ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — Supporters of the American Heart Association are putting the finishing touches on one of Baldwin County’s signature charity events, the 27th annual Baldwin County Art for Heart Gala and Live Auction, set for the evening of Saturday, April 5, at The Old Barn at Chapel Farm in Fairhope. The long-running fundraiser pairs art, food and live auction bidding with a mission that has become deeply personal for this year’s honorees: expanding lifesaving CPR training across the community.
The road to the gala runs through a VIP party being held Thursday at Melanie Martin Interiors in Orange Beach, where guests will get a first look at the auction items and meet this year’s honorees. Among those being celebrated are Bayside Academy coaches Mark Lasseter and Phil Lazenby, whose story has become the face of this year’s event — and a reminder of why the money raised matters.
In 2017, Lazenby administered CPR to Lasseter after Lasseter collapsed from a heart attack at school. The intervention kept him alive until emergency help arrived, a moment both men credit with saving Lasseter’s life and one that inspired their support for community CPR training. In the years since, the two coaches have lent their names and their story to the cause of putting more trained responders in schools, gyms and gathering places across Baldwin County.
“CPR absolutely saved my life and it has changed my life,” Lasseter said. His account of that day — a routine school day interrupted by cardiac arrest, and a colleague’s training making the difference — is the kind of story the American Heart Association hopes to multiply through the programs the gala funds.
Twenty-seven years of Art for Heart
The Baldwin County Art for Heart Gala has grown into one of the area’s most anticipated charity traditions, now in its 27th year. The format blends a fine-art showcase with a live auction, giving supporters the chance to bid on works by regional artists alongside trips, experiences and donated items from local businesses. Proceeds from the gala support the American Heart Association’s work promoting lifesaving training throughout the community, including CPR and automated external defibrillator education.
Venues have changed over the years, but this year’s setting carries its own appeal. The Old Barn at Chapel Farm in Fairhope is a working event destination on the Eastern Shore, known for its rustic setting and capacity for large gatherings, and organizers expect a full house for the Saturday evening event. Fairhope’s art-friendly downtown and Baldwin County’s tradition of philanthropy have made the gala a natural fit in the community.
The VIP preview at Melanie Martin Interiors serves as the traditional kickoff. By revealing auction items in advance and introducing the honorees, the Thursday party builds momentum for the main event and gives donors a chance to preview what they will be bidding on. The interior design studio’s Orange Beach showroom provides a polished backdrop for the art and the stories behind this year’s honorees.
A story two coaches never expected to tell
The honorees’ story began without warning on an ordinary school day in 2017. Lasseter collapsed after suffering a heart attack on the Bayside Academy campus, and in the critical minutes that followed, Lazenby put his CPR training to work. Cardiac arrest survival depends heavily on what happens before an ambulance arrives: for every minute without CPR or defibrillation, the chances of survival drop sharply. Lazenby’s response bridged that gap.
Both coaches have since become advocates for widespread CPR knowledge, speaking to the simple truth that the skill is learnable in an afternoon and usable by anyone — teacher, coach, student or bystander. Their selection as this year’s honorees ties the gala’s art-and-auction format directly to a living example of what the funds accomplish: more people trained, more lives kept alive until paramedics arrive.
Their experience also underscores a broader point the American Heart Association emphasizes in its training campaigns. Cardiac arrest can strike anyone, at any age, in any setting — an office, a classroom, a ballfield. When it does, the difference between tragedy and survival is most often a nearby person who knows what to do. Every additional trained responder in a school or business shifts those odds for the entire community.
Where the money goes
Proceeds from the gala support the American Heart Association’s community work promoting lifesaving training. The association is the nation’s oldest and largest voluntary health organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke, and its local programming includes CPR training initiatives, educational campaigns and support for placing AEDs — automated external defibrillators — in public spaces. In Baldwin County, that mission has translated into training events and partnerships with schools, businesses and civic groups over the years.
The association’s emphasis on bystander CPR is grounded in stark arithmetic. Most cardiac arrests happen at home or in everyday settings, far from a hospital, and emergency medical services cannot always arrive within the first few critical minutes. When a bystander performs CPR immediately, survival rates can double or even triple compared with waiting for help to arrive. Expanding the number of people who know the technique is the single most effective way to improve outcomes, which is why fundraising events like Art for Heart target training rather than equipment alone.
