Community

I have been very impressed by how willing our community has been to help raise awareness about Organ and Tissue Donation. I’d just like to mention some of the things our community has done to help save lives through organ and tissue donation.

• The mayor declared April our city’s Organ, Tissue and Eye Donation Awareness month.
• The local TV network broad-casted the mayor’s declaration on the local news and is running a Donate Life TV ad all the month of April.
• The Plasma Center is running an Organ and Tissue Donation information video in their waiting room all the month of April. The college is also showing the video to those who come to donate blood during their blood drive.
• The High School allowed us to put on an assembly.
• The city put a Donate Life banner, a flag and a billboard on Main Street.
• Many people in the community who have had first hand experiences with this issue have been willing to share their experiences.

I think these are incredible things. We live in a great community.

I Heart Organ Donation

Serving on this committee to help raise awareness about organ and tissue donation has taught me quite a few things. One of those things is how Organ and Tissue Donation works. From what I understand ,there is a National Donor Services Agency. The country is then divided up into regions. These regions also have their own Donor Services. For example, the Intermountain Donor Services is over our region which includes Utah, southeastern Idaho, and western Wyoming. Within this area are 2.7 million people, 79 hospitals, 4 transplant centers, over 270 people awaiting transplants, and a thousand more waiting for tissue donation. 

When a hospital has a case arise in which someone has passed away from brain death, they contact the Donor Services. Once death has been confirmed, the Donor Services harvest and place the organs. The organs are usually given to someone within the same region.

The National Donor Services has put together a campaign called Donate Life to help raise awareness for organ and tissue donation. The mission of the campaign is to register their state’s residents as organ/tissue donors in their state’s organ donor registry to help save these lives. It is important for people to sign up in their state’s organ donor registry so that their wishes are upheld. A person’s family is able to over rule their decision to be an organ and tissue donor if the person has only signed up to be a donor on their driver’s license. If the person has signed up to be part of their state’s donor registry, their wishes will be upheld no matter what. You are able to sign up online, over the phone or by mail. To get in contact your states donor registry visit http://www.organdonor.gov/donor/registry.shtm.    

I recently received a link to a bunch of video clips about organ and tissue donation put together by the Illinois Donate Life Campaign. You can check them out by visiting http://www.youtube.com/donatelifeillinois.

National Donate Life Month

April is National Donate Life Month. To help promote organ, tissue and eye donation the mayor of Rexburg, Shawn Larsen, declared April our cities organ, tissue and eye donation awareness month. The KPVI channel 6 news covered this declaration and interviewed my Dad to help tell the story. You can watch the new clip by clicking on the following link at

 http://www.kpvi.com/global/video/popup/pop_playerLaunch.asp?vt1=v&clipFormat=flv&clipId1=3610475&at1=News&h1=The Impact of Organ Donation