This morning I was thinking about “The List.” It’s coming up on state fair time (more on that soon) and for a second time our t-shirts will read “Is your name on the list?” with Minnesota’s online registry website printed on the back. The idea is to begin a conversation with fairgoers who may be prompted by reading our shirts to ask “what’s the list?” In this case, we’re talking about the list of registered organ and tissue donors. Last year it worked as a great segue to ask if people are interested in registering, which they can do for free at our booth. In 2007 we registered over 1,100 Minnesotans during the twelve days of the fair.
The other list, of course, is the national waiting list of people waiting for a life-saving organ transplant. This list is maintained by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) and holds the names of everyone in the United States who is listed for transplant.
We built an advertising and public education campaign around the waiting list, which we used to launch Minnesota’s online donor registry in 2006. It featured the stories of Warren, Bob and Alexa – all of whom are real people from our region who have been touched by donation and transplantation. Since they (or in Alexa’s case, her parents) can share their stories much better than I can, I’m going to let them do the talking.
Here’s Warren’s story:
And Bob’s story:
I’m happy to share that Bob DID receive his heart transplant and is doing wonderfully.
Finally, here’s Alexa’s story:
Alexa’s story speaks to all of us in the donation and transplant community because it is the unbelievable tragedy and unfortunate reality for more than 6,000 people each year. In 2004, the year Alexa died, 6,918 other people who were waiting for their transplant met the same tragic fate. We do what we do so that fewer people will die on the transplant waiting list and fewer families will be missing their Alexa.
Donation is a generous, life-saving gift. You can help save the lives of people like Alexa by registering to be a donor today.
2 responses so far ↓
Lee Aase // August 20, 2008 at 9:16 am |
Congratulations on your new blog! I think it’s great that you’re using social media to encourage people to tell their transplant-related stories. Here’s a link to a YouTube playlist of some videos we took at the Transplant Games in Pittsburgh. Recipients, donors and donor family members all stopped by to share their stories.
A great day « The Source // September 5, 2008 at 10:31 pm |
[...] may remember that I said more than 1,100 people registered during the twelve days of the Fair last year, and wonder why [...]