{"id":19899,"date":"2018-02-22T10:59:45","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T15:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19899"},"modified":"2018-02-28T15:39:21","modified_gmt":"2018-02-28T20:39:21","slug":"heart-month-highlights-community-need-and-an-opportunity-to-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/heart-month-highlights-community-need-and-an-opportunity-to-help\/","title":{"rendered":"Heart Month highlights community need \u2013 and an opportunity to help"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHeart-y\u2019s\u201d
\nThat\u2019s what nine-year-old Aurora resident Owen Veloso thinks the venerable Canadian hamburger restaurant Harvey\u2019s should be called.
\nIt\u2019s not a comment on the food itself, but the spirit within its walls at the Yonge and Henderson restaurant as they make a final push to raise $6,000 for the Heart & Stroke Foundation.
\nOwen is a familiar face around the restaurant.
\nHaving been born with a congenital heart defect, he has been the \u201cface\u201d of the restaurant\u2019s annual campaign to give the local branch of the foundation a much-needed boost during February\u2019s \u201cHeart Month.\u201d
\nThis year is no exception as Owen, his parents Laura and Brian, and restaurant owner Joe Anselmo, spread the word that for $2 at the point of purchase, you can buy a paper heart with all money raised going directly back to the Foundation.
\n\u201cWe all have a heart,\u201d says Laura, whose son was not expected to survive the first five months of his life. \u201cThe money that is raised goes towards all sorts of research to help keep everybody\u2019s heart healthy. Owen was born with a heart defect, and heart defects are never really cured. There are medications and surgeries but they are never really cured.
\n\u201cWith the more severe heart defects, we\u2019re not talking about one operation, we\u2019re talking about multiple operations, life-long procedures, and it is specialized cardiology. Funding for these kinds of initiatives are even more important, but it just boils down to every one of us having a heart \u2013 and if you\u2019re lucky enough to be born with a healthy one, I think it is your obligation to do your part and keep it healthy.\u201d
\nThis is the message that is driven home by the Heart & Stroke Foundation as well.
\nAccording to Trudy Rudolph, Senior Area Manager for the Foundation\u2019s York Region Office, nine out of 10 people have at least one risk factor for heart disease or stroke, and some preventative measures come right down to the community level.
\n\u201cWe raise the funds by the community, but it is for the community, whether it comes back in the form of an AED (automated external defibrillator) in a local arena, whether it is teaching hundreds of thousands of Canadians to do CPR, whether it is treatment or a medication that is funded through research \u2013 all of that will impact all of our healthcare in this community,\u201d she says. \u201cTo have Joe and the Velosos come forward to represent the community, we need more of that. That is how we\u2019re successful in raising funds and it will come back to them and to their families as well.\u201d
\nThe fact that this fundraiser is very much for the community is a chord that resonates with Brian. By partnering with Harvey\u2019s\/Swiss Chalet, they are able to support local businesses and, in turn, support the community.
\n\u201cWe can reach anyone in the community that has been touched by it,\u201d says Brian. \u201cIt is one thing to talk about Owen, but how many other Owens are in the community? We know about some and their stories aren\u2019t being heard. This is just another opportunity to support an individual or a group of people who aren\u2019t being heard.\u201d
\nIn the year since The Auroran last spotlighted Owen during Heart Month, he has endured a number of health challenges. He spent a month in hospital on what his mother says was a non-heart-related matter, but, as she says, \u201cbecause his heart doesn\u2019t work properly, other parts of his body don\u2019t always work the way they should.\u201d
\nAs he gets older and more able to understand his heart defect and everything that that entails, Laura says these health bouts are becoming increasingly difficult for him.
\n\u201cThat is why it is so important to continue to talk about this because it is not a one-time thing, and it is really warming to know that people don\u2019t forget that and people still continue to do what they can because often it is easy enough just to give once and say, \u2018I\u2019ve done my part.\u2019 But this is life-long. If your heart is not at 100 per cent, you can\u2019t expect anything else to be.\u201d
\nLast year\u2019s Harvey\u2019s\/Swiss Chalet campaign for the local Heart & Stroke Foundation raised just over $5,600 for the foundation. This year, says Joe, has been a little bit more \u201csluggish\u201d than the last, but they are hoping to go over the $6,000 mark before Heart Month comes to an end on February 28.
\nTo help support the cause, head over to Harvey\u2019s\/Swiss Chalet at Yonge and Henderson, visit heartandstroke.ca\/give, or raise awareness on social media using the hashtag #moremoments. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHeart-y\u2019s\u201d
\nThat\u2019s what nine-year-old Aurora resident Owen Veloso thinks the venerable Canadian hamburger restaurant Harvey\u2019s should be called.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2018-02-22-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5aX","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 09:55:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}