UC Davis students who wish to be part of a gigantic heart formation while raising awareness for heart disease can do so at the second annual UC Davis Wears Red Day, which will take place on Friday at Hutchinson Field.
Coinciding with National Heart Awareness Day, the event will begin at 11 a.m. and raises awareness for heart disease as being a leading cause of death of both women and men in the U.S.
Tents and tables will be set up in The Battle Heart Disease Fair and will sell food, provide health information and offer group Zumba sessions. Additionally, there will be a 15-minute Q&A session with Amparo Villablanca, cardiologist, professor and director of the UC Davis Women’s Cardiovascular Medicine Program.
“It will feel very much like a festival atmosphere,” said Dave Jones, associate director of UC Davis’s strategic communications office.
Radio station KSFM 102.5 FM will have a live remote from the fair, which will run from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. At noon there will be a break to gather all attendees wearing red around the chalk outline of a heart drawn on the field.
Organizers hope to have enough attendees to completely fill in the middle of a human heart formation, which will be photographed at an aerial angle. The current Guinness World Record for the largest human heart formation is 11,116 people.
“Last year we had about 2,500 people for the heart formation, more than enough to make a great outline of a heart,” Jones said. “This year, we are hoping for more, so we can start filling in the middle!”
The organizers will be selling red event T-shirts with a white heart design on them for $7 each. The shirts will be sold at UC Davis bookstores, and $2 from every shirt sale will go to the UC Davis Women’s Cardiovascular Medicine Program.
“These donations are very important because they not only provide medical care for women and their hearts, but they – and events like UC Davis Wears Red Day – raise awareness of women’s heart health,” Jones said.
Participants in the fair include three student-run health clinics, the UC Davis Medical Center, Aggie Heart Association, Alpha Phi and Alpha Sigma Pi sororities and other organizations.
