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Mariah Brielle Cook weighed 13.8 ounces when she was born. The doctors didn't think she'd survive 24 hours. She lived 255 days. And the things she set in motion are still expanding, three years after she left.
If you walked past the Chapel Hill Public Library a few weekends ago and heard the siren’s song of a table of cupcakes, as I did, you may have encountered some of those things in motion — a high school club called the NICU Project, raising money for a Mother's Day gift basket drive for families with babies in the neonatal intensive care units at UNC and Duke. The bake sale was modest. The story behind it is anything but.
Shari Manning Cook is the club's faculty advisor. She's also a Chapel Hill native, a counselor at East Chapel Hill High, and Mariah's mom.
Shari's pregnancy, at 35, was high-risk from the start. She'd been told for years she couldn't have children. When Mariah surprised her, she was monitored closely — but no one expected the cough. "You shouldn't be coughing," her doctor said. "Why are you coughing?" The cough turned out to be Shari drowning. Her heart was failing.
Specifically, she had peripartum cardiomyopathy — heart failure with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction. A normal heart pumps at 55 to 60. Shari's was at 13. From the moment the echocardiogram came back to the moment she was wheeled into the OR was less than an hour. They prepped her for open-heart surgery and an emergency C-section simultaneously, with a bypass machine standing by. They didn't think Shari would survive. They didn't think the baby would, either.
Mariah was delivered at 23 weeks and three days. The second she was disconnected from her mother, Shari's heart began to recover. She didn't need open-heart surgery that day. Mariah went to the NICU at Duke, where she would spend her entire life — 255 days of fighting, of NICU staff who became extended family, of professional photos taken by volunteer photographers from a nonprofit called Capturing Hopes. Birth announcements. A mermaid costume on a baby who weighed less than a pound. Pictures Shari still keeps everywhere in her home.
Shari, mother, and Mariah, daughter
"I always look at her as my savior," Shari says. "She was put here to save my life."
There's another part of that story that Shari is careful to name. The doctor who heard the cough and refused to let it go was a Black woman, like Shari. "I don't know if I would be here," she says, if the person standing over her at that moment had been someone less likely to recognize that something was wrong. Black maternal mortality is woven through the rest of her work now — through a research connection at NC Central, through the awareness arm of the club, through every conversation she has about why Mariah came when she did.
Mariah Brielle Cook, daughter, savior, and little one with a big purpose.
The NICU Project itself was founded by a student. Kaya, the club's president, came to Shari last year wanting to start something to support NICU families. Her own brother had been a NICU baby. Shari pointed up at the picture of Mariah above her desk and said, "Me too.” In the 2024–2025 school year, in a school of 1,400 students, the club grew to 58 members, with an executive team and a social media team. They've sent over 200 individually wrapped books to babies at UNC and Duke for the holidays. They've run candy grams and bake sales. And this past Mother's Day, they delivered 50 gift baskets to moms at UNC and Duke — each one valued at around $40 and built around personal care: lip gloss, nail files (you can't have long nails around NICU babies), hand sanitizer, bath beads, and snacks. The kind of self-care a mom living in the NICU rarely has time to give herself.
The drive had real Chapel Hill muscle behind it: Starbucks donated cups and instant coffee. Shrunken Head contributed T-shirts. Purple Bowl chipped in coupons and energy balls. Jersey Mike's at Cole Park Plaza assembled their own gift baskets. Top of the Hill, Carolina Brewery, and a number of other local businesses pitched in gift cards.
Nurses Week fell in the same stretch — and the club planned gifts for the NICU staff at both hospitals, including a specific request from Duke for help with their tradition of nurse-made art cards for moms (footprints, handprints, photos — the kind of thing Shari still has on her bookshelf at home).
Bigger plans are already in motion. The club is aiming for September 2027, Mariah's fifth birthday, to host a full community awareness day: vendors, education tables, possible health screenings (blood pressure, blood sugar, A1c), and the kind of fair that doubles as a celebration. Shari is also working privately toward making the NICU Project a 501(c)(3).
Since Mariah, Shari has lost over 100 pounds. That’s right, 100 pounds. She's pushing through her National Board certification this spring (her whole counseling department is going for it together). She's writing a book — eventually.
"I'm here for a reason," she says. "I could have easily not been here. But I'm still here."
Want To Get Involved?
The NICU Project's Amazon wishlist stays active year-round — NICU babies need books, supplies, and sanitizer in every season, not just May. Donations in support of the club can be sent to East Chapel Hill High School, c/o NICU Project, 500 Weaver Dairy Rd., Chapel Hill, NC 27514.
And yes, those cupcakes were excellent. Sugar.Ri Sweets is Shari's side business. To order, you can go to https://sugarrisweets.com/, email her at [email protected], or call (919) 360-4828. They really were good. I don’t play around about cupcakes.