By AACVPR | December 18, 2018

The American College of Sports Medicine’s 2019 World Heart games will be taking place June 7-8, 2019, at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina — about an hour northwest of Charlotte and an hour east of Asheville. This Olympic-style event brings patients with cardiovascular disease or risk factors from around the world to participate in a safe, fun, competitive environment where teams and individuals participate in activites like golf, pickleball (think of badminton, tennis, and table tennis played on an outdoor court), disc golf, trivia and cornhole (or bags if you’re from the Midwest).

AACVPR’s relationship with the World Heart games goes back almost two decades when the original games were conceived. The original event was created in 1990 with the Georgia Association of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation providing sponsorship for the “Heart of Gold Games.” The event evolved into the AACVPR International Heart & Lung Games of 2003 and 2006, and in 2010, the event took on the now-known moniker of the “ACSM World Heart Games.”

For the 2019 event, AACVPR is providing funding in the form of travel scholarships to teams that apply. AACVPR will award up to five (5) scholarships of $1,000 apiece to the selected teams. The application can be found online:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2019WorldHeartGamesScholarship

The requirements? Tell us why you want to attend and how you plan to raise funds for a team of patients and/or staff to travel to Hickory, North Carolina! The scholarship may be used to help defray the costs of travel, lodging, and expenses to and from the event. ACSM also provides shuttle transportation to/from Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Applications are due March 1, 2019.

For more on the event, visit www.acsm.org/whg2019. The event site also has a useful brochure to download which includes additional event details and ideas for fundraising.