Jameson’s Army: Helping families touched by congenital heart defects
For Danielle and Patrik McKain, the joy of impending parenthood was soon clouded by worry when doctors told them their son had a problem with his heart.
“I found out when I was 18 weeks pregnant in 2010 that Jameson was going to be born with a congenital heart defect (CHD) called hypoplastic left heart syndrome,” Danielle explains. She had no idea what that was, but it meant little Jameson would be born without the left side of his heart. That required open heart surgery when he was five days old followed by five more surgeries and eventually a heart transplant at age 11 months. It also meant the family basically lived at the hospital.
“I had to quit my job but sitting in that hospital for that long and seeing people… the biggest contributor to creating Jameson’s Army was Thanksgiving of 2010.”
Danielle describes sitting in the hospital cafeteria on that Thanksgiving Day watching families of patients not able to enjoy a holiday meal at home. “I was just like this isn’t right, this is Thanksgiving,” she remembers. “Life doesn’t stop when your kid is in the hospital, so my husband and I came up with the idea to do Thanksgiving here.”
That led the Southpointe-based couple to form Jameson’s Army, a nonprofit organization (501c3) that helps families at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC (CHP), The Children’s Home and other medical facilities and families touched by CHD in the Pittsburgh area. For their efforts, Jameson’s Army has been chosen as a recipient of the Driven by Hope award, sponsored by Washington Auto Mall.
A bit of fundraising created enough money to fund the first Jameson’s Army Thanksgiving dinner for 20 people. This year, that dinner hosted 200 families at CHP. The organization also provides quarterly meals to families and hospital staff members and created the Jameson’s Army room on CHP’s seventh floor providing coffee, snacks, a microwave and other comforts for families of patients including items like laundry detergent to use in the machines there and paying for families’ parking in the hospital lot. The organization relies on donations of money food, drinks, toys and other necessities to help families on the heart floor and the cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) at CHP.
Jameson is now 13 years old, and while he and his older brother, Colin, are now busy teenagers, the McKain family never forgets those days, weeks and months spent at the hospital. Danielle reflects on how each family they’ve helped has touched her heart.
“Every time we serve Thanksgiving, that’s my favorite,” she says. “There’s nothing more fulfilling than just giving someone some homemade stuffing.”
To continue their work, Jameson’s Army relies on donations and fundraisers including their annual Green Heart Gala which will be held at PNC Park this year on April 12th.
For more information on Jameson’s Army, visit www.jamesonsarmy.org.