The Lubbock Heart Ball Charity Event

AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES 24^th ANNUAL HEART BALL

The American Heart Association presents the 24^th Annual Lubbock Heart Ball.

The event will honor local children heart survivors with one hundred percent of the night’s donations going to children’s heart research. The 2012 survivor family and featured speakers are Steve, Stephanie and Audrey Massengale.  Their family unexpectedly learned that Audrey would be born with a congenital heart defect, and at just four weeks old, Audrey had open-heart surgery to repair her aortic heart valve.

The Heart Ball will feature headliner Walt Wilkins and the Mysteriqueros along with Lubbock’s own Abbie Rose.

The theme of the Heart Ball will be “A Little Bit of Country and a Whole Lot of Heart.” This event will be held February 18, 2012, at the Merket Alumni Center from 6:30 – 11:00 p.m. Tickets are $250 each or you may sponsor a table for $3,000. Patrons can visit www.heart.org/lubbocktxheartball or contact Ashley Harder at (806) 777-4799 to purchase tickets or learn more.

Live auction items this year include a B.B. King signed Gibson guitar, a Texas Rangers sportscaster experience, and a “Hearts on Fire” diamond necklace.

The goal of this annual event is to raise funds for the American Heart Association’s mission of funding local research and education programs to help prevent heart disease, which claims one life every 36 seconds. For each $1 raised on the South Plains, twice that amount comes straight back to the community. Over the last three years, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center alone has received more than $1.6 million in research grants from the American Heart Association. This is an average of $554,000 each YEAR!

Proceeds will be utilized to support the fight against the No. 1 and No. 4 causes of death in America and in our community, heart disease and stroke. For information on healthy recipes, visit the American Heart Association’s online nutrition center www.heart.org/nutrition. Because the focus of this year’s Heart Ball is on our local survivors, it is important for parent to learn how to make their home heart-healthy. Parents can visit www.heart.org/gettinghealthy for simple tips on creating family-friendly lifestyle habits.