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INSPIRE
LAURIE SCHMIDT
Making a difference, one child at a time Jason Klaiber
Since 2015, Laurie Schmidt has worked with students, teachers, guidance counselors and administrators to promote full-school health in districts around Central New York and northeast Pennsylvania. Pictured in 2011 with her dad, Mike Calvasina, right after the two ran their third half marathon together. Schmidt has retained the memory of her father’s near-fatal heart attack as a source of inspiration amidst her career with the American Heart Association.
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s much as she acknowledges and appreciates February’s reputation as American Heart Month, Laurie Schmidt has made it her year-round mission to raise awareness about cardiovascular issues. After all, the Whitesboro resident has spent the better part of a decade stopping by schools across Central New York and parts of northeastern Pennsylvania as a dedicated representative for the American Heart Association. In that span with the not-for-profit organization, Schmidt has served as a wellness educator through and through, but as of late last spring,
FEBRUARY 2022
she can more officially go by the title of full-time youth marketing director for her coverage area, having taken over for her workplace mentor Meg Corey. With that position comes the responsibility to play the “energetic” neighbor who fills in for the usual classroom teachers, thus bringing about a slight change of pace for the students. All the while, Schmidt is tasked with sharing informational resources to these elementary, middle and high schoolers as well as the faculty members who either act as intermediaries in her days away or facilitators for her recurrent in-person visits.
GO R ED EDITION
