NATIONAL WEAR RED DAY 2008 EVENT IDEAS

1. Identify a venue (mall, community center, hotel, office).
2. Create a theme such as heart healthy dishes with something red in them or red napkins and place settings.
3. Contact speakers:
   • Local cardiologist, health care provider, or public health educator to talk about heart disease in women (use The Heart Truth for Women:  A Speaker's Kit)
   • Local woman heart disease survivor (contact www.womenheart.org)
4. Arrange for catering or coordinate a potluck luncheon.  Direct your caterer or potluck guests to select a recipe from NHLBI's Keep the Beat:  Heart Healthy Recipes cookbook.
5. Design and mail invitations.  Include the Red Dress symbol (see Image Library) and encourage all attendees to wear red to the luncheon.
6. Contact local businesses to donate door prizes (gift certificates, heart healthy products, fashion/beauty/health store "makeovers," etc.).
7. Invite volunteer nurses to provide free blood pressure, cholesterol, BMI, and/or glucose screenings to attendees.
8. Play The Heart Truth DVD with video segments featuring the Red Dress Collection Fashion Shows, PSAs, and much more while guests enter and leave the event.
9. Submit the details of your event to The Heart Truth's National Wear Red Day Activity Registry.

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1. Identify a venue (mall, community center, university, hotel, office).
2. Find a presenter (may be a public health educator or nurse, physician, etc.) to use The Heart Truth for Women:  A Speaker's Kit to present a one-hour presentation about heart disease in women.
3. Mail invitations or distribute flyers.
4. Place an ad on your organization's Web site, newsletter, and local paper to advertise the program.
5. Encourage attendees to wear Red.
6. Invite volunteer nurses or a local hospital to provide free blood pressure, cholesterol, BMI, and/or glucose screenings to attendees.
7. Play The Heart Truth DVD with video segments featuring the Red Dress Collection Fashion Shows, PSAs, and much more while guests enter and leave the event.
8. Submit the details of your event to The Heart Truth's National Wear Red Day Activity Registry.

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1. Use our email template to send an email to your office announcing National Wear Red Day.
2. Hang posters in break rooms and common areas about National Wear Red Day.
3. Organize a brown-bag lunch training session using The Heart Truth for Women:  A Speaker's Kit.
4. Take an office photo to show your participation on National Wear Red Day.
5. Submit the details of your event to The Heart Truth's National Wear Red Day Activity Registry.

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1. As part of your Red Dress luncheon, you can incorporate a fashion show, where instead of walking a formal "runway," models will walk amidst the audience seated at luncheon tables.
2. Contact visual managers at local department/clothing stores or contact a local trade school or community college's design students to invite them to participate in planning a fashion show to support women's heart health.
3. Design and mail invitations.  Include the Red Dress symbol (see Image Library) and encourage all attendees to wear red to fashion show.
4. Recruit five women to participate as fashion show models.  Women should be of all ages, shapes, and sizes to help women in the audience grasp that "Heart Disease Doesn't Care What You Wear—It's the #1 Killer of (all) Women."  Pair the models with the design students and work with a department store to provide "red" fashions for the show.
5. Recruit a local media celebrity or other dignitary to "emcee" the fashion show and provide them with written descriptions of each fashion, as well as a short narrative describing the "real woman" model and her personal experience with heart disease.
6. Consider having models hand out Red Dress Pins to audience members as they walk.
7. Play The Heart Truth DVD with video segments featuring the Red Dress Collection Fashion Shows, PSAs, and much more while guests enter and leave the event.
8. Submit the details of your event to The Heart Truth's National Wear Red Day Activity Registry.

Additional activity ideas

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