Open Hands Overflowing Hearts logo
Open Hands Overflowing Hearts, a charity founded by Hoover resident Kayla Perry in 2014 and based in Vestavia Hills, recently received $5,000 thanks to community support.
The $5,000 was awarded as a part of StyleBlueprint’s charity giveaway. To win the money, charities first went through a nomination process and then received community votes of support. The charity with the most votes was declared the winner.
“Us being such a new organization, it really means a lot that we had so much support,” said Open Hands Overflowing Hearts (OHOH) director of development Hayden Patton.
OHOH is a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading awareness about pediatric cancer and raising money for pediatric cancer research. The organization, which was created in September 2014, has raised $600,000 so far this year. Its goal is to raise $1 million before the end of the year.
“We’re delighted to donate $5,000 to Open Hands Overflowing Hearts and hope these funds will allow them to continue their fight to end childhood cancer,” said Lauren Helmer, StyleBlueprint’s Birmingham editor. “Our hope is that through this contest Birmingham residents have learned more about the great work happening in our city.”
With OHOH, sometimes donations will have specific earmarks, Patton said, and will be directed to certain hospitals or certain types of research. This $5,000, however, is not earmarked and will go into a general fund for OHOH’s executive board to donate as they see fit.
The executive board communicates with hospitals and different research trials to work out agreements for funding and donations, Patton said.
“This year, we have given $130,000 to Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia and another $50,000 to a hospital in Cincinnati,” Patton said. Those donations were decided upon by the executive board.
Patton said the excitement of winning the charity giveaway came through their OHOH group text, where they anxiously awaited the giveaway results and shared screenshots of the announcement.
StyleBlueprint’s giveaway was also a good example of community, Patton said. She said it gave the chance to learn about other local charities, and OHOH received support from other nominated charities that did not make it to the final round.
“I think it’s really overall a great thing that StyleBlueprint does because it’s so nice to highlight so many organizations, and even being in the running we looked up the others and learned about them,” Patton said. “…There’s nothing but positivity that came from the contest.”
