ST. PAUL, Minn., April 5 /PRNewswire/ -- With a shortage of organ donors creating a public health crisis nationwide, organ donation officials hope April’s National Donate Life Month will address the critical need and raise public awareness and advocacy for the issue.
“Shining a spotlight on organ and tissue donation during National Donate Life Month will get people talking about donation and making a decision that will ultimately save a lot of people’s lives,” says Susan Gunderson, Chief Executive Officer of LifeSource. The organization is the federally designated agency responsible for the management of donation activities in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and portions of western Wisconsin.
For LifeSource, that spotlight means energizing hundreds of volunteers around the region who work to encourage local citizens to check “yes” on their driver’s licenses. Volunteers will use letter-writing campaigns, posters at high schools and library bookmarks to communicate the message in April, yet their month long campaign is underscored by the issue’s gravity year-round; More than 20,000 Americans received organ and tissue transplants last year, but there are more than 80,000 people waiting for transplants, including more than 2,000 people in the Upper Midwest. While some of these people will remain on national and regional lists for several years before receiving an organ transplant, thousands of others will die waiting.
The observation began in 1983 when Congress declared the third week of April National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week. In 2003, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson changed the name and designation to all of April to help raise public awareness for the critical need for organ, tissue, marrow and blood donation.
Gunderson expressed hope that April and National Donate Life Month would encourage North Dakotans to act, either by changing the donor designation on their driver’s license, or by carrying a donor card indicating their wishes to be a donor and by sharing those wishes with their family. “All of us have the potential to be organ and tissue donors,” she says, “and all of us can make a huge difference in someone else’s life.”
For more information about organ and tissue donation in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and western portions of Wisconsin, contact LifeSource at http://www.organdonation.org/ or 1-888-5-DONATE.
LifeSource, Upper Midwest Organ Procurement Organization, Inc. is a not- for-profit, federally designated organization responsible for management of organ donation activities in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and portions of western Wisconsin.
LifeSource
CONTACT: Susan Mau Larson, +1-651-603-7852, smlarson@life-source.org ,or Seth Pederson, +1-952-852-6206, seth.pederson@collemcvoy.com , both forLifeSource
Web site: http://www.organdonation.org/
