Kathleen Hiltner is the recipient of the Rotary District 7500 Gift of Life Foundation’s Gift of Life Michael Award.
In Kathleen Hiltner’s eyes, no parent should have to experience the anguish of losing a child to repairable congenital heart diseases. For that reason, the long-time member of the Rotary Club of Moorestown and past Rotary district governor has placed a special emphasis on the Rotary’s work with Gift of Life Foundation through the Rotary Club of Moorestown, and her passion has gotten her recognized.
Hiltner was selected by the Rotary District 7500 Gift of Life Foundation to receive its Gift of Life Michael Award. Each year, the award recognizes a rotarian who is actively involved in Gift of Life. Hiltner was recognized for spearheading the Moorestown Rotary’s initiative, which brought Gift of Life to the Philippines.
Gift of Life is a global nonprofit that provides free medical services as well as equipment to children with heart diseases in developing countries. Hiltner said she was first exposed to the organization in the early 90s when she came to serve as Rotary district governor. She said the role exposed her to different committees within Rotary, which was how she came to learn about the Rotary’s close relationship with the nonprofit.
“It created a passion for me in Gift of Life — to think that we can go into developing countries and build sustainable programs for the children,” Hiltner said.
Hiltner said board members from Rotary District 7500 will often accompany teams from Gift of Life on mission trips. Gift of Life volunteers will provide hospitals with equipment and local surgeons with training in pediatric cardiopulmonary surgery, so by the time they’ve left, local doctors have the skills and resources to perform these life-saving surgeries.
In the past, the Moorestown Rotary would donate $5,000 to bring one child from a developing country to the United States to have corrective surgery. More recently, however, the club hosts two events a year to fundraise for Gift of Life initiatives. Hiltner said to make the program “more real” to rotarians, they will bring in surgeons who have performed these life changing surgeries to share their stories.
Hiltner said as the largest club in their district, Moorestown Rotary decided they wanted to invest their funds in creating sustainable programs for Gift of Life. For that reason, Hiltner put together the Rotary District 7500’s first Global Grant Application and combined forces with the Toms River Morning Rotary Club to raise $64,000 in 2013.
“We take so much for granted here in our country,” Hiltner said.
That first grant set the wheels in motion. Through its annual fundraising efforts, the Moorestown Rotary invested in Hospital de Ninos Benjamin Bloom in El Salvador to create six new intensive care units. Hiltner said prior to that, children were placed in with the general hospital population, which made them susceptible to infections.
The Gift of Life Michael Award recognizes a rotarian based upon their contribution or service to Gift of Life. She said she’s honored to be recognized for playing a part in creating sustainable programs.
She said since initiating the program in the Philippines, the Rotary has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Gift of Life and impacted the lives of 15,000 children.
To learn more about Gift of Life, visit www.rotarydistrict7500giftoflife.org.
