Support Baby Ariah's NICU Journey!

As East Ward families, collogues and friends may know, 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Keandra Chambers-Weeks recently went out on maternity leave for the birth of her first child. She and her husband, Maurice were thrilled to welcome a baby girl, Ariah Grace on November 7th 2024. Unfortunately, not everything has gone according to plan and little Ariah Grace has experienced some serious complications which required surgery within days of her birth and will result in a lengthy NICU stay at CHOP. Prior to her birth Keandra and Maurice were informed that baby Ariah had developed CDH or congenital diaphragmatic hernia. CDH is a rare condition that occurs when the diaphragm, the muscle that separates the chest from the abdomen, fails to close during prenatal development. This allows abdominal organs, the stomach, intestines, and/or liver, to move into the chest. When the abdominal organs are in the chest, they can crowd the heart and lungs and keep the lungs from growing normally.

Ariah Grace will have a long road ahead of her for recovery and healing that includes round-the-clock medical support and monitoring in the NICU at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Both Mr. and Mrs. Chambers have settled in for an extended stay at the Philadelphia Ronald McDonald house so they can be with Ariah Grace throughout the next few months while she continues to heal and gains her strength.

The family is requesting all the prayers, positive thought and healing energy that we as a community can pull together for their beautiful little girl!

The Season of giving is upon us and this year our East Ward/DASD family could use a very special blessing! We will be collecting donations for the Weeks Family to alleviate some of the unexpected financial constraints that the family will be facing in the months ahead with extensive medical expenses, travel to and from the hospital, unexpected extended loss of wages and loss of health insurance due to the prolonged leave of absence.

As many of you know Mrs. Chambers-Weeks is a 22-year veteran teacher at East Ward and she has committed her entire career to uplifting our families and our children and we would love to do the same for her in return. She loves her East Ward/DASD family tremendously. Please feel free to share the link with friends, current and former student families and the East Ward/DASD staff and community.

Thank you all in advance for keeping Ariah Grace, Keandra and Maurice in your hearts in the months ahead. With that said, as you can imagine this is an extremely difficult and emotional time for the family, who are generally private people. Please keep in mind, she is also in the process of healing from having a child. So, we ask that you please respect their privacy at this difficult time. They will do their best to provide updates whenever possible.

If you would like additional information on CDH it is suggested to view the information provided by the Chop website at https://www.chop.edu/conditions-diseases/congenital-diaphragmatic-hernia-cdh as google searching can prove to be quite overwhelming and does not always provide the most up to date or accurate information.