Team Nina

Cristina Cinca, was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy when she was 8 years old. She received the life saving gift of a heart transplant on 9/24/14 when she was 13 years old. We celebrate her heart transplant anniversary every year with a walk on the beach, something she was unable to do before transplant.  All money raised goes to Who We Play For (www.whoweplayfor.org) who will use the money to provide simple, cost effective ECG (heart screenings) to help detect heart conditions like Nina's in kids around Florida to help prevent more young people from suffering from sudden cardiac arrest. Team Nina has raised and donated over $35,000 to Who We Play For over the past several years which has allowed over over 2,330 kids to have their hearts screened.

Prior to Nina's heart transplant and before Team Nina was developed, a group of friends close to the family felt an enormous responsibility to do something to make a difference in Nina's life and hopefully the lives of other children living with Children's Cardiomyopathy. We held shopping extravaganza's, worked to raise awareness and donated over $20,000 in three years to the Children's Cardiomyopathy Foundation. In September 2014, she received the call we had all been waiting for, her new heart was ready! We packed and headed to Gainesville within minutes. Her life after transplant has been filled with abundant blessings.  She attends school full time and is able to do so much more now than she ever could beforel.  Nina and our family will be forever grateful to her donor's family who made the selfless decision in what must have been their darkest hour to donate their loved ones organs which ultimately gave life to our precious Nina.  In gratitude, Nina is always trying to find a way to give back to others while living her life to the fullest.  

 Team Nina was a small homegrown effort to support our beloved Nina and our family. It has been amazing to watch it grow into an amazing service ministry throughout all these years. Nina decided for the past couple of years to donate the money raised at her transplant celebrations to Who We Play For, another Cocoa Beach homegrown organization founded by Rafe Maccarones friends in 2007. Rafe collapsed on the soccer field at Cocoa Beach High School from an undetected heart condition. The same heart disease Nina had prior to transplant. Nina was diagnosed three months prior to Rafe's passing. Two families, living in the same town suffering from the affects of heart disease in young children. We want to help make a difference in the awareness and early detection of heart disease! Will you help up make this happen?

<3, Team Nina