Macey Davis, a 4-year-old from Winterville who survived a heart transplant, got to experience her first college football game Saturday after Dunkin' of Georgia handed her family free tickets to the Georgia-Florida matchup at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The gesture capped years of medical battles for a little girl who now spends her days swimming, playing soccer, cheering on the Bulldogs and loving on animals.
Macey was born with a heart condition that required her to undergo major surgery just days after birth, according to WSB-TV. She later received a life-saving heart transplant at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, the station reports. Separately, Fox 5 Atlanta has reported on a similar account under the spelling Macy, noting that the girl was born with a complex heart defect and underwent her first surgery at just 6 days old. The two outlets differ slightly on the spelling of her first name, but both describe the same harrowing medical journey and recovery.
A Weekend Dunkin' Wanted to Make Special
Dunkin' of Georgia learned about Macey's story from Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and decided to donate tickets for her and her family to attend the game, the station's report notes. The coffee and doughnut chain said it wanted to make the weekend extra special for a kid who had already been through so much. The outing offered a rare, joyful milestone: Macey's first college football game, with the stadium's roar around her.
Today, Macey is described as an active youngster who swims, plays soccer, cheers on the Bulldogs and loves animals, per the same account. That kind of normalcy is often the ultimate goal for families who have weathered pediatric heart disease, and it underscores just how far she has come since those first fragile days after birth.
Behind the Scenes at One of the Region's Busiest Heart Programs
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, where Macey received her transplant, describes its Heart Center as the only nationally ranked pediatric cardiology and heart surgery program in Georgia, according to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. The hospital system says its program has ranked in the top 10 nationally for total pediatric heart transplant volume since it began in 1988, and that its cardiac catheterization team performed 1,162 procedures in 2025 alone. Heart transplants fall into the hospital's STAT 4 category, while STAT 5 represents the highest level of surgical risk, the hospital notes, though Children's says its postoperative hospital stays for heart surgeries run shorter than the national average.
The hospital's broader transplant program has also hit a significant milestone, celebrating its 2,000th solid organ transplant in 2026, according to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. The health system calls its Children's Transplant Program the largest pediatric transplant center in the Southeast and says it is home to one of the largest pediatric heart transplant programs in the country, offering services for infants, children, teens and young adults facing complex liver, heart and kidney conditions.
Nationally, demand for donor hearts continues to outpace supply. A 2024 federal data report tracking organ transplants found that 4,146 heart transplants occurred in adults and 490 in pediatric recipients, marking increases since 2013, according to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. That same report notes the growth has not been enough to meet demand, since the number of patients awaiting transplants has consistently outstripped the number of procedures performed. For a family like Macey's, that context makes her recovery and the simple joy of a Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium all the more meaningful.
