GMFF Grant for Children's Community Center Will Help Save Lives

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The need for this grant stemmed from a personal story of CCC staff scheduler, Dana Bilello.

 

On April 14th 2016, Dana’s twelve year old daughter Kylie suffered a sudden cardiac arrest in the CCC parking lot. Dana was among the first to respond and immediately started CPR. Kylie was rushed to Children’s Hospital and had open heart surgery. 

 

One year later after treatment and therapy, Kylie is back in school and doing fabulously, all thanks to a quick response that saved her life.

 

Since then, the center reviewed its plans to increase safety. The CCC wrote its grant application for buying a second automated external defibrillator (AED), a portable device that checks the heart’s rhythm and can send an electric shock to the heart to try to restore a normal rhythm. Quick access to an AED from anywhere in the center is just one criteria of the Project ADAM - Wisconsin Heart Safe School designation, a certification that the CCC has now attained with the help of a GMFF grant.

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