For a group of kids with heart conditions, golf is a life saver.

Joseph Castillo, a 16-year-old junior at Mira Loma High School, can attest to that. He played soccer for a long time.

He was fast and quick; a solid midfielder, playing at the elite level. A few months ago, he was even invited to tour Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., which has a competitive soccer program.

But on Sept. 1, his soccer career came to a screeching halt. He was told he had a heart condition that made continuing to play extremely risky. He learned of the condition by accident.

He had a CT scan to see why he was having severe headaches. Something more serious popped up: he had a rare heart condition.

Even though he had no heart symptoms, he called it quits the next day.

His doctor referred him to a Sacramento nonprofit, Angels for Hearts, which has a number of programs to help pediatric heart patients, including one that teaches kids from 4 to 18 how to play golf, and equips them with a succession of golf clubs during their growing years. Angels for Hearts partners with Haggin Oaks Golf Complex, which provides lessons, clinics and events.

”I was never going to play golf or baseball,” Castillo said. “Those games were too slow, but here I am, grateful to find a passion for a new sport … I have a lot to learn. I want to get better at it.”

He added: “When one door closes a thousand others open.”

Have a heart, be an Angel

Kimberly Kaufman, founder of Angels for Hearts, lives by that maxim. A former commercial escrow officer, she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure at the age of 30 in 2004 and was not a candidate for a heart transplant.

When she got the bad news, she walked the floor of the cardiac intensive care unit at Stanford Hospital and decided her life wasn’t over; it was just beginning. She would become an angel herself, helping children with heart conditions.

“I had $250 to my name, and I went to Target with my mom, and we bought $249.97 worth of presents back to the kids” at the hospital.

The next year she raised $5,000 from family and friends. And in 2008, with her parents Patti and Curtis, she founded Angels for Hearts, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit that has to date helped more than 2,500 kids and their families with what she calls “wishes, wants and needs.”

The Book of Dreams wish

All kids she helps are referred to her from four Northern California pediatric hospitals: Sutter Children’s Center, UC Davis Children’s Hospital, Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in the Bay Area.

Her efforts expanded 10 years ago to setting up a golf program for heart-challenged kids. Kaufman is asking Book of Dreams readers this year for help in raising $10,000 for the organization’s I Heart Golf program.

“The whole program is free for heart kids and their siblings,” she said. “We get them a new set of clubs when they start and a shirt, a bag tag, a towel and brush to keep their clubs clean. As they grow, they get new clubs until they reach their adult set. They return the smaller sets as they grow, and Angels for Hearts swaps them out.”

With help from the community she said she can grow the program to serve more “heart” children throughout Northern California.

Dr. Teimour Nasirov, a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon affiliated with Sutter Health and Stanford Children’s Hospital, is a big believer in golf for heart patients.

“After you have recovered from open heart surgery, it is very healing to be out in the fresh air,” he said. “It is a sport that you can play with others and be a part of an organization. It is low intensity, but still provides important cardiovascular exercise and promotes overall health, and it is a sport with little chance for major injury.”

He has worked with Angels for Hearts for more than a decade.

“Kimberly has been truly amazing. She took a difficulty for her and her family and turned it into something positive for the community, along with her mom and dad,” he said.

Heart patients as young as 4 are eligible to be a part of the golf program. Jackson Reichert, 6, a first-grader at Margaret G.Scotten School in Grass Valley, says having a heart defect “sucks because I can’t run super long, and I love to run … but golf means a lot to me because it helps me play a sport I like to play.“

His father, Alex Reichert, said the program has been great for his son.

“He has had five surgeries, the first when he was two weeks old. For someone who has spent all that time at hospitals, coming out here and seeing kids his own age and doing stuff that is normal is really healing for him,” he said.

Kaufman, who is now 48, says she has no scientific explanation for why she has survived with a damaged heart these many years.

“My body isn’t ready to go,” she said. “Some say it is because of heart kids. Maybe. Every day is a bonus day that I want to make a little bit better through Angels for Hearts.”

Book of dreams

The request: Angels for Hearts is seeking $10,000 to support its program that provides golf clubs and training to children with heart conditions.

How to help: You can make a donation at sacbee.com/bookofdreams.