Youth health awareness event offers local teens music, food, fun and CPR training
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IDAHO FALLS — Area middle school and high school students are invited to a party Friday evening. The event promises to be lots of fun, and the teens might learn a few things too.
Sponsored and hosted by the Idaho Heart Foundation, the annual BPM Youth Party “Gotta’ Keep the Beat Goin'” will offer a safe place for teens to enjoy themselves while they learn CPR.
“We are trying to teach everyone — all ages — the importance of CPR awareness and the use of AEDs,” Dr. Blake Wachter told EastIdahoNews.com. She is the president of the Idaho Heart Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the education and awareness of cardiovascular health.
An AED or automated external defibrillator is a machine used to help someone in cardiac arrest.
The BPM (Beats Per Minute) party is one of two events organized by the foundation each year. This one focuses on youth and was arranged by youth organizers like 15-year-old Leah Colvin. She started volunteering four or five years ago when a friend told her about it. She signed up as a volunteer and hasn’t regretted it.
“I really have loved being part of the Heart Foundation and teaching people about CPR and AEDs,” she said.
“It’s important to teach the youth about this and have fun doing it,” Wachter said.
Toward that end, the black light neon-themed party will have free food, a soda bar, competitions and prizes.
“We have a DJ coming and he’s bringing tons of fun lights and music,” Leah said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
As a heart transplant patient, foundation vice-president Jake Gilbert said it was important for his kids to learn CPR at a young age and show their friends how to do it, too.
“If someone you love goes down, you want to know what to do,” he said. “I hope no one has to do CPR, but it’s a very simple life skill to learn and to keep.”
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While the training offered at the party won’t be CPR certification, it will give young learners that confidence and knowledge. Participants will be able to use feedback mannequins, which have a pulsing light to show learners how fast they need to do compressions and alert them if the compressions aren’t deep enough.
Everyone who does CPR on one of the mannequins will be entered into a drawing for additional prizes. Last year, they gave away an Oculus Quest 1 and an Xbox.
Gilbert said kids are more likely than others to respond when they see someone in cardiac distress.
“Just from my experience, study and training, they are more apt to jump in and do CPR and find that AED,” he said. It’s essential that they have the confidence to do that, he said. Teens are also more open to getting trained.
“A lot of adults don’t know CPR – a lot of kids don’t, either – I think it’s really important to teach everybody,” Leah added. “I think knowing you can save someone’s life is very empowering to the youth of Idaho Falls,” Leah said.
“Anybody can save a life,” Gilbert said. “We just want people to get the confidence, to know how to do it, to want to do it when they come across somebody in a distressed situation.”
The party is free of charge and will be held from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday, May 5 at the Downtown Event Center located at 480 Park Ave., in Idaho Falls.