• To celebrate our 50th Birthday, we worked to recruit 50 towns to become our first BHF Heart Towns/Cities in 2011.

• The ‘Heart Towns’ initiative is all about mobilising communities across Britain to both help prevent and fight Britain’s biggest killer, circulatory and heart disease

• We wanted to establish partnerships between the BHF, Councils, the NHS, Community Groups and Commercial Partners to create a nationwide network of BHF Heart Towns

The Concept

• Work in partnership and all be seen to be tacking the issues• Harness the commitment and voluntary actions that already exist in the

community to stimulate wider engagement and action in the fight against heart disease

• Increase the health and wellbeing of the community - Heart Towns will benefit from the BHF’s wide range of resources and education programmes, so that everyone in the community can learn practical steps on how to improve their heart health.

• Entire communities come together through local advocacy and a ‘one day’ fundraiser

Why Work Together?

• To mark our 50th year in pioneering research in 2011, we launched our Mending Broken Hearts (MBH) project

• Our mission over the next 5 years is to spend £50 million to fund our regenerative researchers to enable a damaged heart to literally mend itself.

• We want the nation to come together to help find a way to make the first repairable human heart a reality

Mending Broken Hearts

• Work in partnership with the BHF

• Get support in creating a bespoke programme of activity for your town

• Support our work in schools, businesses and the community

• Adopt Heart Town branding

• Establish a ‘HEART TOWN RIDE/WALK/RUN’ in your town

• Support our fundraising and volunteering initiatives:

‘ONE DAY’ – Unite ROTHERHAM to fundraise for Mending Broken Hearts appeal

‘RED FOR HEART’ – Go red and be part of a major campaign

‘BIG DONATION’ – Encourage community to recycle

‘WE VALUE YOUR TIME’ – Create a community of volunteers in ROTHERHAM

Rotherham’s Five Year Agreement – steering committee is working on action plan