Heart and Stroke Foundation seeking more volunteers
The Heart and Stroke Foundation is hoping additional volunteers will come forward to assist with the upcoming city wide door-to-door canvass during Heart Month if February.
Jill McLeod, Swift Current Campaign Coordinator for the Heart and Stroke Foundation, successfully recruited three additional canvassers during a Heart Rally at the Swift Current Mall on Saturday. This increases their volunteer canvassers to 56, with a local goal of 65, but there is room for many more volunteers.
“I’d really like to push hard to get those last few before February,” McLeod said following the Heart Rally. “Actually there’s a lot of streets in Swift Current right now that we don’t have canvassers on them, so we will have volunteers putting brochures into mailboxes if we can’t get canvassers to their door.”
“It is important to have that face-to-face interaction and really get to talk to the people. The more canvassers we have on more streets the better.”
This is McLeod’s first year coordinating the local campaign, but she has a deeply personal reason for supporting the cause.
“This February will be 10 years since my dad died of a heart attack,” McLeod said. “I’ve been doing some work with the Heart and Stroke Foundation, mostly making donations, and I wanted to do more this year especially with it being the 10 year anniversary. This was something that I could do to help out and raise awareness.”
She pointed out that staggering statistic that one in three people will be affected by heart disease and stroke.
During a presentation at Swift Current City Council’s Jan. 20th meeting, where council proclaimed the week of Feb. 9 to 15 as Heart Week in Swift Current, she added an additional sobering statistic.
“Did you know nine in 10 people in our province have at least one major risk factor. Look around you, many of them are your friends, family, and respected peers. Every seven minutes one Canadian dies due to heart disease and stroke. It’s a leading cause of death in our country. But, with your help, we can create more survivors.”
Heart Month will feature a pair of other fundraisers in addition to the door-todoor canvass. There will be Yoga for Heart every Saturday in February at Yoga Connexion. This hour long Karma Yoga class from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. is available for a $5 fee, and there is no pre-registration to participate. On Feb. 15th the Heart and Stroke Foundation will host a fundraising garage sale at Walker Place. They will be accepting drop off donations that morning, and will quickly sort and price items for the sale. They are requesting no large items be dropped off.
There will also be a series of city businesses selling Heart and Stroke paper hearts for a $2 donation.