National Donate Life Month is about saving and healing lives through organ, eye, tissue and living donation. Every April, Donate Life America and Mid-America Transplant focus national and regional attention on how every individual has the potential to make LIFE possible by registering their decision to be an organ, eye and tissue donor and by considering being a living donor.
Each year, Donate Life America creates artwork for National Donate Life Month that illustrates the power of donation. The 2017 National Donate Life Month (NDLM) art uses pinwheels to tell the donation story. Pinwheels capture and pass on energy. Each Donate Life pinwheel has four sails supported by one stem. The one stem symbolizes the power of one person to save and heal lives through donation. The four sails represent organ, eye, tissue and living donation, the four ways one person can save and heal more than 75 lives through organ, eye and tissue donation, and even save a life through the gift of living donation.
Pinwheels are also symbolic of transformation, turning obstacles into opportunities. The image of the pinwheel reminds us that we all have the potential power to save and heal lives. This April, we encourage you to watch the pinwheels transform the breeze into colorful motion, think of the lives touched by donation and transplantation and register to be a donor.
You can register your decision to be an organ, eye and tissue donor in the Medical ID tab of the iPhone Health app (iOS 10) or at RegisterMe.org. To learn more about being a living donor, please visit DonateLife.net.
Currently, 54 percent of the U.S. adult population are registered organ, eye and tissue donors. Yet the number of people in need of transplants continues to outpace the number of organs donated. More than 119,000* people are waiting for a transplant and a second chance at life. On average, 22 people die each day because the organ they need is not donated in time. That is almost one person dying every hour. Registering your decision to become a donor is the most effective way to save lives through donation and is a sign of support to those who continue to wait.
*Data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) as of January 9, 2017
About Mid-America Transplant
Mid-America Transplant enables adults and children to receive lifesaving gifts through organ and tissue donations. For more than 40 years, it has facilitated and coordinated organ and tissue donation, and now serves 84 counties covering eastern Missouri, southern Illinois and northeast Arkansas that together are home to 4.7 million people. It saves lives by providing expert and compassionate care for organ and tissue donors, recipients and families, and transforms the clinical processes required to recover and transplant organs and tissues. Mid-America Transplant was the first such organization in the U.S. to use an in-house operating room for organ recovery and pioneered innovative models of increasing donor registry enrollment to provide more organs and tissues to those in need. It is federally designated as one of 58 such organizations in the U.S., and is the first organ procurement organization to be recognized as a recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence.
About Donate Life America
Donate Life America is a 501(c)3 nonprofit alliance of national organizations and Donate Life State Teams across the United States committed to increasing the number of donated organs, eyes and tissue available for transplant to save and heal lives. Donate Life America manages and promotes the national brand for donation, Donate Life℠; develops and executes effective multi-media donor education programs; motivates the American public to register now as organ, eye and tissue donors; maintains the National Donate Life Registry, RegisterMe.org; and assists Donate Life State Teams and national partners in facilitating high-performing donor registration programs.