The Heart TouchTM Project to Honor Founding Board Members at May 13
"One Night, One Heart" Tribute Dinner
Santa Monica, CA - April, 2008
The Heart Touch™ Project extends its warm gratitude by honoring three founding Board members at the "One Night, One Heart" charity tribute dinner to be held on May 13 at the Sofitel Hotel Los Angeles. Friends, family and colleagues will celebrate the contributions made by Actress René Russo, Producer Zev Braun, and Eric S. Daar, M.D., with an intimate wine pairing dinner at SIMON LA.

Massage & Body Work Magazine
Handled with Care
Massage Therapists Connecting with Hospitalized Children
Feb/Mar, 2007
Massage therapist Tina Allen was making one of her routine hospital visits when the father of a hospitalized child approached her with a question. Allen is director of the Children's Program for The Heart Touch Project in Los Angeles, California, a nonprofit group providing compassionate touch to local homebound and hospitalized men, women, and children.

Kiwanis Club of La Canada - California
Special Presentation: The Heart Touch Project
Mountain Views News Magazine
Pasadena, CA - December 21, 2006
The Kiwanis Club of La Canada invites the public to join us for lunch in Descanso Gardens on December 27, and to hear Tina Allen present The Heart Touch Project.

For over a decade, The Heart Touch Project has been at the forefront of a movement to bring the therapeutic, curative and palliative benefits of professional bodywork to vulnerable populations through the art of compassionate massage therapy.  The projects programs provide support, care and compassion to men, women, infants and children battling terminal illness, isolation and hospitalization through the art of compassionate touch.

Starlight Discover a Star Foundation
Making a Difference in the Community!
LOS ANGELES, CA - November, 2006
Imagine a six year old girl in the Hospital's Rehab Unit . . . the last thing she wants is another blood test. Or a fragile infant in the Critical Care Unit . . . what they really want most is just to be held. And how do you comfort a three year old boy with terminal Cancer? The Heart Touch Project is provides service to children like these, along with countless others, through compassionate touch massage therapy. Heart Touch has surpassed its tenth anniversary of providing massage therapy free of charge to some of the most disadvantaged members of the Los Angeles community.

Santa Monica Woman Named Winner of the L’Oréal Paris Inaugural Women of Worth Program that Salutes Volunteerism Across America
SANTA MONICA, CA - October 17, 2006
L’Oréal Paris, the leader in total beauty care, proudly announced the culmination of the inaugural year of its Women of Worth program with the naming of the program's seven winners at the CNN Inspire Summit on Tuesday, October 10th in New York City. One recipient, SHAWNEE ISAAC SMITH comes from Santa Monica, California. Over 1,600 women from across the United States were nominated by their peers for community activism. This year’s winners are living examples of the beauty of giving back - real women affecting real change, while collectively improving the lives of thousands of people.

First 5 LA Monday Morning Report
Infant Massage Increases Healing, Health
LOS ANGELES, CA - September 19, 2006
When Jeremy, a premature baby, was hospitalized at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, he had difficulty sleeping, his tiny fists were clenched, and his skin was jaundiced. His stress level increased as he was poked and prodded with a series of painful medical procedures necessary to save his life.

Then, Lily, a trained massage therapist from the Heart Touch Project Children's Program, began massaging and soothing him. Moments later, his fists relaxed and he fell peacefully asleep. Scenarios like this are repeated daily at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, TrinityKids Care Hospice, and other LA-area locations where Heart Touch offers infant massage classes, according to Shawnee Isaac-Smith, founder and executive director of the project.

Massage Magazine
The Heart Touch Project Expands
July, 2006
A Los Angeles based nonprofit organization devoted to the delivery of compassionate and healing touch to home - or hospital-bound children and adults, now offers services to battered women and their children.  A team of Heart Touch Project volunteer massage therapists, who are also certified infant massage instructors, visit a shelter for domestically abused women and children. The volunteers provide the mothers with massage and instruction in infant/children's massage and healthy touch games. The children also participate in the training by learning to give gentle touch to their mothers and siblings.

Heart Touch's other programs continue to grow in Southern California and beyond. In November, the organization will embark on its first global outreach mission in Thailand to introduce infant massage into orphanages that care for infants and toddlers living with HIV/AIDS.

