Syosset Students to Announce Life-Saving '7 in 7' Campaign

Members of Syosset High School’s Interact Club on Tuesday will kick off their annual fundraiser for Gift of Life International with a new twist this year. Nearly 300 students wil introduce “7 in 7,” which aims to provide life-saving heart surgeries for seven children on seven continents in seven days in May 2015

Under the umbrella of the club’s “True Blue” campaign, the students hope to raise $35,000 between the kickoff and the May surgeries to pay for the seven recipients.

Gift of Life International is a nonprofit organization that provides heart surgeries to children with congenital birth defects, more commonly known as “hole in the heart.” Without this necessary surgery many children who suffer from it will not survive. The surgeries cost approximately $5,000 per patient and are performed at hospitals all over the world.

During the kickoff, the Interact Club will briefly participate in a live Skype conversation with Uganda’s Grace Agwaru, the first recipient of Gift of Life International’s life-saving surgeries back in 1975. She was five-years-old at the time of her surgery, which was performed at St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn.