Montgomery County Heart Ball to raise $1.2 million towards CPR Education

MONTGOMERY COUNTY (Jan. 7, 2016) - The glamour of Hollywood will make its way to Montgomery County for the 21st Annual American Heart Association’s (AHA) Montgomery County Heart Ball, chaired by Tracy and Richard Wilken. Themed “Hollywood: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” the $1.2 million fundraising ball and gala, which will take place February 20, 2016 at the Woodlands Waterway Marriott, hopes to raise a record-breaking amount of lifesaving funds for the AHA’s mission to combat heart disease.

“It’s no secret the Heart Ball is on the fast-track to becoming the premier nonprofit gala in The Woodlands,” said Tracy Wilken, “and it’s because of the community’s support and passion for fighting cardiovascular diseases and stroke that help each year get bigger and better.”

This year’s Heart Ball will have a major focus on CPR initiatives and achievements over the past 100 years, including lifesaving technologies the AHA has helped fund in our local hospital systems.

The event’s live and silent auctions will feature exciting experiences and items. Live music will be played throughout the evening by RadioLive!

KTRK ABC 13’s Investigative Reporter Ted Oberg will also be joining the luncheon for the second-year in a row as emcee. The annual black-tie event is one of the premier AHA events both locally and nationally. In the last 21 years, the Heart Ball has raised more than $4.5 million for the AHA’s critical mission. Last year, over 800 of Montgomery County’s finest philanthropists, business leaders, and socialites joined the Heart Ball to help the AHA raise crucial funds for the hearts of Montgomery County.

In 2015, Montgomery County’s philanthropic community raised more than $1 million in support of lifesaving research and educational programs to fight cardiovascular diseases and stroke, including Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), the first implantable artificial heart, Heart Stenting, Thrombolytic (clot dissolving drugs) to help reverse strokes, required automatic external defibrillators in schools and airplanes, and smoking bans in workplaces, restaurants, and other public places in many cities and some states across the country.

In Montgomery County, the bystander CPR rate is only 14 percent, while the national average is 42 percent. More than 326,000 people experience cardiac arrest outside of a hospital each year.

About 90 percent of those victims die, often because bystanders don’t know how to start CPR, or they’re afraid they will do something wrong. Bystander CPR, if performed immediately, can double or triple a victim’s chance of survival.

The AHA’s Friends & Family CPR Anytime Course teaches the lifesaving skills of adults Hands-Only CPR, Child CPR with breaths, adult and child AED use, infant CPR, and relief of choking in an adult, child or infant.

Tickets to the annual Montgomery County Heart Ball are $300 for individuals, and $1,000 for couples, with remaining tables starting at $3,000. Tickets are available at http://montgomerycountyheartball.ahaevents.org. For more information, please contact Jessaca Fowler at Jessaca.Fowler@heart.org. Find out more by visiting our Facebook page.

The American Heart Association is devoted to saving people from heart disease and stroke - America’s No.1 and No.5 killers. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies, and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat these diseases. The Dallas-based association is the nation’s oldest and largest voluntary organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke.