Owen Saidler and Amayha Thomas are babies with broken hearts.

They are toddlers now but were born with congenital heart defects.

Both have had to fight to make it this far. Both face a future filled with uncertainty.

Yet, they’re here. And their parents call them miraculous.

“It’s been a long journey,” said Owen’s mother, Nicole Saidler, “but he’s doing so much better than anybody expected.”

Amayha’s mother, Kristen Thomas, said: “She’s very feisty. You’d never know anything is wrong with her.”

With 1 out of every 100 babies diagnosed, congenital heart defects are the most common birth defects in the United States. Yet, funding and research for other childhood afflictions, such as pediatric cancer, far outpace that for heart defects.

That’s just one reason why the recently founded advocacy organization Lasting Imprint is organizing the inaugural “Our Community Has Heart!” event Saturday at Spring Lake Park.

The event includes children’s activities, a blood drive, food vendors, an awareness walk and a fun run. The purpose is to heighten community awareness and raise money to support families affected by congenital heart defects.

“When you’re diagnosed, you feel like you’re the only people in the world going through this,” said Thomas, who became involved with Lasting Imprint after attending support groups and family outings. “To be around people who know what you’re going through is huge.”

Angie Heidelberger certainly knows.

Her daughter, Hazel, was born with a congenital heart defect and lived for just 13 days after she was born. To bring comfort to those in similar situations and to promote research on such defects, she founded Lasting Imprint.

During the upcoming event, participants will walk two laps around Spring Lake — one for the warriors (the survivors of heart defects) and one for the angels (those who perish from the condition). The children’s fun run is named David’s Dash, in honor of David Tesch, who died from a heart defect and would have celebrated his 1st birthday on the day of the event.

“This is our support network,” said Thomas, who is also the event coordinator. “This is a way to share what we’re going through.”

In Owen’s case, there was no indication something was wrong until his mom had an ultrasound at 20 weeks.

The attending nurse was giving her a tour of the fetus and Saidler remembers the nurse pointing out the head, the arms, the legs. But, when the nurse got to the heart, the room became uncomfortably quiet.

“She didn’t say anything,” Saidler said. “I thought it was awkward, but I didn’t think too much of it.”

The next day, she got a call from a doctor telling her that Owen’s left ventricle was enlarged and the right ventricle never developed. Doctors told her at the time that 10 percent of those with Owen’s condition don’t live.

But Owen proved stronger than anyone anticipated.

He was supposed to have an open-heart surgery shortly after his birth to put a band on his pulmonary artery and limit the stress on his heart. But doctors found Owen’s body had created a barrier all on its own, rendering the surgery unneeded.

Since then, Owen has had one scheduled surgery (he’ll have another after he gains a little bit more weight) and only a few relatively minor scares.

“He’s doing wonderful,” Saidler said. “He’s pretty miraculous.”

Amayha, on the other hand, is more of a mystery.

Her condition was never diagnosed in the womb but manifested the first time when she suddenly stopped breathing at 7 days old.

Yet, she was nearly a year old before doctors identified her condition: She was missing her right pulmonary artery — an extremely rare condition that has only been reported a handful of times in the United States.

Because of that rarity, her treatments are largely experimental, requiring frequent trips to the hospital and a lot of “day-by-day stuff,” as her mother phrases it. She takes a lot of medications and has endured a pair of heart surgeries already.

But Thomas said her daughter has proven she’s a fighter.

“She’s a very, very tough little girl,” she said.