UF Children’s Heart Foundation holds annual Gainesville congenital heart walk

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) - A student organization at UF is helping to raise money for children battling heart defects.

The Children’s Heart Foundation at UF held its annual Gainesville Congenital Heart Walk at Flavet Field.

The group host kids from Shands to show their support for their battle with heart conditions.

“We call them ‘our little heart warriors’,” said the foundation’s president, Nikita Morris, “and we have this little walk to make sure that they know that outside those four walls of the Shands hospital, there are a group of teenagers or young adults out here making sure that we’re championing for them, and their voices are heard, and so that they feel the love.”

The three kilometer walk raises money for kids suffering from congenital heart defects.

“A hospital is such a scary place--and I’m 20 and I would hate to be in the hospital--so I can’t even imagine them being like two or three years old,” said Morris. “Just being able to put on something so simple where they just came out, did a little trek, it just means so much because it’s impacting us

The group surpassed its goal for the walk by raising over five thousand dollars at the event.

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