Our Mission

Our mission is the education and advocacy of natural medicine and a holistic lifestyle. Anything from what we put into our bodies to the products we purchase to how we invest our money to how we treat the earth has an impact on our whole being and ultimately each other. Our magnificent innate ability to heal becomes repaired and enhanced with the help of wonderful practitioners and guides. We strive to work with top practitioners to bring helpful education in form of the news, events and this informative website to assist you on your wellness journey.

Chicago Healers Team

JoAnn Hefferle – President email
JoAnn Hefferle, a Chicago native, founded ChicagoHealers.com in 2002 after she recognized the need for an organization focused on connecting holistic and complementary health wellness seekers with qualified local providers. JoAnn, a former Fortune 200 Corporate Executive and Big 5 Management consultant, has now dedicated her career to bringing unsurpassed high quality healing to the people of Chicago. She has personally experienced almost 200 alternative health and holistic healing modalities and is passionate about the restorative properties and positive effects that holistic healing has on people’s lives. Trained in multiple healing modalities herself, she is truly the quintessential expert to endorse the exemplary practitioners who call for professional distinction combined with her continued work to promote our healing and wellness focused community.

Kate Portillo – Client Relations email
Kate Portillo brings over 10 years of professional experience in community programs, social services, and retail management to her role with Chicago Healers. Kate is a graduate of Western Illinois University with a double major in Recreation, Park, and Tourism Administration and Public Communication Human Relations. Kate enjoys life’s journey towards balanced and healthy body, mind, and spirit through holistic health.

Hillary Wenk – Media Relations Manager email
Hillary is a graduate of Binghamton University in New York with a degree in Political Science. She has previous experience in pubic relations, media and event planning with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Her past experience working for a chiropractor along with her personal experience with alternative and holistic healthcare both for herself and her family gives her a unique perspective working with Chicago Healer practitioners.

Lindsay Havlick – Partnership Development Manager email
After enduring hardships with the standard American health system and finding great success with holistic practitioners, Lindsay is devoted to making holistic health more accessible to Americans. As a practicing Health Coach, Lindsay understands the importance of incorporating the mind, body and spirit to attain optimal health. Having experience with numerous healthcare modalities, she recognizes healthcare comes in many forms and effects each individual according to their unique makeup. And with 7 years experience in project management, sales and recruitment in companies both large and small, Lindsay is adept at creating and managing partnerships that benefit all parties involved. Lindsay is a graduate of Michigan State’s Eli Broad business school and currently enrolled in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

Charlotte Kerver – SEO & Social Media Management email
Charlotte has over 10 years of business experience in Healthcare, IT and Manufacturing, having done work as diverse at QC Testing, Database design, support & implementation, Partner Management and Customer Services Management. Charlotte has traveled widely, including much of Europe, Africa, America & the Middle East, and is a Biological Sciences graduate of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Jessica Prah – Public Relations email
Jessica Prah is the Principal of Paramount Public Relations, Healers America and Chicago Healers’ pubic relations firm. Paramount Public Relations is a results-driven public relations and marketing agency that offers big-agency experience with a boutique, entrepreneurial mindset. Jessica’s leadership has successfully launched and expanded brands and product lines, planned and marketed events, and managed ongoing strategic public relations and social marketing campaigns on an international, national and local level. Jessica’s client experience includes Baskin Robbins, TheTieBar.com, Texas de Brazil, PlatinumTel, Elan Pharmaceuticals, Astra Zeneca, Tiffany & Company’s IRIDESSE Pearls, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare’s Nicorette/NicoDerm smoking cessation products, Starbucks, Snapple, New York magazine, Seventeen magazine, Crate & Barrel, CB2, American Baby magazine, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sea & Ski, Chicago magazine, American Cancer Society, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, AIDS Walk, among others. Jessica is a graduate of the University of Illinois with a bachelor’s degree in communications.

Laurie Pollock – New Client Specialist email
Laurie brings equal parts business development experience and a lifelong study of alternative health to Chicago Healers. Her career experience includes business ownership— founder of a promotional graphics agency for Chicago’s Fortune 500s, various local small business development roles, and consultant— helping aspiring entrepreneurs realize their dream of self-employment. Laurie is also a devoted mother, artist and writer, nature lover, yoga student, avid vegetable gardener and whole foods advocate (for people and pets). Laurie is genuinely passionate about natural health and wellness, and through her role at Chicago Healers, works to promote greater awareness of the benefits of a holistic lifestyle.

Cory Lockwood – Social Media Promotion email
Cory has worked at all levels of customer service, and combines this with her wealth of experience in network marketing and personal passion for social media, to carry out promotional work for our practitioners. Currently, she volunteers at a local radio station and hosts an internet radio show every Saturday afternoon featuring music hits and trivia. She is a stay at home Mom, who enjoys working her schedule around her family commitments. She is very active in her son’s extra-curricular activities including boy scouting. Cory’s other interests include music & radio, cross-stitching, reading and TV.

Lauren Schwaar – Technical Support email
Lauren Schwaar is a college-bound junior programmer specializing in not only the “back end” of ChicagoHealers.com through web programming and wordpress management, but also a creative thinker contributing her ideas to the site. She enjoys finding new and better ways to make things work, whether it be graphics design, marketing, or user-friendly navigation. Her other interests include music (both performance and composition), reading, the outdoors, basketball, and fishing.

Jim Butler – Technical Support email
Jim is a graduate of University of Illinois at Chicago with a Masters of Science in Management Information Systems. Jim serves all the technical needs for ChicagoHealers.com.
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