The Elizabethtown College Employee Wellness Team will be holding its first Dress Red Luncheon promoting Women’s Heart Health on Friday, Feb. 6 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Susquehanna Room.

The luncheon was created to celebrate National Wear Red Day which is a nationwide movement to raise awareness in the fight against heart disease in women. The American Heart Association states that heart disease is the number one killer of women and is more deadly than all forms of cancer with one in three women dying of the disease and stroke each year.

Executive Director of Marketing and Communications Elizabeth Braungard talked about how the idea was originally brought to the planning committee by Senior Development Officer and Coordinator of Campaign Programs Linda Roush and how the Employee Wellness Team hopes to make this an annual event. “Healthy employees are great employees, and anything we can do to encourage employee health and bring people together is really the mission of the Employee Wellness Team,” Braungard said.

President Carl Strikwerda and Scholar-in-Residence Gail Bossenga will be hosting the event with guest speaker and Director of Abbott Laboratories, Women’s Heart Health Initiative, Jerri Anne Johnson, M.Ed.

There will also be plenty of door prizes that have been donated from different members of the faculty and the Elizabethtown community such as paintings, pottery, gift cards and baskets. With so many different prizes, attendees will have a one in four chance of walking away with a door prize.

However, since February is the American Heart Association’s American Heart Month, the Employee Wellness Team wanted to get the students involved by reminding them to wear red on Friday. In return, the Employee Wellness team is giving away a free bag of granola from Etown Alum Sarah Lanphier-Himes’ company, Nuts About Granola. “The Employee Wellness Team wanted to encourage everyone to wear red, and hopefully, it will remind them of why it’s never too early to start being healthy,” Braungard said.

Students can look for the table outside the Jays Nest on Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.