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Arkansas Heart Foundation Pumps Lance Armstrong Fundraiser

2 min read

There’s a new nonprofit in Little Rock, the Arkansas Heart Foundation.

Incorporated in October, the foundation’s website says it “desires to be the premiere philanthropic organization in the community and state regarding all things heart through education, screenings, health and wellness initiatives, awareness events, and grants/scholarships.”

Vickie Wingfield, executive director of the foundation, says that while the American Heart Association focuses on raising money for research, the Arkansas Heart Foundation will focus on education and screenings.

But that’s not what caught the eye of your Whispers staff. The foundation is holding a fundraising event, the Cardiac Classic bike ride, on Saturday, April 25. On the preceding night, Friday, April 24, the foundation is holding “An Evening With Lance Armstrong.”

Yes, that Lance Armstrong. The one stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for using performance-enhancing drugs. The one banned from cycling for life.

Wingfield said the foundation “thought long and hard” about inviting Armstrong to speak to the bicyclists and give them an opportunity to meet him and have their photos made with him.

“At the end of the day, in the cycling community, he is still a terrific athlete,” said Wingfield, who spent almost 20 years with the Arkansas Heart Hospital, most recently as community relations director. “He is still world-class. He put cycling on the map.”

The foundation “sent a few balloons up in the community, the cycling community,” feeling them out about the invitation, she said. And, Wingfield said, she’s received exactly one email “from one person who’s never ridden with us to say, ‘How could you?’”

Other reaction, Wingfield said, has been overwhelmingly positive.

Here’s the deal, Wingfield said: Athletics is full of the fallen and the troubled, people like baseball’s Pete Rose and boxing’s Jermain Taylor of Little Rock.

And, well, she said it best:

“We have a big love of second chances in cardiovascular care because I can’t tell you how many people — I’ve been in the cardiovascular business now for 20 years — and I can’t tell you how many beds I’ve sat on with patients who’ve said, ‘That should have killed me and it didn’t and I’m here and I’ve got a second chance.’

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to people who feel that way, so we’re kind of big on second chances.”

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