Welcome to Opening Hearts

We are a registered charity that focuses on helping families with children with special needs. Although we do recognize that there are specific issues within a family that are tied to the child’s diagnosis, we focus on issues that are common to many families of children with special needs. Some of these issues can include:

• Stress of hospitalizations
• Caregiver burnout
• Challenges with/for the siblings of the child with special needs

Opening Hearts is an organization built by caring people who understand the challenges families face. Some of our volunteers are parents of children with special needs. Some are community folks who work with children with challenges. Yet others are compassionate, caring people who are driven by a desire to give to their community.

Our primary focus is to create awareness of the challenges of raising a child with special needs and create programs that support all members of the family. Please browse our site to see how we are trying to make a difference, one heart at a time.

We are very grateful to the Hamilton Community Foundation (HCF) for giving us a grant to support our Sibshop and Sibteen programs. With this help, we were able to launch our Sibteen program.

Last year HCF gave 587 grants to 227 charities, totaling $7.2 million. They also provided loans of $5.1 million to charities and non-profits across Hamilton.

Visit their website to see the great work that HCF is doing.

Alcor Elevator is a family-run elevator company that has a long history of servicing and installing elevators in the Hamilton and surrounding areas.

Their generous donation to Opening Hearts helped us to keep running our programs at a high level.

Visit their website to see the Alcor difference.