Nearly a year after a Pelham Manor family sent home an Iraqi teen with a newly repaired heart and the good wishes of a community, another child arrived to begin a similar journey.

John Felicetti and his son, Evan, were at La Guardia Airport yesterday to welcome 4year-old Louis Louvensqi. The Haitian boy, who arrived with his mother, has a congenital heart defect that surgeons hope to repair next month.

"I'm so happy," said Elenette Louis, the boy's mother.

Just before Christmas 2005, Felicetti and his wife, Marie Dumas, made an almost impulsive decision to take in a youngster from Iraq who was coming for heart surgery through a Rotary Club program. The boy and his father formed just as quick a bond with the family, and they seemed to touch everyone they met in the surrounding community.

"It was such a remarkable experience for us," said Felicetti, a management consultant. "We said to ourselves of course we'll do it again."

Members of the Rotary Club of the Pelhams raised the money needed as a contribution for the surgery. This week, they scrambled to find a winter coat to give Louis' mother who would be facing one of the coldest days in recent memory. Louis, who wore one of Evan's old jackets, clutched his mother's hand and sucked his thumb.

Louis has a hole between the lower chambers of the heart, which can cause congestive heart failure and lung damage, said Dr. Samuel Weinstein, director of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.

Weinstein said the youngster would undergo tests at Montefiore to determine if lung damage would make a surgical repair impossible.

"We're optimistic, but we really can't say for sure until we actually see the child ourselves," said Weinstein, a Chappaqua resident.

Weinstein operated on Felicetti's first house guest, 14-year-old Ali Abid Ali, who was born with a hole in his heart.

Ali came to the United States through a program put together by the U.S. Army and Gift of Life International, a Rotary organization that arranges treatment for children with heart disease.

The program was coordinated by Staff Sgt. Marikay Satryano, a Tarrytown resident serving with the U.S. Army Reserve in a civil affairs unit in Jordan. The first five Iraqi children came to the United States last winter, followed by about a dozen more who have had surgery at hospitals in New York, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

Ali and his father stayed in Pelham Manor while the teen recuperated. Ali visited Pelham Memorial High School, attended Cub Scout meetings and saw some of the sights in New York. He and Evan, who is now 11, became fast friends playing video games together.

Felicetti arranged medical treatment for Ali's father, Hussein Hussein, whose foot was partially amputated after an injury sustained in the Iran-Iraq war. A podiatrist stepped forward to donate care as did a New Rochelle company that makes orthotics. The father received three new pairs of shoes.

A local dentist treated the father and son and a barber offered haircuts. Others in the community gave them gifts.

One of Felicetti's neighbors, who never got to meet Ali while he was in town, ended up hosting another Iraqi child. She and her family took in a 2-year-old who had surgery at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla.

Before Ali and his father left last February, Rotary Club members were talking about helping more children.

A wine-tasting fundraiser in October brought in the $6,000 needed for the surgery of another child. The doctors and hospital donate the bulk of the care.

Meanwhile, the bond formed between the Iraqi father and son and their hosts has remained strong.

Listening to the news of another bombing or mass casualty in Baghdad, where Hussein worked as a surveyor, has been particularly difficult.

"You think, 'Oh my God, was he there?'" Felicetti said.

An e-mail message, often with creative spellings, arrives from Iraq every every six weeks or so.

Felicetti said Ali was doing well in school and playing soccer. Before the surgery, he could only play goalie because he could not run.

The conditions in Baghdad eventually forced Hussein to quit his job and stay home, about 100 miles away. The loss of income means the family has been struggling. They had to sell the laptop computer that was given to them by the family they stayed with in Jordan before coming to the United States.

Felicetti said the phone connection to the Hussein family no longer worked and the e-mails were sent when they were able to get to an Internet cafe.

He said if the spelling in the messages was off, the sentiment was not.

"The letters are so sincere. That comes right across," he said. "No translation necessary."