Dialexa Goes Red for American Heart Month

By Chris Garrick, Senior Partner — Head of Strategy at Dialexa

February is American Heart Month. It’s an important month and an even more important cause. Our nation comes together, igniting a wave of red from coast to coast with a goal of eradicating heart disease and stroke. At Dialexa, when we care about something, we’re encouraged to get involved. So, I did.

My journey with American Heart Association (AHA) started about a year ago when the Dallas Stars Foundation partnered with AHA and Rich Peverley for a charity hockey game called the Dallas Stars Big Heart Celebrity Challenge. Rich Peverley (a former Dallas Star and more importantly a Boston Bruin Stanley Cup champion) suffered a cardiac incident that led to his collapse on the bench in a game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday, March 10, 2014. The trained medical staff and an AED saved his life. After Rich’s retirement he went on a quest to raise awareness and dollars to put an AED and trained personnel in every rink by founding Pevs Protects.

As a father of four children, with three boys playing hockey and as the then President and Coach for the Texas Warriors travel hockey club, the safety of children is priority one. Supporting the Stars Foundation, Pev’s and the AHA in order to drive awareness, provide training and AED devices to rinks is a no brainer. So, I signed up to raise money and play for a team in the tournament. Dialexa decided to sponsor and together we helped raise more than $300K.

During the event the AHA offered onsite CPR training for children and adults. All four of my children have now gone through CPR training and the impact of this is exponential and makes us all safer.

After the charity hockey game, the AHA invited me to the 2019 Go Red for Women luncheon. I was blown away by how much I learned about the impact of cardiovascular disease on our society. As many of us do, I have friends and family close to me who have suffered from heart disease. This disease does not discriminate, in fact, I don’t know a person who hasn’t been impacted by it.

That was the turning point for me. I decided to contribute my time and energy just about any way they would let me, which led to Dialexa sponsoring the AHA Goes Red for STEM. At Dialexa we help the world’s most notable brands build revolutionary technology products. It only makes sense to get involved with the AHA’s STEM initiative. As a result, I was asked to participate on AHA Roundtable on Corporate Philanthropy. During the roundtable, we identified that fund raising programs need to be geared more towards millennials. As I mentioned, when we care about something at Dialexa, we get involved. ENTER our MILLENNIALS.

Dialexa, like many technology companies, is fueled by a millennial workforce. We love younger generations and we love their passion for social impact. We arranged a discovery session with the AHA to interview and learn from the large group of millennials that we have here at Dialexa. This group helped craft and shape a list of recommendations for better engaging millennials in this cause. Our first initiative was having several teams in join Cyclenation. Dialexan’s volunteered to participate in cyclenation to raise awareness and money for brain and heart health. Our millennials are young and active and this kind of event aligns well with their interest.

The most recent concept we were able to help design to further raise awareness for this important cause, is a new initiative, AHA Field Day. Field Day will allow employees to participate in fun physical and mental challenges providing the opportunity for meaningful social connections and play breaks in the workplace to help combat burnout and alleviate stress. Dialexa will be one of the first companies to pilot this new Field Day concept in Dallas. We can’t wait to report back on our the first inaugural Field Day with our great partner, The American Heart Association. In the meantime, we hope we’ve inspired you to learn more about heart health and get involved.

Dialexa builds the world’s preeminent technology solutions. We are the arsenal behind the world’s largest and most successful companies, building revolutionary technology products that solve today’s complex business challenges.