ABOUT #HAVEAHEART

It all started in 2019 over a stack of pancakes and a cup of diner coffee. I had just started competing in the Miss America Opportunity, and didn't know ANYTHING about it. The one things I did know was that I wanted to spread Jake's story across the state. With the permission of Julie West, the founder of the Play for Jake Foundation based out of La Porte, IN, #HaveaHeart was born.

It went from fundraising with homemade face masks on Etsy, collaborating with other nonprofits such as In a Heartbeat Foundation and HeartCharged to donate an AED to South Bend School Corporation, to being a nationally-recognized startup in Washington D.C. #HaveaHeart's mission is to educate, fundraise, and advocate for sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) awareness and AED (automatic external deliberator) placement across all schools in the state of Indiana.

Currently, we are advocating for SCA and AED awareness on social media, making multiple news appearances across the country, and will be speaking at Capital Hill while being sponsored by the American Heart Association.  While this is amazing, what really matters is the people who send us photos of the AEDs they have found, hearing that they learned Hands Only CPR, or that they saw our social media and shared it with a friend. 

That is the essence of #HaveaHeart - that we all have a heart, and together we can achieve great things.