Las Vegas-area Camp Mend-A-Heart offers fun for kids with heart defects

Sam Mazza looks forward to one thing every year: summer camp.

Mazza, 15, has been going to the same camp, Camp Mend-A-Heart, since she was 9 because it’s the only camp that she and her family can trust to keep her safe.

Mazza has a contegential heart defect, which means she was born with an abnormally structured heart. Physical activities are difficult for her.

“I can’t run very far or very long, and sometimes it affects me when I am talking or I’m laughing,” Mazza said. “I get out of breath and it’s just not very fun.”

Congenital heart diseases are the most common type of birth defects in the United States. Nearly one in every 100 babies are born with them. Heart defects are also the leading cause of infant death.

Camp Mend-A-Heart has been around for 12 years and is the only summer camp in Nevada that provides children born with contegential heart defects with all the medical needs necessary for a safe and fun experience.

The camp is put on by the Children’s Heart Foundation, which provides educational, financial and emotional support for children and families affected by contegential heart defects across the state. This year, the foundation paid for 65 kids to attend the camp, 15 of whom were flown in from Northern Nevada. The kids escaped the dry desert heat at Torino Ranch, 30 minutes outside of Las Vegas, for four days.

Kelley McClellan, the foundation’s executive director, said that for many of the kids, Camp Mend-A-Heart is the only camp they can attend. The foundation tries to give them a traditional summer camp experience complete with archery, arts and crafts, swimming, rock wall climbing, dancing, and campfires and s’mores.

“Heart kids, especially the ones with complex conditions, live a pretty sheltered life if they have physical limitations, so an experience like this for them is just incredible,” McClellan said.

The camp also allows the kids to connect with other kids who have gone through similar experiences and face the same type of challenges.

“They come here, and they all are rocking a big scar on their chest, so everyone is like them,” McClellan said. “They may have to be on an oxygen tank, but it’s OK because other kids might need to be on oxygen at any given time during the day.”

Osker, a second-year camper, said it’s great not having to explain to anyone why he needs to takes breaks in the middle of long walks because everyone at Camp Mend-A-Heart has been in his shoes.

“They understand how it is, and that feels really good,” he said.

Nurses volunteer to come to the camp every year to medically supervise the kids. The nurses ensure that the children take their medications on time, have plenty of oxygen in their lungs and provide basic first-aid care.

Nurse Velta Soto and her son Andrew attended the camp for the first time this summer. Andrew was born with two heart conditions, mitral valve stenosis and ventricular septal defect, which means his heart has a hole in it and does not pump blood to his body properly.

Although he’s only 10, Andrew has already had three open heart surgeries, and his mom said he might have a fourth soon.

But at the camp, Andrew is just like any other kid. While his mom is busy helping care for the other kids, Andrew is out having fun and being carefree.

“Every night we do something fun,” Andrew said. “We’ll watch movies. Today we made a short film that is going to come out in theaters this fall. It’s good.”

On their first night at the ranch, the campers gathered around a bonfire. They wrote their dreams on pieces of paper shaped like their hands and burned them in the fire.

Andrew said his dream is to one day become a heart doctor so that he can help kids with congenital heart conditions like him.

Visit chfn.org.

To reach View intern reporter Rocio Hernandez, email rhernandez@reviewjournal.com or call 702-387-5233. Find her on Twitter: @rociohdz19.