Michelle Lineberger, an independent stylist, lives in Ponte Vedra Beach with her family. She is a passionate performer and American Heart Association supporter, raising $23,000 and earning the 2025 First Coast Leaders of Impact award.
Tell us about yourself and your background.
I grew up in Massachusetts about 30 minutes north of Boston, and I went to college in Michigan. I was a musical theater major at Michigan, and so I moved to New York City after college to pursue that, and that's where I met my husband, who is from here.
So that's how I ended up in Ponte Vedra Beach. We moved here in 2009, got married in 2010, and started having kids a year after we got married. I love it here, I really wouldn’t want to move back up north in the cold.
What does your professional life look like these days?
My kids are now 11 and 14, and up until a couple months ago I was working part time at a boutique in Jax Beach. I fell in love with styling, and that’s kind of what I did there. A lot of my friends shop there, so it was just a fun part-time job that I worked for six years, but I recently just left.
I was also doing some cabaret concerts for a little bit. Then, I started doing gigs and eventually I started singing at the American Heart Association’s First Coast Heart Ball two years ago. I sang two years in a row, and that’s kind of how I got connected with the American Heart Association in the first place.
You won the American Heart Association’s 2025 First Coast Leaders of Impact award. Tell us about that.
What’s interesting is that last spring one of my best friends was nominated as a Woman of Impact for their spring fundraiser, and I was on her team, so I helped her win. Then, when they needed to find nominees for the leaders of impact, my friends thought of me because they give the award out at the Heart Ball. They knew that I’d been going to the Heart Ball, singing at the Heart Ball for the past couple of years, and they thought that since I was on my friend’s team and helped her win, that I would be someone that they would ask to be a nominee.
Why did winning this award feel important to you?
It was interesting, the timing of the day that I said yes to them. My father had just gotten back from his cardiologist, and he got a diagnosis of cardiac amyloidosis, which is a very rare condition where there's protein buildup around his heart. It was a seven-week campaign to raise money for the award, so I got a team together, and the day that I found out I won was the same day that he found out that he had the “good kind.” It was a very cool moment from start to finish, from his diagnosis, to saying yes, and then winning and him finding out really good news about his condition.
You raised $23,000 during your campaign; how did you go about that?
I really wanted to do a lot more than that, which is why I was shocked that I won in the first place because my goal was very lofty, but I had a team of some of my dearest friends who I knew would work really hard and, inevitably, we all raised the money together.
A lot of my funds were raised just posting on Instagram, just posting the link and explaining why I was doing it. It was very cool to see people show up in that way. Some of my friends gave their own donations. One of my friends owns a small business, and she did a little giveaway and an event. It was really cool to see how my friends showed up for me and helped me to get that award.
What was most meaningful about your experience with the American Heart Association?
I definitely think I said yes to trying for the award from the American Heart Association not only because of my dad, but because I have people who are my age, and some younger, that have had heart conditions.
One of my good friends is 40 and already has a pacemaker, and I have my mother-in-law and one of my best friends who both lost their dads to a heart attack when they were 6 years old, which is crazy.
Even though I hadn’t been directly impacted by heart disease until my dad was diagnosed, so many people in my life have been. I know that the American Heart Association will always be important for me to support.
