Advocate Spotlight: Yolanda Dickerson and Ilana Adlee

Medicaid saved her life and sparked a legacy of advocacy  

Above photo: In 2009, Yolanda and nine-year-old Ilana met North Carolina state Senator Harris Blake in his office to encourage him to pass legislation requiring smoke-free bars and restaurants in North Carolina. The law passed that year and was implemented in 2010.

Before Yolanda Dickerson ever stepped into a lawmaker’s office or shared her story from a podium, she was a fragile toddler. 

Yolanda’s mother, Linda Mangum, knew something wasn’t right. Her daughter wasn’t growing like her older brothers. She was pale, small and weak. Again and again, Ms. Linda raised concerns – and again and again, she was dismissed. Still, she kept pushing. She kept asking. She kept showing up.  

When doctors finally took a closer look, they discovered a congenital heart defect that had been quietly stealing Yolanda’s strength. It was a diagnosis that changed everything. But affording the surgery and care Yolanda needed wasn’t a given. Yolanda’s family lived on a modest budget, and they couldn’t afford most health insurance plans. But they had health coverage through Medicaid – and that made the care that followed possible. Yolanda received the surgery she needed. Coverage saved her life. 

For many families, a story like this becomes a private memory. For Yolanda, it became a calling.  

Growing up, she understood that healthcare access isn’t an abstract policy debate. It’s personal. It’s urgent. It can be the difference between being overlooked and being saved. She also understood what her mother’s persistence meant: mom knew something was going on with her daughter’s health, so she challenged answers that didn’t adequately address the medical problem.  

“My mom refused to accept ‘no’ because she instinctively knew my life was at stake,” Yolanda recalls. “That planted the seed for me to advocate for others’ health, too.” 

Turning survival into service
Over the next 25 years, Yolanda transformed survival into service. What began as volunteering at a Heart Walk event grew into decades of advocacy with the American Heart Association. Known for her warmth and honesty, she became an active grassroots advocate, showing up for state lobby days, national meetings in Washington, D.C., and countless conversations where lived experience mattered more than talking points.  

She helped advance policies supporting healthier schools, smoke-free spaces, CPR training and more lifesaving policies across North Carolina. Through every issue, one message remained at the center of her story: Access to healthcare coverage saves lives. She knows – because it saved hers. 

A voice passed from mother to daughter.
Yolanda’s story didn’t end with her.  It continued in the small footsteps beside her.

Her daughter, Ilana Adlee, grew up immersed in advocacy – tagging along to events, listening to policy conversations and learning early that change often starts with just showing up. While other children were just beginning to understand the world, Ilana was learning how systems shape health and how courage can reshape

 those systems. 

As a young advocate, Ilana wrote letters to all 170 North Carolina lawmakers urging them to support better access to healthcare coverage – and then hand-delivered them. It was a simple act, but not a small one. Those letters carried family history. They carried gratitude for the care that allowed her mother to live long enough to become her mother. They carried the quiet but unmistakable truth that when coverage exists, futures exist too. And lawmakers noticed. Doors opened. Conversations began. A child’s voice made room for change. 

Three generations of strong, vocal women
At the heart of this story are three generations: a grandmother who refused to be silent, a daughter who survived because of that refusal and a granddaughter now carrying that legacy forward. Their story is a reminder that progress is built in legislative chambers, and in hospital rooms, over kitchen-table conversations and through determination of people willing to speak up. 

For Yolanda and Ilana, advocacy has never been about politics. For them, being American Heart Association Heart Powered advocates is about people. It’s about making sure another mother gets answers, another baby gets surgery and another family can breathe through the hardest moment of their lives knowing healthcare coverage is there when it’s needed most.   

Their message is as clear today as it was decades ago: Medicaid coverage saves lives. And when people with lived experience speak up, they help save lives again – policy by policy, family by family, generation by generation.
 

Join the Movement
To learn more and join other parents who are turning experience into action, text HEART to 46839 or visit HeartPowered.org.