The New Orleans Area Heart Fund launched its 1962 campaign Wednesday in a mixed atmosphere of jazz music, colorful decor, a candle-light ceremony and stern determination.
An estimated 600 persons crowded the Roosevelt hotel's Grand ballroom to kick-off the drive and hear the president-elect of the American Heart Association.
Dr. James V. Warren of Columbus, Ohio, told campaign volunteers that research to combat heart disease will continue to be increasingly complicated and expensive.
BIG KILLER
He said expense cannot stand in the way of fighting a disease which kills about one million people each year in the United States.
Although research in heart disease has progressed considerably in the past 30 years, physicians still do not have adequate tools and information for the best in diagnosis and treatment of the ailment, he said.
Dr. Warren said the American people strongly favor assuming
most of the responsibility for raising funds to combat heart disease in preference to turning the job over to the federal government.
U.S. AID SUGGESTED Yet, the problem is so big that the government must, and should, assume a portion of the financial
load of research, he added.
The Heart Fund Combo, musicians appearing through co-operation of the Musicians' Union Local No. 174, played jazz numbers
as volunteers congregated.
Wearing tiny "heart" pins, volunteers participated in a candle-lighting ceremony soon after the Rev. John Cronin, S.J., chaplain of the Manresa convent near Lutcher, offered the invocation. RESEARCH GRANTS
James S. Flower, president of
the New Orleans Heart Council and master of ceremonies at the meeting, introduced 37 recipients of heart research grants.
Dr. Willard R. Wirth, first president of the Louisiana Heart Association, gave the welcome. ,
Others who participated on the program included Mayor Victor H. Schiro, Dr. Richard L. Fowler, president-elect of the Louisiana Heart Association; C. C. Clifton Jr. and Mrs. Claude J. Pumilia, luncheon chairmen.
Rabbi Joseph Karasick of the Temple Sinai said the benediction.
Volunteers will make a door-to-door solicitation of funds Feb. 18, Heart Fund Sunday. The campaign will continue through February. PHOTO: OFFICIALS taking part in the kickoff of the New Orleans Area Heart Fund campaign at a luncheon meeting Wednesday at the Roosevelt hotel included (from left) Dr. Richard L. Fowler, president-elect of the Louisiana
—Photo by The Times-Picayune.
Heart Association; Dr. Willard R. Wirth, first president of the LHA; James S. Flower, president of the New Orleans Heart Council, and Dr. James V. Warren, presidentelect of the American Heart Association.
