HEART USA is a all-volunteer nonprofit organization... whose charter is to help people and families who cannot afford life-sustaining prescription medicines.
None of us have been paid for the tens of thousands of hours we have donated to this cause... and that allows us to perform this service FREE OF CHARGE to anyone who qualifies, no strings attached. Our volunteers are all disabled folks or senior citizens who have learned how to get their OWN medicines for free, and have banded together to help others who find themselves in the same (leaky) boat we have been in for awhile! :-)
We founded this organization on my dining room table. I was working with a friend of mine (Bryant Hileman) who spurred me into action. One day, Bryant came over and said, "lets form a nonprofit agency to help people...". (I had been "disabled for life" about 4 years prior to that, but my brain and hands still function well enough, I guess. The Good Lord has been kind enough to keep those things in good order for me... which allows me to continue helping others).
I was sitting there being depressed, eating Ho-Hos and watching Jerry Springer -- not doing anything with the managerial skills I had attained before becoming disabled... so Bryant's idea was intriguing to me.
I said to Bryant, "Hey, I have compiled a lot of information on getting my medicines for free, why don't we see if we can do that for people?"
Bryant said, "Sure". And our idea was born, right there on a napkin on the dining room table. The name came about a week later. Bryant and I tried and tried to come up with a name everyone would remember, but we couldn't come up with anything! So, we chose to use an acronym (a word made up of the first letters of other words). We settled on HEART. It stands for Healthcare Education and Registration Training. What a mouthful! Now you know why we use HEART instead of that horrible name!
The USA moniker came about a year later... we found that people were confusing us with several Heart agencies in our community: The Heart Group, the Heart Foundation, Heart Specialists, etc... We had begun helping several people who live all over the United States... Washington, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi (during Katrina), Florida, North Carolina and Michigan... so we added the USA on the HEART because we can help anyone...anywhere! :-)
Our original logo was a United States flag with a white heart emblasoned in the center. It is still our "official flag". Our new logo (pictured above) was designed in 2006 and continues in use today.
I'm feeling kind of punky right now, so I will finish this little story later today... :-)
Saturday, July 14, 2007
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