Nancy Rink Johnson, a volunteer Hat Maker and organizer of Little Hats, Big Hearts, started making little red hats and donating them to hospitals in Chicago to help raise awareness about congenital heart disease and heart issues. The Sonora resident donated these little red hats to each baby born in the month of February. This morning, the Little Hats, Big Hearts was launched for its first official year at San Angelo Community Medical Center in the William’s Family Center in partnership with the American Heart Association (AHA). The volunteers have been making little red hats for babies since May of 2015 and hope to continue this tradition throughout the years.
"Community Hospital is the first hospital in Texas to do this," said Johnson. "We have made enough hats from donations that have been sent to Lubbock, Amarillo, Midland, Odessa, Abilene, El Paso, and we have them in Dallas and in Austin; so that is a lot of hats. This has been through a word of mouth and one hat at a time. We’ve had them sent in the mail from Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Florida. And these are people we do not know, but we appreciate them just the same. A lot of people from Texas are getting in on it so it is not too late; they can still send their hats and we will be happy to ensure that the other hospitals get [them].”
To assist with this heart campaign, community leaders, health professionals, and families joined together to create an opportunity of awareness and to make a difference in the San Angelo Community by spreading the word about heart disease. About 15-20 hat volunteers who started the program were grouped in the little reception area along with the CEO of Community Medical Center, Jeremy Riney, Assistant CEO, and CFO Steve Ewing to welcome the launching of this program.
Overall, there were over 1,355 little red hats made for this program at Community Medical alone. The AHA and volunteers will distribute red hats to each baby that is born in the month of February this year, and hopefully, every year thereafter.
Jamie Muth, Director of the American Heart Association, stated “I already knew the success this had in Chicago and I could just tell the momentum that it was going to be huge here as well. But that has been an understatement. We had over 13,000 hats made and mailed to us from all across the country. That was a little bit more than we were expecting, but, because of that, I was able to provide them to our counterparts.”
February being Heart Month, this program has been deigned to help raise awareness in families about the issues of the heart and the options that are out there for help if needed.
Andie Posey, Charge Nurse at Community Medical Center, explained more about what they want families to know. “February is Heart Month, and as such, our volunteers have been really busy knitting these beautiful little red hats for all the babies who are born in February. We are proud to be the first hospital in Texas to participate in the Little Hats, Big Hearts program. The Purpose of the little red hats is to raise awareness of heart disease and congenital heart defect that impact many Texans. According to the American Heart Association, 1 in 8000 babies will be born with some type of congenital heart defect. In addition, the CDC says 26.6 million Americans will be diagnosed with some form of heart disease. Here at home, heart disease is the number one killer of Texans. It is important for all of us to be informed about the causes of congenital heart defects, and also, the risk of heart disease in adults in order for us to work together to reduce the incidences of both.
Johnson expressed, “It’s hard to explain what it means to us because it’s from our hearts, and it goes to our babies and their hearts. Each person is an individual; we each pray with our hats and we make sure that those babies are delivered into lovely homes and healthy. That is our main purpose, to make people aware of the heart disease that is out there. We’d like to keep this going and make it grow in Texas where every baby in Texas will have one, a red hat, by next year.”
Dr. Michael Blanc, M.D. Community Medical Center Cardiologist, stated how he came to learn of this program and his feelings towards it and its mission. “Nancy came to me with this idea and I put a stent in her about a year ago now. This lady here has a heart of gold. This is big because, as Andie said, congenital heart disease is a big thing. One in 100 births in the United States will have a person with congenital heart disease.
Why is an adult cardiologist worried about that? Well, it’s amazing the miracles that we do. Fifty years ago, only 1 in 5 children lived to adulthood with a congenital heart defect. Now 85 percent of kids with congenital heart disease live to the age of 20, into adulthood. We are seeing them as adult cardiologists more and more. The miracles that happen with the surgeries are impressive, that undergoes 1 in 4 children who have congenital heart disease will have a surgery. But the disease is not over. They always have problems when they grow into adulthood, so they will need continued care and continued research. It is still the leading cause of death in children. We all see the commercials about cancer in children, and that is an important thing to think about, but there are 60 times – not 6 – but 60 times more children with congenital heart disease than there are children with cancer, and yet we don’t hear about this problem enough. The AHA is doing phenomenal things in battling heart disease. A lot of the research has enabled that mortality to go from 21 percent surviving to 85 percent was funded by research from the AHA. We can’t help them enough to help deal with this problem in the future. We want these kids to survive into adulthood so we can help them live their full lives.”
Dr. Blanc introduced a little girl he calls “one of our little blessings”, Liliana. She had several holes in her heart that had been repaired and is fully expected to lead a full, active, long life. Dr. Blanc expressed, “We are so blessed to have a child like this to be with us today.”
Little Liliana got up bashfully and spoke about how she felt about the program. “I am glad that Nancy Johnson has been doing these hats for about a year," she said. "Since this is our first, we have been making over a thousand hats and we are glad that we have been making [them]. We are going to be doing this for a lifetime and helping more babies.”
So how long does it take to make just one of these little red hats? Mrs. Johnson said, “Just depends on what you are doing. A lot of us loom, which is fast, but there are some that can crochet a hat in 30 minutes; that’s how good they are. It just depends on how much time you have to spend on one. We just do them at night while we watch TV, or in the car while someone else is driving. The American Heart Association did provide little bags and labels for each hat, and they have a place for each little baby's name on them. They are great keep sakes. The hats have to be no buttons, bows or tussles--just plain, all red and very soft yarn.”
All the individuals involved in the launching of the first chapter in Texas of AHA’s “Little Hats, Big Hearts” have all had the same mission in mind, and Mrs. Johnson stated, “Our babies, I feel we need to start with them because congenial heart failure is one of the leading killers of our babies and it starts at conception. But we need to make the parents aware, so this is for the Moms [and] the Dads, to help these babies be healthy when they are born. And this is kind of what it is all about.”
For more information about this program, please contact Jamie Muth, director of the American Heart Association at 480-390-3585; Nancy Rink Johnson, program coordinator for West Texas at 325-226-3659; or Sheryl Pfluger, director of Marketing and Business Development at San Angelo Community Medical Center, 325-234-2424
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