Wear Red for Women donates AEDs to Sacred Heart School

January 17, 2025

Wear Red for Women, a Bothwell Foundation committee, recently gave two automated external defibrillators (AEDs) to Sacred Heart School. An AED is a small, lightweight device that allows individuals and first responders to treat sudden cardiac arrest. The machine automatically analyzes the heart rhythm and when appropriate, it delivers an electrical shock to the heart to restore its normal rhythm.

The survival rate for sudden cardiac arrest victims can increase by up to 70% when defibrillation is administered within the first three minutes, highlighting the importance of having AEDs where people congregate.

Funds to purchase the devices were raised during the 2024 Wear Red for Women luncheon and auction. The committee’s goal is to have AEDs in every place people work, learn, play or pray in Sedalia and Pettis County. Since the inception of the luncheon event in 2020, nearly 100 AEDs have been placed in or committed to various locations. The 2025 Wear Red for Women event is Feb. 28, 2025, and tickets are now available at brhc.org/wear-red.

Joined by students in the front row, the Bothwell Foundation’s Wear Red for Women committee presented two AEDs to Sacred Heart School (SHS). Second row, from left to right, Cecilia Smothers, SHS childcare director and school nurse; Meghan Funkhouser, Ashley Wooster and Trish Henson, committee members; Jane McMullin, SHS assistant principal; Suzann Jenkins, SHS principal; Lori Wightman, Bothwell Regional Health Center CEO and committee co-chair; and Nikki Howell, SHS president; third row, from left to right, Erica Petersen, committee member; Lauren Thiel-Payne, Bothwell Foundation executive director; and Rhonda Ahern, committee member.

Bothwell Regional Health Center is a regional health center serving west-central Missouri with state-of-the-art technology and comprehensive health and wellness services including primary care, specialty care and emergency care. For more information about Bothwell and its services, visit www.brhc.org or find us on Facebook.

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