Hundreds of students from Tuolumne County schools, including Mother Lode Adventist Junior Academy, Summerville Elementary, and Curtis Creek Elementary, took part in the Adventist Health Sonora 2026 Heart Fest inside the Me-Wuk Tribes of Tuolumne County building Tuesday morning at Mother Lode Fairgrounds in Sonora.
The annual event is staged by Adventist Health Sonora each February, which has been federally designated since 1964 as American Heart Month, a national initiative to raise awareness about cardiovascular diseases, the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States.
From 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., organizers estimated about 500 local elementary school students came with their teachers to learn about their hearts, lungs, and cardiopulmonary health. They rotated through stations, including the interior of an inflatable heart; a display where they learned how smoking tobacco, vaping, and smoking marijuana are bad for the lungs and heart; a hands-on opportunity to touch and hold real sheep hearts and cow hearts, including dissected samples; meet-and-greet for questions and answers with Manteca District Ambulance paramedics and emergency medical technicians; an exercise station; and heart-healthy snacks.
Mother Lode Adventist Junior Academy students Ella Busalacchi and Aurelia Orrock put gloves on before they touched and poked a real cow’s heart, with guidance from Adventist Health Sonora Registered Nurse Jaimie Bradley.
“It was very squishy and the muscle was very hard,” Busalacchi said.
“It felt kind of slimy,” Orrock said.
Christy Casey, administrative director of operations for oncology, diagnostic imaging, and cardiology for Adventist Health Sonora, said she hopes the youngsters who attend the Heart Fest each year learn and really understand their hearts and what it means to be heart healthy.
“We want them to understand how the heart and lungs work, and what things they can do, like healthy nutrition and exercise, that can help them stay heart healthy in the future,” Casey said. “Also, we want them to realize what services we have in the community as they grow older and for their family members.”
The walk-through inflatable heart interior — with details like a pulmonary valve that controls blood flow from the heart’s right ventricle to the pulmonary artery, sending oxygen-poor blood to the lungs to pick up more oxygen, and preventing it from leaking back into the heart when the ventricle relaxes — is intended to allow children to see “what a heart really looks like and how it works,” Casey said.
She put her fingers together to form a conventional, symmetrical Valentine’s Day heart to show what children may first learn about what a heart looks like, as opposed to the muscular organ inside each person’s chest.
“Kids, they don’t really know what the structural heart looks like,” Casey said. “So for them to understand, to be able to see what it looks like inside our bodies. That helps them understand why heart health is so important.”
Fitness instructor Hope Tucker, who works at the Adventist Health Sonora Living Well Fitness Center, showed elementary school students how to do jumping jacks, pushups, and other exercises.
“I hope they fall in love with exercise,” Jamestown Elementary teacher Olivia LaPertche said, “because they complain all the time about exercising!”
While supervising Mother Lode Adventist Junior Academy students, teacher Julie Kramer said she hopes her students learn “how to keep their hearts healthy.”
Gemi Battle with Blue Zones Project Tuolumne County talked to third grade students from Curtis Creek Elementary School about heart-healthy snacks, including fresh-cut apples and string cheese. Curtis Creek Elementary third grade teacher Holly Azevedo said she hopes her students learned the importance of “making healthy life choices.”
Around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Heart Fest organizers with Adventist Health Sonora intended to open the Heart Fest venue in the Me-Wuk Tribes of Tuolumne County building to the rest of the community, with a free heart-healthy dinner, health screenings, about a dozen interactive booths with local heart health professionals and retirees, and a trivia night with prizes, Adventist Health Sonora Marketing and Communications Director Jaquelyn Lugg said.
To raise awareness about American Heart Month, Adventist Health Sonora also organized a Heart Walk at noon Jan. 30 at the Health Pavilion at 900 Mono Way in Sonora. The hospital is promoting a second Heart Walk at noon Friday, Feb. 27, at Courthouse Square in downtown Sonora.
For more about American Heart Month activities organized by Adventist Health Sonora, go to https://bit.ly/4bM48zl.
