Thank you for taking the time and effort to help The Gym Bag Project meet our new goals for this year.

This will be the 4th holiday season of the gym bag project, and this year we have chosen to extend our efforts to benefit The Heart institute at UPMC Children’s hospital of Pittsburgh.

To briefly introduce ourselves- we are Ali and Anthony Didiano, the folks behind the gym bag project. For the past 3 years we have raised funds and put together goods from wishlists, gift cards, and goody bags for the Women’s center and Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh.

This year we have decided to shift our focus to something more personal to us. In April of 2024, we had our son Rome. Rome was born with critical pulmonary stenosis and spent the first 12 days of his life in the cardiac ICU, and acute cardiac care unit at Children’s hospital of Pittsburgh after undergoing immediate surgery to open his pulmonary valve. It was the most wonderful, painful, beautiful, and terrifying 2 weeks of our lives. The care and compassion of those working at Children’s astounded us. We knew we were in more than capable hands in a time where everything and every moment felt endless, and unsure. We even had a nurse who had been a patient at this very hospital, with the same heart defect as our son. We continue to be blown away by those nurses and doctors at the heart institute as Rome continues his care there.

We are one of the lucky families. Rome is now a happy, healthy 18 month old belly laughing and dancing his head off. Sometimes he seems so normal -I forget where he started.

But I think about the families in the cardiac ICU a lot. sleeping in the lobby and showering in the family bathroom while their babies fought for their lives.

So, this year we have decided to make care bags for those families. We know first hand we can’t make their days better, those days will be the worst days no matter what we do for them- but we can make them a little easier with a backup toothbrush, some snacks, a sleep mask, and something kind. We also will be putting together thank you care bags for the ICU staff.

Thank you so much for your donation to the gym bag this year- we’re so grateful to have a community like you around us.