Miss Ohio Outstanding Teen Scholarship Program - Miss Ohio's Outstanding Teen 2009 - Veronica Wende

Miss Ohio's Outstanding Teen 2009 - Veronica Wende is a registered Organ & Tissue Donor. She travels throughout Ohio and the United States promoting her platform of being an Organ & Tissue donor and she would like you to join her in this important life saving mission.

Why Donate? Some facts....

Nationally:

Every day 18 men, women, and children die while waiting for an organ transplant.
Every 10 minutes another person is added to the national waiting list for organ donation.
In the United States in 2009 there were 28,462 lives saved due to Organ and Tissue donation.
Unfortunately, 6,453 lives were lost in 2009 while waiting for a transplant in 2009.
More than 1 million people benefit from tissue transplants each year.
In 2009 there were 28,465 total Organ Transplants performed in the United States.
In May 2010 there are currently 107,397 patients waiting for an Organ Transplant.

In Ohio:

3,000 people are waiting for for transplants at any given time. 500 of them are in Central Ohio.
190 people died while waiting for for a transplant in 2009 or about 1 Ohioan every other day.
In 2009, 284 Ohioans were organ donors at their time of death. These 284 donors helped 945 other people receive a second chance at life.
1,835 Ohioans gave an improved quality of life to countless others through their tissue donation.

The Green Chair Campaign: "Do It Now!"

The Green Chair stands for the "Do It Now!" Organ & Tissue campaign.

What is the "Do It Now!" Campaign?

The Green Chair "Do It Now!" campaign is a statewide campaign to create excitement, build awareness and ultimately encourage Ohioans to join the Ohio Donor Registry as a new organ, eye and tissue donor. The theme Do It Now! was chosen to place emphasis on the urgency for individuals to register.The goal for the 2010 campaign is to add 240,000 new donors to the Ohio Donor Registry. Meeting this goal could potentially give life to nearly two million individuals.

Who Is Donate Life Ohio?

Donate Life Ohio is a coalition of the state’s organ, eye and tissue recovery agencies dedicated to educating Ohioans about the need for organ and tissue donation. In this effort to increase donor registrations, they are joined by the Ohio Department of Health, the Ohio Department of Public Safety and the Minority Organ and Tissue Transplant Education Program. For more information, please visit www.DonateLifeOhio.org.

Truths abouth organ, eye, and tissue donation.

Becoming a donor does NOT affect the level of medical care a person will receive in the case of a medical emergency. Furthermore, doctors working to save a person’s life are separate from the medical team involved in the transplant process.
Costs related to donation are not paid for by the donor’s family. The organ/tissue recovery agencies or the transplant center pay all costs related to the donation.
All major religions support organ and tissue donation as the ultimate act of charity.
People of all ages and medical histories should consider themselves as potential donors. Medical condition at the time of death will determine what organs and tissue can be donated.
A donor can have an open-casket funeral. Great care is taken to preserve the natural appearance of the donor following the recovery of organs, eyes or tissue.

So Why A Chair?

Because of the universal way it communicates family, personality, conversation and life. Most people can vividly picture mom or dad’s chair from childhood. Often we had to ask permission just to sit in one of them. And if someone in the family passed away, the loneliness of that empty chair could be overwhelming.

At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Archie and Edith Bunker’s chairs from the classic TV show “All in the Family” are enshrined in a glass display. Seeing the chair immediately recalls the characters and their personalities, just as it does in real life.

In essence, a favorite chair represents the comforts of home. Where we go to relax and unwind. To live. It is a fitting symbol of the purpose of Donate Life Ohio: to transform loss into new life; to bring hope and comfort to those in desperate need; and to stimulate conversation about organ, eye and tissue donation.

So, think of your favorite chair, or the chair of someone special in your life. When you see that chair, you can’t help but think of the person who usually sits in it.

This is the goal of the Donate Life Ohio Green Chair Campaign, to bring to mind the many different people affected by organ, eye and tissue donation. Recipients. Donor families. Those waiting for a transplant. And the families of those who died waiting.

The Green Chair is an invitation to anyone who has been touched by organ, eye and tissue donation to share their story. It is intended to be an icon of hope and encouragement, that as the number of registered donors increases, the fewer empty chairs there will be.

Don’t let another chair go empty. Register as an organ, eye and tissue donor today. Do It Now!