Heartbeats & Highlights
Holidays with Heart Online Auction 2025
Our first Holidays with Heart auction is live and ready for you to explore. This is the event we built from love, grit and the brightest sparkle of our sweet baby girl Jewels. Every item has a story and every bid helps us support families with children in the...
Holidays with Heart Silent Auction
The holidays are a time of joy and togetherness, but for many families, that season is spent in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU), surrounded by monitors instead of family and friends. Some parents spend the holiday at the bedside while siblings wait at home,...
When Her Sparkle Became Starlight: Child Loss in the CICU
This isn’t a post I ever wanted to write. But we're going to be real, we have to hold both the joy and the heartbreak. And the truth is, sometimes the worst happens. As I researched and embraced my new role of heart mama (because I fully and ferociously chose our...
Survival Glam: When Glitter Becomes a Grind
There’s a myth I need to break open — maybe for you, but definitely for me. It’s the myth that all this sparkle equals strength. I know, from the founder of Sparkle Strong, this seems like it's getting a little at odds, but hear me out. It's the myth that a cute ICU...
Special Delivery: Our First Wish List Package
We got our very first Sparkle Strong wishlist delivery, and it was exactly what my tired mama heart needed. Inside the box was a stress relief coloring book, a teen journal and a pack of glitter pens. Who doesn't love a good glitter pen?! They’re going into aSparkle...
3/4 Cup of Sweetness: Jewels’s 9 Month CICU Birthday
In a place where alarms and uncertainty often fill the air, we’ve made it our mission to infuse every possible moment with purpose, love and a little bit of sparkle. And for Baby Jewels’s ¾ birthday, we served up just that — in the form of sugar, smiles and the...
Celebrating Our CICU Heroes: Nurse Appreciation Week from a Teacher’s Heart
The first week of May is a special one—Nurse Appreciation Week and Teacher Appreciation Week fall at the same time. And as a teacher currently out of the classroom, I was feeling that absence hard. But this year, with our sweet Baby Jewels in the CICU, I decided to...
A Burst of Brightness for CHD Families
When you’re navigating life in the CICU, it can feel like so much is out of your hands. I know that feeling deeply. In the early days with Baby Jewels, I found myself clinging to the few things I could control—and pouring my energy into making them count. That’s what...