She survived a stroke, heart attacks and lupus—then came the bills How one survivor turned hardship into a national call for affordable health care  Aqualyn Kennedy knows how quickly life can change—and how long the consequences can last.  At just 18 years old, during her freshman year of college, she survived a stroke that temporarily took away her ability…Read More…

Speaking up and speaking out for tribal communities. How one Native woman’s survival ignited a movement to protect the hearts of her people. Shayai Lucero still remembers the first time her heart faltered. She was nine years old, growing up on the Pueblo of Laguna reservation in New Mexico, when her heartbeat suddenly surged into…Read More…

Heart Powered advocate helps Leon County move toward safer streets Rohan Shirur believes hope can move people – and policy At 22, Florida State University student Rohan Shirur juggles a lot: finishing a mathematics degree, preparing for medical school, volunteering as a firefighter and working in a doctor’s office. But one issue rises to the…Read More…

People get connected to advocacy in many ways. For some American Heart Association advocates, their advocacy starts when they are very young before they even realize that’s what it is. That was the case for Youth Heart Ambassador, Olivia Pacheco. Having 4 open heart surgeries before 17, Olivia sees that surviving means sharing her story…Read More…

Pictured above: Peg O’Connell and her late husband Jim Long, together, were formidable foes to the Big Tobacco industry in North Carolina.  Peg O’Connell has spent more than three decades as an American Heart Association grassroots advocate in the Carolinas. An attorney by training, O’Connell began her advocacy work in South Carolina, helping transform a…Read More…

Great grandma, grassroots advocate, offers retirement challenge to seniors Bea Cardenas-Duncan, 78, is a double retiree who believes seniors are a “forgotten community” with untapped influence to improve health and wellness. Affectionately known as “Miss Bea,” her challenge for fellow seniors wanting to get involved can be summed up in one sentence: Leave a legacy. …Read More…

One California Mom’s Advocacy Work Hits Close to Home  Dr. Jessica Sims has been part of numerous legislative successes in 13 years as a volunteer grassroots advocate for the American Heart Association. But to the emergency room physician and self-proclaimed ‘boy mom,’ her greatest accomplishment yet was seeing the sale of flavored tobacco and nicotine products…Read More…

Oklahoma teen speaks out for CPR preparedness: ‘You’re the first responder until help arrives’ On an icy January morning in rural Oklahoma, Magnus Miller, team captain in the spring semester of his senior year, stepped off a bus ready to compete in a high school basketball tournament. A winter storm threatened to derail the game,…Read More…

Wednesday morning, November 29, 2017, began like most workdays, with a treadmill workout before heading to work as the principal of Red Mountain Elementary School. At 7:45 a.m., we gathered for our monthly faculty meeting. I used the opportunity to share a timely message, prompted by recent conversations with several staff members who had privately…Read More…