Donate Life decals meant to encourage organ donations

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Donate Life decals meant to encourage organ donations

Thursday, March 20, 2008

By Special to The Madera Tribune

Betty Braddy, a kidney recipient and volunteer at the California Transplant Donor Network, has kicked-off a Donate Life decal campaign to raise awareness for organ donation. The program entails placing "Donate Life" decals on the back of trucks to highlight the importance of organ and tissue donation.

Curtis and Sheila Chandler of Madera have their fleet of 33 trucks among those joining this cause.

"While driving behind a large truck last summer and I thought, wow, what a big traveling billboard the back of that truck makes," said Braddy. "As a kidney transplant recipient who has volunteered with CTDN for six years, I had to coordinate something and make it happen."

Chandler hopes the decals will spur people to sign up on the statewide donor registry at www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org.

More than 28,000 people received organ transplants last year; 3,244 in California. Nearly 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for organ transplants to save their lives; 21 percent reside in California. More than 2,100 of those waiting are children under the age of 18.

Each day, more than 18 people, one every 90 minutes die in the United States because of a shortage of organ donors. In 2006, more than 6,000 individuals died on the U.S. organ-transplant waiting list because the organs they needed were not donated in time. Every day, approximately 13 people are added to the national organ transplant waiting list.

One person can potentially save up to eight lives through organ donation, and touch more than 50 others with tissue donation.

The California Transplant Donor Network saves and improves lives by facilitating organ, eye and tissue donation for transplantation. The Transplant Network helps 160 hospitals in 40 Northern and Central California and Northern Nevada counties offer the option of organ and tissue donation to families whose loved ones have died, coordinates deceased organ recovery and placement, and provides public education with the hope that every resident will become a donor. It is federally designated as this region's organ recovery organization.

For information, visit www.ctdn.org or call 1-888-570-9400.

http://www.maderatribune.com/news/newsview.asp?c=238689