10/21/2025
Culpepper’s Cardiac Foundation placed #77 AED today at St Stephen Catholic School !!!
This was a “Pay It Forward “ by HCA Florida Brandon Hospital . I met Laura ,the Director of Communications and Community Engagement at HCA Brandon Hospital , over a year ago in Feb as she asked me to come to HCA to be a speaker for Heart Awareness and she also set me up with Fadia Patterson TV to do an interview by Spectrum Bay News 9 . HCA then Sponsored our Saving Lives Matters Event last November all to help spread Heart Awareness and to continue to place AEDs in our communities in hope to save lives and now he’s going to help sponsor this year as well .
Laura as well as Anna Hendrix , an emergency room, nurse who is also a veteran , myself and Eric met with Linda Umoh , the principal of St Stephen’s Catholic Church, as well as some of their staff . I was very impressed by how well the school was maintained as they have been there for 25 years have around 300 students . They have sports there as well for the middle school including football and baseball as well as other organizations that come to their school so having this AED place here will be very rewarding and beneficial.
Eric Shimcus is a Paramedic for over 24 years at Winter Haven Fire Department and who does this all as volunteer , as he gives a demonstration on the AED and Cpr . We also incorporated a Choking Device and Narcan to carry in case of an overdose .
All of these I added to our demonstration in hope to share the importance of Saving Lives .
We also brought the importance of a Fire Extinguisher to your vehicles as I wanted to add this to our CCF Demonstration ,in honor of Jolynn. She was a lil girl we loved and lost due to a car fire back in Nov and we want to continue our love for her and her mom , Logan Deines with For The Love Of JoLynn 🙌❤️
The CCF Team were able to place an AED here in hope to help Save A Life 🙌
Thank you everyone and our Community so very much as without our community support we could not make this all happen .
In honor of Michael Culpepper, my late fiancé , who passed away from heart failure in July of 2020. I started the Foundation to help in my healing process as I wanted to try to help save others as I couldn’t save him . We raise money by sponsorships, donations, and having events. We place at least 2 AED’s a month in our community as well as we give out three scholarships a year. One is for Fire , one for Medical and one for EMT as we support all of our First Responders. if we save one person’s life, all of this is worth it.
CCF Mission Statement…
In Honor of Culpepper! With community support we hope to place a defibrillator on every city block. We may be the closest First Responder. It could  be Your Family , Your Friend or even “YOU” your saving as “SAVING LIVES MATTERS “.
A Shout out to my husband , Brian Beilke being by my side through it all , our paramedic Eric Shimkus , Daily Ridge as our Media Sponsor , and to all standing behind me as we are the CCF Team !!!
A Shout Out to Rescue7 , CoroMed & AED.US for partnering up with Culpepper’s Cardiac Foundation and to all of our sponsors , ones who donates, & all supporters as you all help make this possible.
We all may be The Closest 1st Responder. It could be your friend your own family or even “YOU “ , you’re saving as “SAVING LIVES MATTERS “.
Look up our Website & The CCF Locations at …
Culpepperaed.com
**** Attention We Have Our Annual Yearly Event ‼️‼️‼️
Culpepper’s Cardiac Foundation “SAVING LIVES MATTERS ““
Please Mark Your Calendar for Nov 15th at Tanners Lakeside as we are raising & to be able to place more AEDs out in our community . If anyone would like to Sponsor , make a donation , donate a raffle item , gift basket, a live auction or anything that you an help us with please message Melanie Brown Culpepper Beilke .
