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 Michaela GagneMichaela J. Gagne is a resident of Fall River, Massachusetts. She received her B.F.A. in Art with a minor in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In 2006 she completed her Master’s Degree in Mental Health Counseling and Art Therapy from Lesley University. Michaela was crowned Miss Massachusetts in June of 2006. Her Platform Issue is Heart Health: Listen, Learn, and Live, which was a reaction to having been diagnosed with a life-threatening heart condition, Long QT Syndrome, and having undergone surgery for an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) at the age of 17. She is currently a national spokesperson for the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign and is a certified CPR/AED instructor. She has traveled to Capitol Hill various times to speak on heart disease. Michaela is also a national spokesperson for the SADS (Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndromes) Foundation and Parent Heart Watch, and she serves as an international spokesperson for Heartbeat International. Michaela has been featured in USA Today and interviewed on CNN, Fox News, E!, and Inside Edition, and she has written for Newsweek.com, EP Lab Digest, and EmpowHer.com. Despite her heart condition, Michaela is an accomplished athlete, competing regularly in soccer and basketball, and she is a certified high school athletic coach. She is the art teacher at St. Vincent’s Home, a residential/educational facility for children in need, as well as a provider of crisis/adjustment counseling to youth in the Fall River, MA school system. Her volunteer work ranges from traveling to Africa to set up a medical clinic in the Bukoba region of Tanzania, to being a mentor for the Peaceful Coalition, a student group consisting of gang-involved and/or at-risk males. “At 17 years old, my life was squarely put in perspective when I was told I could have died during the first unprotected years of my life. I turned my obstacles into opportunities, and my work is done in the memory of those who were not given that second chance.” Website: http://www.michaelagagne.com Favorite Charity: Parent Heart Watch |
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