Dancing For My Heart was founded by Patricia Simmons Comeaux after she survived a heart attack at age 45 and lived to dance about it. Since the age of four Pat has had a passion for dancing, a talent she inherited from her family along with a legacy of heart disease. Four generations of her family have been stricken by the disease. Pat trained and studied to be a professional dancer at Lamar Unive
rsity in Beaumont, Texas. In 1977, she was the first African American to graduate with a B.S. Her career began by teaching children with developmental disabilities and adults dance techniques. Simultaneously, she began a career in therapeutic dance for patients at a mental health facility. At age 31, Pat married Evanda Comeaux (a Clinical Hospital Chaplain) who was a full-time theology student. A career change took her into the corporate world arena of psychiatric health care. Pat was forty-one when she became the primary care-giver for her mother and her mother-in-law. Her mother had suffered a stroke and her mother-in-law was suffering from Alzheimer’s. The increased stress in her life was the motivating factor that made Pat alternate from the corporate world to non-profit management. Pat took a job with the State of Texas in Mental Health working with mentally health clients. In 1997, Pat moved to Denver after finding the Non-profit Management program at Regis University she had long been searching for. Pat and her husband continued as the primary caretakers for both of their mothers. A job with Ameri-Corps as a program director opened up at Clayton College and Pat was hired. Two years later, at age 45, Pat suffered a heart attack. That same year her mother-in-law died and six months later her mother died. During Pat’s rehabilitation from the heart attack she was encouraged to dance. Also, Pat applied for a Fellowship to attend Regis University. She was accepted into the Leadership Program that would pay for her graduate studies, and the first activity required of her was to travel to southern Colorado to rock climb. After the heart attack, Pat was not sure she could accomplish such a physically demanding task, but decided to continue on after she was highly encouraged by her health counselor and her husband. She promised God that if she got to the top of the rock, she would dance for heart disease. She reached the top and has not stopped dancing ever since. Pat received her Master’s Degree in Nonprofit Management and founded Dancing For My Heart, Inc. Written by Magdalena Gallegos
