Business with a Heart

In utero, Tania Mastroianni was diagnosed with a rare congenital heart condition. Before she’d taken her first breath, severed ties with her umbilical cord, or even been given a name, she was given a 2% chance of survival. Within the first 6 months of Tania’s life, she underwent three open heart surgeries, had heart failure, a stroke, was paralysed on her left side, and had been fitted with a permanent pacemaker. Her heart kept beating. Her doctors kept operating. Her family kept believing. 

When it was time for Tania, not yet one year old, to celebrate Christmas with her family, unsurprisingly, she was camped in hospital. Without a gift for her courageous daughter however, Tania’s mother Connie was suddenly overwhelmed. “The exhaustion, the feeling of despair, it all hit home because it was Christmas,” Connie recalls. “But that lifted instantly when the staff gifted Tania a Special Teddy Bear. She held that bear tight in her arms. It was the greatest Christmas gift I could have imagined.”

Tania would undergo a further seven operations. Throughout them all, every visit to hospital, that bear was always there. As Tania says, “Growing up, having to go in and out of hospital so often, this bear became my protector and symbol of hope. Even the doctors knew its name.”

Today, Tania Mastroianni is an inspiring young woman, the founder of Business with a Heart, determined to bring joy and happiness to those in our community living with an incurable disease. “Business with a Heart started during the initial 2020 Covid lockdowns,” Tania says. “It brought back memories of what it was like as a child being sick in hospital. It’s a traumatic experience, but as I reflected on my hospital stays as a child, I remembered the fun, love and hope that I felt, and how the gift of a Special Bear meant the world to me.”

Tania started doing Virtual Kids parties to help kids through lockdown, in which kids received their very own Make a Special Bear Friend pack. Every party, she donated a Special Bear to the HeartKids Charity to be given to a sick child undergoing heart surgery. Money from every party was also donated to Starlight Children’s Foundation.

In June 2020, Tania was asked to be NSW Ambassador for HeartKids Charity, sharing her story and connecting with many local families, businesses and young adults who have been affected by this incurable disease. 

“With many in the local community wanting to support, I started Business with a Heart, launching the Bear Sponsorship Initiative, enabling individuals and businesses the opportunity to give back, by sponsoring bears to bring joy and happiness to any child in need. My aim is that one day every sick child will be able to receive a bear when they get admitted into hospital, like a rite of passage, and ulitmately lessening the trauma they experience.”

Tania is also organising community events, such as a Teddy Bears Picnic in late January on the Northern Beaches, to raise funds to sponsor more bears for sick kids in hospital. There will also be other events during the year. “I know how important that bear was for me, and I would like to give back by providing a bear to every sick child that is admitted into hospitals around Australia.”