Tamara Day's 600-Pound Heart Arrives at Ronald McDonald House Kansas City
The sculpture features over 4,000 fingerprints from past residents and marks the permanent home for the Parade of Hearts project in Longfellow.
By Luka Tanaka ·
A large red heart now sits in the courtyard of Ronald McDonald’s Longfellow House in Kansas City. The installation, which arrived on October 28, serves as a permanent fixture for the facility that supports families during medical crises.
The sculpture was designed by HGTV personality Tamara Day. It stands five feet tall and weighs 600 pounds. Each side of the heart displays more than 2,000 fingerprints. These marks belong to children and families who have previously stayed at the house, creating a physical record of those the organization has served.
Day stated that she wanted the piece to exist alongside the people it honors. “It’s really special because I’ve seen how hard the people here at Ronald McDonald House work to make families’ lives better and change lives truly, so getting to be a really small part of that is really special,” Day said.
The piece is part of the Parade of Hearts initiative. This year, the project placed 150 heart sculptures across 50 different cities in the Kansas City metro area. Organizers launched the event in 2021, a period following the pandemic. Their goal was to unite the region through public art.
Since its inception, the Parade of Hearts has displayed hundreds of similar installations around the city. The Longfellow House location is the first to receive a permanent fixture from the series.
Source: KCTV5
