Visa Teams Up With Heart Kids New Zealand

news release

Visa Teams Up With Heart Kids New Zealand

AUCKLAND, August 22, 2014 – Visa is delighted to announce it has signed a new charitable agreement to support Heart Kids New Zealand.

Heart Kids New Zealand is the only organisation in the country dedicated to providing lifelong care and support for children, young people and families impacted by childhood heart disease (CHD).

New Zealand Country Manager for Visa, Caroline Ada, says Visa is thrilled to be working with Heart Kids.

“We were looking for a collaboration that offered the opportunity for Visa staff to volunteer their time and work alongside the charity. We also wanted to ensure our investment made a sizeable impact and that our business could benefit the organisation in some way. Last year this was the case when Heart Kids became the first charity in New Zealand to use Visa payWave terminals for its street appeal, which increased the amount they collected.”

Heart Kids New Zealand and Visa already have a close working relationship. New Zealand Marketing Manager for Visa Sarah Delmonte knows first-hand about the services Heart Kids offer. Her daughter Georgia was diagnosed after she was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome two and a half years ago.

Today, Georgia is the face of Heart Kids New Zealand awareness month currently running but at the time, Sarah says the Heart Kids NZ support was essential.

“Our world shrank immediately after Georgia was diagnosed with a heart defect. All that mattered was our child’s recovery. Two days after she was born we began a crash course in congenital heart conditions, Norwood procedures, Glenn operations, systolic flows, oxygen saturation and the miraculous workings of Ward 23B. Heart Kids New Zealand was there throughout our journey to help make sense of it all,” says Sarah.

Rob Lutter, CEO of Heart Kids New Zealand, says Heart Kids exists purely to support families like the Delmontes.

“The world that heart families suddenly find themselves in is confusing and scary, often referred to as a ‘roller coaster ride’. Heart Kids helps by providing support at the times when our families need it the most. We are pleased to be working with the team at Visa as we work together to develop and grow this exciting new collaboration.”

Visa staff will be able to volunteer to work with Heart Kids New Zealand in a variety of ways such as fundraising and through supporter, member and awareness activities and events. At an operational level, Visa will continue to help Heart Kids with its fundraising programme through Visa PayWave equipped portable terminals to speed up the donation process and attract more donations during its annual street appeal.

At Visa, we recognise that giving back to our global and local communities is an important part of being a responsible corporate citizen. To that end, we support global humanitarian aid and disaster preparedness projects as well as community-building local organisations through corporate giving and employee engagement.

Visit www.heartnz.org.nz for more information about Heart Kids New Zealand.

© Scoop Media