Prosper High School junior Abbie Cleveland knows all too well the pain that can accompany a broken heart.
That is because the teen’s 9-year-old cousin, Grace Cooper, was born with one.
When she was just a few days old, Grace was diagnosed with Holmes Heart, a congenital heart defect, and underwent her first open-heart surgery. In the years since, several other surgeries and procedures have followed.
“I remember growing up, my cousin couldn’t swim with us because it’d be too cold outside and her heart wouldn’t pump blood right,” recalled 16-year-old Cleveland. “I’m always going to feel guilty for her being sick and I’m not.”
Although there is not much the teen can do to medically assist her cousin, Cleveland is working to raise awareness about congenital heart defects.
She is a member of Prosper High’s Eagle Production Group, an audio-video class that produces films and other projects. The group is scheduled to host a student film festival beginning at 7 p.m. Friday at the school, located at 301 Eagle Drive.
Funds raised during the event, which will also feature a raffle and a bake sale, will benefit Amazing Little Hearts, a nonprofit support group that provides resources to families of children born with congenital heart defects.
The goal is to raise $2,500 for the organization, according to A/V teacher Kelly Maxey.
“The kids have done all the work on this,” she said, which included securing sponsors and promoting the event.
Cleveland became familiar with the organization, which is affiliated with Medical City Children’s Hospital in Dallas, through Grace who is set to attend tonight’s event.
Filmmaking, Cleveland said, is “definitely my passion, so anything I can be passionate about and raise money for is something I am onboard for.”
Luckily, so were Cleveland’s classmates when she suggested that Eagle Production Group host a film festival benefitting Amazing Little Hearts.
The teen’s personal connection to the organization “is pretty special,” Maxey said. The condition is “just something you don’t hear much about, so it’s good to let people know that there is this charity out there that’s helping kids and their families.”
To help introduce the audience to congenital heart defects, Cleveland and her classmates Sarah Stiles and Noah Maxey created a short film called “Happy Heart,” which will open the festival.
“It’s about a little girl, and she is sick and she can’t afford to have her heart fixed,” Cleveland explained of the plot.
“She writes letter to her guardian angel and her sister finds it and sends it to Amazing Little Hearts,” which pays for the girl’s surgery. “In the end, she thinks her guardian angel fixed her heart.”
It took Cleveland and her classmates about a week to create the film, which was shot on location at her family’s home.
About a dozen student-made short films will be screened at the festival, including a few that were submitted to compete in UIL’s Young Filmmakers Festival.
One of those is “Race Car,” which Cleveland wrote and produced. The film reached UIL’s semifinal round and may advance to the state competition being held next month in Austin.
“Race Car” follows a young girl as she grows from a tomboy into a teen and lands in an abusive relationship with a boyfriend.
Cleveland said the project took her months to complete, even with assistance from her classmates.
“We just have a lot of kids that are really serious about this program,” she said of her fellow filmmakers. “There’s a strong group - especially in my class - of people who know that they want to pursue [filmmaking] and they know they have to make their portfolio strong now so they can get into a visual-arts school or a film school.”
Count Cleveland among them. Since traveling with her classmates last year to New York City and attending the All-American High School Film Festival, she said she has her sights set on attending the city’s School of Visual Arts.
“I realized that this is what’s going to make me happy,” she said.
Affording young filmmakers opportunities to screen their works at events like Friday's festival is “important,” Cleveland said. “I know as a student filmmaker we don’t always get representation that we want and the acknowledgement that we need.”
The same can likely be said about the work done by organizations such as Amazing Little Hearts.
“It makes me happy that we’re bringing awareness to this,” she said, “since not a lot of people know about” congenital heart defects.
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Source: http://starlocalmedia.com/
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