Advocate Spotlight

Michelle Bianco has been a You're the Cure advocate since 2005 but her dedication to heart disease and stroke issues has spanned over two decades. Her children have such a strong genetic predisposition to cardiac disease, that she started their education to a healthy lifestyle very early in life. As a physical therapist, she has had the opportunity to care for those directly impacted by stroke. Because of her personal experience with both cardiac disease and stroke, she has passion for working with the American Heart Association to educate the community to risk factors and warning signs of these conditions. She believes it is vitally important to educate government officials to the resources necessary to prevent, diagnose and support those impacted by these conditions so that they may be positioned to lead as independent and successful of a life as possible.
As a top advocate who is passionate about American Heart Association policy issues, Michelle Bianco sets the standard for what it means to be a You’re the Cure advocate. In fact, her advocacy contributions are so well known that has been asked to be a national guest speaker on volunteer leadership for the American Heart Association.

In addition to taking action on every You’re the Cure action alert, Michelle participates in AHA policy issue chats, attends state lobby days, Congressional Lobby Days in Washington, D.C. and has even participated in our Healthcare Reform fly-in last September. She has taken the time on several occasions to reach out off-line to both state and federal legislators to advocate one behalf of AHA issues. She serves on the AHA Pennsylvania Advocacy Committee as the Field Representative for the 4th Congressional District and has forged such respected relationships were her state legislators that her state senator even reached out to send her a copy of a resolution designating February as American Heart Month in Pennsylvania. She has volunteered to serve as a “train-the-trainer” for any of our issues and to encourage more people to get involved with advocacy. We can honestly say that American Heart Association advocacy would not be the same without our superstar advocate, Michelle Bianco.