Join the Ollie Hinkle Heart Foundation (OHHF) and Spring Into Love for Give STL Day!
Childhood-onset heart disease affects more than one million children in the US. It is a chronic, lifelong illness that families endure. Heart families face many hardships that are out of their control and there is no roadmap to help them navigate. At OHHF we ease their stress by creating programs that address their unmet needs - Community Outreach to meet their basic needs, mental healthcare access through Ollie's Branch, support for technology and research to improve outcomes, and collective community building through Take Heart. Our vision is that every heart child and family will be wrapped in love to eliminate the traumas endured by living with a chronic illness.
Who We Are
The Ollie Hinkle Heart Foundation is founded in honor of Ollie Hinkle, a brave heart warrior who lost his battle with a congenital heart defect (CHD) at age one. We do so by uniting heart families and clinicians through community, providing access without barriers, extending lifelong support to heart families, connecting the technical and human side of care, and through education, empowerment and advocacy. Since Ollie's death in 2013, we’ve raised more than $8.2 million! OHHF has extended support to nearly 8,000 heart families across 48 states, provided more than 6100 therapy sessions, and has established 66 partnerships with other hospitals and organizations across the country to ensure heart families receive the most resources possible.
CHDs are the most common birth defect in the U.S., affecting approximately one in one hundred, or 40,000 newborns each year. Sadly, 20 percent of children who make it through birth will not survive past their first birthday. People with CHDs face a life-long risk of health problems such as issues with growth and eating, developmental delays, difficulty with exercise, heart rhythm problems, heart failure, sudden cardiac arrest, or stroke. In the U.S., a child is born with a CHD every 15 minutes, yet research continues to be grossly under-funded.