child's Heart

eBay users save four children's lives, $1 at a time

Every 29 hours the doctors at Save a Child's Heart perform life-saving cardiac surgery on a child from a developing nation, regardless of nationality, religion, race, gender, or financial status. The heart surgery these children need is otherwise unobtainable due to a lack of local medical facilities or money to pay for treatment.

Meet the children

Save a Child's Heart has been raising funds through eBay Giving Works since 2007. They've been a featured nonprofit in Give At Checkout, and received about $40,000 in donations. "We had no idea that our mission would resonate with so many people in the eBay community!" says David Litwack, executive director of Save a Child's Heart Foundation U.S.

The thousands of eBay buyers who donated $1 at checkout to Save A Child's Heart are directly responsible for saving the lives of four children who would have died without this unexpected support:

• Niu, a 19-month-old girl from China, was diagnosed with complex congenital heart disease in infancy. Funds from eBay users brought Niu to Israel for successful heart surgery in May 2009. A very happy mother and child returned to China three months later.
  
  
• Denis, a 9-month-old boy from Romania, arrived with his mother on October 11, 2009 at the Save a Child's Heart facilities in Israel. His congenital heart defect was surgically repaired on October 18 and he returned home to Romania on November 26.
  
  
• Omar, a 12-year-old boy from Zanzibar, could never attend school regularly because of his heart condition. Omar's life-saving surgery was performed on November 22, 2009. Just five weeks later, he returned home to Zanzibar and by spring 2010 was healthy enough to attend school.
  
  
• Dina, an 18-month-old girl from Gaza, was diagnosed with congenital heart disease at the age of 1 week. She underwent complete surgical repair on July 7, 2009, and returned home on July 26.

Every dollar makes a difference

"eBay Giving Works gives us more visibility and exposure than we have ever had in our history. And a number of people who found us on eBay through Give At Checkout have now become regular donors," says David Litwack. But with more than 1,000 children on the waiting list, there's a lot of work to do, and every dollar makes a difference.

The 70-member SACH surgical, intensive care, and nursing staff substantially volunteer their services and donate their time at the organization's medical facilities in Israel and on medical missions in partner countries around the world. Their goal now is to raise funding to expand their Israel facility so they can perform 250 operations per year and reduce the size of a huge waiting list of over 1000 children. And with extra funding they will be able to train more doctors in the 40 countries SACH serves, enabling the sick children to stay closer to home while their lives are being saved - and to provide badly needed heart surgery and medical services to the people of these countries.

Save a Child's Heart

Want to help Save a Child's Heart Foundation perform more lifesaving surgeries for children?

Make them a Favorite Nonprofit—you can donate $1-$25 every time you checkout on eBay.

Buy or sell to support their work.

Donate Now using PayPal.

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