“Imagine living in a neighborhood without a large grocery store,where fresh fruits and vegetables are luxuries and not fundamental food items. Imagine living in a community where your kids can’t go outside and play safely and you don’t have a safe place to walk or exercise. Imagine churches where your spiritual body is fed but your physical body is dying under the weight of unhealthy eating habits. Imagine living in an areawhere you fall victim to a heart attack or stroke and no one can help. You may not have to imagine because this may be the reality in your community. With the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s empowered to serve initiative, we can help you to improve the health of your community in a big way. Empowered to serve unites people to learn from and support one another and improve the health and well-being of their communities. Through empowered to serve, you can evaluate your personal health and the health of your community as a whole and then create an action plan to improve problem areas. You can access free resources like health lessons and evaluation tools and learn how to take small steps that leadto big changes, to create healthy environments and ultimately, healthy lives. With online discussion groups you share best practices, develop plans and help drive our nation to a healthy way of life. Together, community transformation is possible. Join us at Empoweredtoserve.org. and become an ambassador of change, making the healthy choice the easy choice.”