Meet Owen! Our 2025 CMN Hospitals Champion for Orlando Health

Each year, 170 member Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals (CMN Hospitals) identify a “Champion” in each of their local communities to serve as the face for children treated at their local children’s hospital. These ambassadors spend their year advocating for the charitable needs of children’s hospitals across North America.

2025 Champion

This year, seven-year-old Owen will serve as our 2025 CMN Hospitals Champion for Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children. Along with his parents, Kim and Matt, and little brother, Kolby, Owen will spend the year serving as a local advocate for patients like him treated at our hospital.

Meet Owen

Owen was just 4 days old when he was airlifted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies where he was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. At less than two weeks old, Owen had open heart surgery right across the street from the NICU at the Heart Center at Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, where teams from both hospitals collaborated on his care. This turned out to be the first of many surgeries in his young life.

At 11 months old, during an additional surgery out of state, Owen experienced multiple strokes that left him paralyzed on the left side of his body and suffering from frequent epileptic seizures. That’s when Owen’s parents, Kim and Matt, chose Orlando Health Arnold Palmer for his neurological care.

Owen was experiencing 20-30 seizures per day. “He started to regress and lose words and the ability to do things like eat and feed himself because the seizures were having such an effect on him,” recalls Matt. When medication did not alleviate the seizures, his team knew that surgery was the best option. Thanks to the highly skilled team and state-of-the-art medical equipment at Orlando Health Arnold Palmer, Owen has since had two successful brain surgeries and is now seizure-free.

Grateful for how this care has changed Owen’s life, Kim and Matt call the Orlando Health Arnold Palmer team their second family. “At Orlando Health the doctors, the nurses, everyone–they treat us like we’re family,” Kim said. Owen continues to see almost 10 different specialties at Orlando Health Arnold Palmer, including neurology, cardiology, hematology and gastroenterology. He is growing stronger each day and enjoys his favorite things: ice cream cones, Spider-Man and playing with his little brother, Kolby.