Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System (SVMHS) offers the community Monterey County’s only Mended Hearts program, which provides education and support to heart patients and their families. The program has several guest speakers scheduled to present at the SVMHS Education Center in the coming months.

Guest speaker and registered dietitian Sara Housman will speak on Tuesday, August 16 at 6 pm at the SVMHS Education Center located at 611 Abbott Street, Salinas. Housman will speak about a proper diet for heart recovery and give the audience a virtual supermarket tour.

Housman works with cardiac patients at the SVMHS Cardiac Wellness Center providing medical nutrition therapy and counseling. She also teaches monthly Heart Healthy education classes. The guest speaker is a graduate of Fresno State University.

Mended Hearts is the longest running peer-to-peer cardiac support group in the country and is a physician endorsed support model. For the past 65 years, Mended Hearts has served 300 chapters and over 460 hospitals across the country. The Mended Heart program at Salinas Valley Memorial was recently recognized for their fifth year of outstanding service to the community.

The SVMHS chapter meets every month to give members and patients expert advice while also providing a platform to share their own personal experiences with heart health, recovery and treatment. Mended Hearts volunteers also offers personal visits to patients, educational material and rehabilitation support.

For more information and to RSVP to a Mended Hearts event, please call 831-755-0777. You can find more information at www.svmh.com/mendedhearts.