The Story of HEART USA - February 2008

This is a video made for the Kentucky State Legislature -- explaining the nonprofit organization I founded in 2003 called HEART USA. In the 6 1/2 years since, we have helped almost 2,000 people find and register for over 10 million dollars in free prescription medcine. We are an all-volunteer group and we do not charge a dime for our services. While 95% of our assistance is in the Western Kentucky area, we have never turned down a request for assistance and have helped people as far west as Washington State, as far north as Michigan, as far east as North Carolina, and as far south as flood victims during Katrina in New Orleans.

In 2009, Governor Beshear (of the Commonwealth of Kentucky) announced that our little nonprofit would be the state-wide model for the new KY Prescription Assistance Program -- and we spent almost a year developing a training program and doing the actual training for 85 county representatives across the state. Since July of 2009, there has been 17 million dollars worth of free medicine distributed to Kentucky citizens in need or crisis situations. We are indeed proud to have been the first all-volunteer nonprofit in KY to help people register for their medicines, and been the model which helped spearhead the statewide effort! Because of the hard work by less than 10 volunteers in Paducah, to date over 27 million dollars (total) in medicines have been given to those in need. Jerry Lewis would be proud of THOSE numbers! :-)

Our motto is ... "doing the right things for the right reasons..." We truly strive to hold everything we do up to those two principles. As long as we hold fast to those ideals, the Good Lord above has made it a fairly easy road upon which to walk as the doors have opened for us whenever we needed them to.

We have to thank the KY State Legislature, the KY Department for Public Health (Cabinet for Health and Family Services), Konica-Minolta Business Solutions, Wilson Office Supply, and the Karnak Methodist Church for supporting us in our efforts. Without any one of the supporters listed above, this mission surely would have failed long ago.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• free
• prescription
• medicine
• Paducah
• Kentucky
• KY
• Commonwealth
• nonprofit
• organization
• assistance
• help
• program

[Mucklum]

This is great. The world has become a little bit better because of you guys, and that´s quite an achievement. Keep going, and all the best to you !!!