Students raise money for charity in memory of classmate’s father

Lindsay Cohen was only two years old when her father Steve died as a result of sudden cardiac death at the age of 35. Steve was playing basketball with friends on Dec. 7, 1995, when he experienced a massive heart attack. Because Lindsay lost her father so early in her life, she never really had the opportunity to get to know him.

Now, almost 10 years after her father’s death, Lindsay Cohen is a fifth-grader at Viewpoint School in Calabasas. Each year the fifth graders participate in a business project and make a product to sell to the other schoolchildren.

Lindsay’s small group made denim purses from old blue jeans and her class raised more than $3,500 to be donated to a charity selected by the students. At Lindsay’s suggestion, the class chose the Steven S. Cohen Heart Fund, now named The Heart Foundation, which was founded in 1996 in memory of Lindsay’s father.

The Heart Foundation was created by a group of Steve’s friends, family and community members to build awareness and support research that may ultimately save other families from suffering the loss of a loved one to sudden cardiac death, a “symptom” of cardiac artery disease.

The Heart Foundation is currently affiliated with Prediman K.

Shah, M.D., director of cardiology and the Atherosclerosis Research Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. It provides Dr.

Shah with support for his pioneering research on preventing and curing heart disease.

The funds raised by Lindsay Cohen and her class will be presented to The Heart Foundation Chairman Mark Litman at 8:30 a.m.

Fri., June 3 at an assembly in Rasmussen Family Pavilion at Viewpoint School, 23620 Mulholland Hwy., Calabasas.