Thanks from the Bottom of Our Hearts!

Thanks for all YOU Give

Hello! I'm Anne Simaytis, your new Regional Grassroots Advocacy Director for the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association. Thank you for your continued involvement in the You're the Cure Network! It's my job to make it easy for you to communicate with your legislators and keep you up to speed on our heart-healthy legislative priorities. Together we can make Illinois a healthier place to live!

This holiday season, I'd like to thank YOU on behalf of all of us who work here at the American Heart Association, for all you do as a You're the Cure advocate to support policies to build healthier lives free of cardiovascular disease and stroke. We can't spell CURE, without "U"!

This year we've fought together to keep all Illinois workers protected from secondhand smoke. We worked with partners throughout the state to improve emergency medical response and treatment of deadly heart attacks and strokes. We advocated for quality physical education in Illinois' schools and we supported innovative proposals enabling recipients to use their food stamp cards to purchase food at farmers markets and other non-traditional retailers of fresh produce. We worked with the Illinois Department of Public Health to enact a law which will allow them to participate in research studies by sharing data they collect with researchers, while at the same time protecting individuals' private health information. And we led an effort to clarify a previously enacted law requiring AEDs in athletic facilities.

We know that we could not have accomplished this without you! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your hard work to let policymakers know that you care about making Illinois a Heart-Healthy state.

I look forward to meeting and working with some of you during the upcoming 2011 legislative session. We'll have many opportunities for you to make healthy hearts a priority by taking action. Stay tuned for upcoming action alerts from the You're the Cure network!

Thank you for your continued support of the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association! You do make a difference. You're The Cure!