"We have already received commitments from three orphanages in Chiang Mai that are open to establish programs there," said Heart Touch Project Director Tina Allen.

Children's Hospital Compass - Children's Hopsital Los Angeles Magazine
CHLA-Heart Touch Massage Program Provides a Gentle, Healing Touch with kids
LOS ANGELES, CA - July 17, 2006
Since the year 2000, the Comfort, Pain and Palliative Care Program at CHLA has teamed with The Heart Touch Project, a non-profit organization based in Santa Monica. This partnership provides compassionate touch/massage therapy, free of charge, to hospitalized children and their families. This soothing touch has helped to alleviate some of the pain and anxiety associated with medical procedures and hospitalization.

Lennox School Readiness Center
Baby Massage
Lennox, CA - May, 2006
Tina Allen, Director of the Heart Touch Children's Program, is providing a series of classes for babies five months to one year old.  Parents are learning about the enormous benefits touch has on their baby.

Massage Today Magazine
Childrens Hospital Los Angeles Offers Free Massage
November, 2004
Over the last few years, an increasing number of hospitals nationwide have added complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies to their models of care. One of those hospitals, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, began offering massage therapy to its young patients approximately one year ago.

Many hospitals have been offering massage for a long time, but at the patient's expense. According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles was the first hospital in California to offer massage therapy to patients for free. Therapists in the program, which is called "Compassionate Touch," volunteer their services through the Heart Touch Project, a nonprofit organization in Santa Monica, Calif., originally formed to offer free massage to HIV patients.

L.A. Times - August 2, 2004
A gentle touch with kids
In collaboration with The Heart Touch™ Project, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles is offering free massage therapy to young patients to help reduce their anxiety and severe pain.

Massage Magazine - November-December 2004
Compassion in Action
The Heart Touch™ Project works with people who are ostracized because of who they are or what disease they have. Through Heart Touch™'s volunteers, homebound and hospitalized people have received more that 18,000 free massage sessions over the past eight years. Through the project's staff, massage has made inroads at several prestigious medical institutions. And through the patients, volunteers have anchored their appreciation for life deep within their souls, and have explored the depths of their capacity to give.

A&A Today - Fall 2003
Childrens Hospital (CHLA) Nurse, Ellen Horwitz, has a special touch when it comes to soothing babies. She might smooth out their eyebrows to "relax their thinking," or she might move one leg and the opposite arm in marching motion, followed by some soft pats on the back. Soon the babies grow quieter as Horwitz's gentle touch washes over them and they begin to fall into a deep sleep.

Los Angeles Independent - May 30, 2001
When his daughter Victoria was born with a spinal cord defect and hydrocephalus, Desmond LeBlanc was scared. A student of the Touch Therapy Institute and a massage therapist for the past three years, LeBlanc never dreamed that his profession would ever cross over to his personal life. Now the LeBlancs are sharing their knowledge with other parents, and in doing so have become involved with The Heart Touch™ Project.

For the past six months, the nonprofit education and service organization has been working with Childrens Hospital Los Angeles to set up training sessions for parents in its special brand of "compassionate and healing touch therapy" through a grant from the PacificCare Foundation.

L.A. Times - June 28, 1999
Once a week, Lynette Luis, a 28 year old professional massage therapist, takes time out from her practice to volunteer for Venice based The Heart Touch™ Project, a nonprofit service that provides free massage therapy for AIDS patients and children who are HIV positive.

AMFAR Newsletter - Winter 1997
AmFAR Board member Zev Braun also actively serves on the board of The Heart Touch™ Project, a non-profit organization based in Los Angeles and founded in response to the need to deliver touch therapy services to non-ambulatory persons with AIDS.

LA Weekly - October 10, 1996
It was the smile on her friend's pained face after she'd given his AIDS stricken body a good massage that called professional masseuse Shawnee Isaac Smith to action. Just to be touched, he told her, was invigorating, and most masseurs were unwilling to touch PWA's (persons with AIDS) for fear of contracting the virus.

Venice Magazine - October 1996
Venice resident and Certified Rolf Practitioner Shawnee Isaac Smith readily acknowledges that the number one asked question about rolfing is "Does it hurt?" "No," she counters, "it feels like you're releasing hurt that's been stored up and holding you back.