The American Heart Association’s Birmingham office is marking the tenth anniversary of Go Red For Women with a special campaign that encourages survivors and those impacted by cardiovascular diseases to speak out and share their stories.
The Red Couch campaign, an idea created by AHA volunteers Bethanne Jenkins and Whitney Massey, will officially launch on Feb. 1, which is National Wear Red Day. The couch will be making a promotional appearance at Regions Bank headquarters in downtown Birmingham on Jan. 14.
More than one dozen locations throughout the Birmingham metro area have been selected to host the campaign’s signature red couch throughout the month of February. Dates and times (and additional locations) will be confirmed within the weeks leading up to Feb. 1.
The goal is to encourage those impacted by cardiovascular diseases to share their stories and help raise awareness of the nation’s No. 1 health threat.
This red couch will be making more than a dozen trips around the Birmingham metro area as part of an American Heart Association campaign.
Staff and volunteers from the American Heart Association will be on-hand to film those who wish to share their stories on camera, and a special YouTube channel has been set up to host those stories. At each Red Couch appearance, information on how to prevent and treat cardiovascular diseases will be distributed. The public will be able to follow the couch’s travel schedule via its official Web site: FollowThatCouch.com.
The new campaign is an effort to highlight the tenth anniversary of Go Red For Women and National Wear Red Day. Over the past decade, the Go Red movement has saved more than 627,000 lives. Most women who have gotten involved with Go Red have seen a dramatic, positive impact with regard to their health. Nearly 90 percent of those involved have made at least one healthy lifestyle change, more than a third have lost weight and roughly a third have talked with their doctors about developing a heart-health plan.
In spite of the success of the Go Red movement, heart disease is still the No. 1 killer of women, yet only one in five American women is aware that it is their greatest health threat. Since 1984, more women than men have died each year from heart disease. And, while one in 31 American women dies from breast cancer, nearly one in three dies as a result of heart disease. The need for more awareness of these facts is ever-present, which creates the need for efforts like The Red Couch, and others throughout the country.
#FollowThatCouch 