The gala’s art component also serves the mission in its own way. Showcasing regional artists draws a crowd that might not attend a standard health charity event, and the live auction format raises funds at a level that individual ticket sales could not. Over 27 years, that formula has made the Baldwin County event one of the American Heart Association’s most reliable local fundraisers on the Gulf Coast.
What to expect April 5
The main event at The Old Barn at Chapel Farm unfolds Saturday evening, April 5, with the art display, dinner and the live auction as the centerpieces. Attendees can expect the honorees to be recognized during the program, with the story of the 2017 rescue told as it has been at other community events since — not as a tale of heroism for its own sake, but as a demonstration of what CPR training makes possible.
Organizers use the honoree moment deliberately. Guests who hear Lasseter describe the heart attack that nearly took his life, and Lazenby’s response that kept him alive, tend to leave with both a personal connection to the cause and, often, a determination to get trained themselves. Some events in the association’s circuit have paired galas with on-site hands-only CPR demonstrations, giving attendees a five-minute introduction to the technique.
For Baldwin County, the gala has become both a social occasion and a community health event in one. The combination of Fairhope hospitality, regional art, a storied venue and a honoree story with a happy ending gives the 27th edition a full program — and gives the American Heart Association’s local supporters another year of momentum in their push to make sure that the next cardiac emergency in Baldwin County is met by someone who knows exactly what to do.
How to be part of it
Supporters who want to contribute but cannot attend Saturday’s gala can still take part through the association’s local programs, and the organization’s CPR training resources are available year-round to individuals, schools and businesses. Hands-only CPR — chest compressions without rescue breaths — can be learned in minutes through the association’s training materials, and formal certification courses are offered regularly across Baldwin and Mobile counties.
For the two coaches at the center of this year’s event, the message they carry to the gala floor is simple. CPR training cost Lazenby a few hours of his time and gave Lasseter his. As the association’s supporters gather at Chapel Farm to bid on art and celebrate 27 years of the event, that exchange is the return on investment they are asking the community to help grow — one trained neighbor at a time.
CPR training in Baldwin County schools
The honorees’ connection to Bayside Academy gives the gala’s mission a specific local anchor. Schools are exactly the settings where advocates want more trained responders, since campuses concentrate hundreds of students, coaches, teachers and visitors in one place for most of the day. Sudden cardiac arrest among student athletes and school staff, while rare, is precisely the scenario in which an on-site responder trained in CPR — and quick access to an AED — makes the difference between life and death.
In the years since the 2017 rescue, awareness of cardiac emergencies in school settings has grown across the Gulf Coast, and the American Heart Association has pushed for CPR education as a standard part of school curricula. Students who learn the technique in physical education or health classes carry it into adulthood, multiplying the community’s base of potential responders with every graduating class.
For the Bayside Academy community, the selection of Lasseter and Lazenby as honorees turned a private scare into a public lesson. Colleagues, parents and students who heard the story firsthand have described it as the most persuasive possible case for taking a CPR course — proof not from a statistic but from two familiar faces on campus.
The Eastern Shore’s tradition of giving
The gala’s endurance owes much to Baldwin County’s civic culture. Fairhope and the surrounding Eastern Shore communities have long supported charitable events that combine social gatherings with local causes, and a 27-year run for any fundraiser speaks to a donor base that renews itself year after year. Local businesses, artists and volunteers supply the auction items, the food and the labor, keeping more of every dollar raised on mission.
The choice of The Old Barn at Chapel Farm continues the event’s pattern of showcasing distinctive local venues, and the Thursday VIP preview at Melanie Martin Interiors in Orange Beach extends the event’s reach across the bay. That two-city rhythm — a Baldwin County gala with a coastal preview — reflects how the American Heart Association’s local supporters are spread across the region.
Twenty-seven years in, the Art for Heart gala has outlasted most charity events by pairing a pleasant evening with an unmistakable purpose. The honorees this year embody that purpose better than any theme could: a man whose life was saved by CPR, the colleague whose training saved him, and a community being asked to make sure the next Lasseter has a Lazenby nearby.