Colin’s Kids Inc. will celebrate Heart Health Month with its ladies luncheon at 11 a.m. Friday, Feb.12, at the Trenton Country Club, 201 Sullivan Way, Ewing.
The cost is $60 per person. Net proceeds will directly support the missions of Colin’s Kids. One is to provide funding to advance medical research related to the diagnosis, treatment, cure and prevention of congenital heart defects. Another is to provide financial assistance families struggling to obtain the best care for their children.
Registration is required on the Colin’s Kids website, www.colinskids.org.
The luncheon is held on the Friday before Valentine’s Day. Feb. 14 is Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Day and February is Heart Health Month.
The luncheon’s keynote speaker will be Dr. Jonathan Flyer, postdoctoral clinical fellow in the department of pediatrics at Columbia University Medical Center. He is the 2015 Andrew King Research Award recipient. His research is investigating the safest and most effective treatment for pediatric arrhythmias after transplant.
Colin’s Kids awarded three research grants, totaling $20,000, in November to doctors at Columbia University Medical Center.
In five years, Colin’s Kids has awarded nine research grants, totaling more than $75,000, to doctors at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Colin’s Kids has also provided financial assistance to six families struggling to make ends meet while their child recovered from open heart surgery. Most recently, it assisted a family whose son received a heart transplant at 15 months old.
Robert Wood Johnson Hamilton is the sole corporate sponsor of the luncheon.
Hopewell Township resident Nancy King co-founded Colin’s Kids in 2008 with David King and Nancy Molloy.
Their children, Colin Molloy and Andrew King, were born with congenital heart defects and were treated in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian. While there, the families became each other’s support system and built a lasting friendship.
Andrew King, now 7 years old, survived a congenital heart defect that required him to have open heart surgery at just four days old. Colin, diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, passed away due to surgical complications at 47 days old.
