Kevin Riordan: Hero's welcome for Marlton 3-year-old

Christopher Ennis has been through a lot for a 3-year-old, but he'd never experienced a hero's welcome until yesterday.

Arriving at Richard L. Rice Elementary School in Marlton, the truck-loving preschooler took everything in:

The kids in crimson T-shirts. The heart-shaped balloons. The posters ("Chris rocks!"). The flashing cameras.

And happy applause, wave after wave of it - all for him, a heart-transplant veteran before he was old enough to sit up.

"The students were told to do a soft clap so he doesn't get overwhelmed," said Geralyn D. Kennedy, principal at Rice, where Christopher was guest of honor at a heart-themed Fitness Day. The gym, the center of a daylong exercise class/celebration (complete with pizza), was decorated with more than 300 red paper hearts, each bearing the name of a student.

Christopher was only five weeks old when he received his new heart at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He was born there with a malfunctioning aortic valve and an enlarged left ventricle.

Three years later, he's a happy, energetic "boy's boy," said his mother, Sandy, a registered nurse who lives with her family in Howell Township, Monmouth County.

She and her husband, Craig, a Bergen County detective, brought Christopher's siblings, Ryan, soon to be 7, and Madelyn, 16 months, with them to Rice yesterday.

The school's tradition of service, and a staff member's personal connection to Christopher, inspired the Rice community to raise more than $1,200 for the Big Hearts to Little Hearts organization. The group, based in Spring Lake, N.J., supports cardiac programs at Children's Hospital, where 183 heart-only transplants have been performed since 1990.

The day felt like an extended-family reunion. Kristyn Minnick, an R.N. who cared for Christopher in his first months of life and became his godmother, was on hand. So was Minnick's mother, Mary Ellen Walls, a special-education teacher at Rice.

Now a pediatric cardiac-care nurse at a hospital in Manhattan, Minnick remembers feeling an "immediate connection" with Christopher.

"He's my most favorite person in the world," she said. "He's a fighter . . . and he's done incredibly well."

Christopher's immune system is weakened by antirejection medication, which makes him vulnerable to colds. He is being homeschooled to minimize contact with groups of children, but was exuberant in the gym and seemed fascinated by the older kids jumping rope.

"It's so nice to see all these healthy children wanting to help children with heart disease," Sandy said. "It's nice that they want to raise money and awareness. In today's world, not all kids think about other children."

Many students at the school contributed $1 each, and staff members raised money by selling those T-shirts at $10 each. Third Base Sports & Trophies in Cherry Hill printed 35 of the shirts for free and charged the school $4 each for the rest, Walls said.

Colleen McLaughlin, the school's art teacher, said the students "are really excited to know they're helping other children."

A pair of fifth graders seconded that motion.

"I'm very pleased to meet him," Marc Bannerman, 10, said solemnly. Added 11-year-old Emily Vaughan, "This makes me feel really overjoyed."

Watching the kids applaud Christopher, I felt the same way. With his utterly open expression, he's like any 3-year-old - simply glad to be alive.

"Christopher just has this sense of wonder," Walls said.

"He's been through a lot of pain," added her husband, John. "And when he sees things that are fun, he really takes it all in."

Sandy, Christopher's mother, put it best:

"Life is good."