From City Hall to the Halls of Capitol Hill, YOU Made it an Incredible Year!

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic abbreviating legislative sessions across the country, amazing American Heart Association You’re the Cure advocates—like you--helped pass an incredible 123 policy priorities over the last year that will improve health in our communities.

Our dedicated volunteers sent nearly 80,000 emails and nearly 1,600 tweets to lawmakers. They also completed nearly 21,000 “offline” actions, including making more than 500 phone calls to legislative offices. In addition, hundreds of advocates joined us in our nation’s Capital in October for You’re the Cure on the Hill to meet with their members of Congress, and hundreds more participated in dozens of state and local lobby days across the country, meeting face-to-face or virtually with decision makers.

From City Hall to the halls of Capitol Hill, you were with us every step of the way. As you know, Congress passed legislation in December raising the age of sale for tobacco products to 21. However, in Kentucky, as in many other states, it was still necessary to codify Tobacco 21 policy into state law. In addition to many phone calls and dozens of emails to lawmakers, nearly 100 advocates joined us on February 13^th in Frankfort to meet with lawmakers to urge their support. Despite the pandemic slowing progress at the state Capitol, our dedicated advocates persevered, and Senate Bill 56 passed and was signed into law on March 26^th. 

As in Kentucky, Minnesota needed to update their state law. After 3 years of working on Tobacco 21 and passing it in 75 local communities, we made the final push in passing it statewide. Before Covid-19 really hit, we had a group of top advocates at the Capitol participate in over 40 meetings with key legislators, helping earn the support that made it possible for passage. In the final week, we made a call to advocates to send personal letters to lawmakers to support T21, and received over 100 personal stories and letters that further solidified our support and flipped a few more lawmakers. All of this due to the tremendous work of incredible advocates like you who used their voices to make their home a healthier place.

These are just a few of the many, many successes you made happen across the country. We can’t thank you enough for your dedication and we look forward to working with you on another successful year!