National Donate Life Month is a month-long observance throughout April, and we hope you’ll join us in celebrating this important time. NDLM, short for National Donate Life Month, is designed to help encourage Americans to register as organ, eye, and tissue donors and to celebrate those who have saved lives through the gift of donation.

There are many ways you can help celebrate NDLM and show support for donor heroes, their families and those awaiting a lifesaving gift.

Ten Ways to Celebrate Donate Life Month

1. Follow Mid-America Transplant. First and foremost, follow us! We are on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. When you like, comment and share our posts, your friends see them too. It’s an easy way to share how important National Donate Life Month is to you.

2. NDLM-Themed Social Media Cover Images and Profile Pictures. Visit Donate Life America’s National Donate Life Month webpage and download social media cover images and profile pictures to show your support of donation and transplantation. In the description of the image, include a link to SayYesGiveLife.org where your friends can join the registry.

3. What Donation and Transplantation Means to Me Post. Print the “Means to Me” sign and share a message of what donation and transplantation means to you.  Snap a picture of you holding the sign and post to social media with the hashtag #MidAmericaTransplant.

4. Share Your Story. We want to share at least one new story of a donor or recipient every day during National Donate Life Month! Do you have a personal connection to donation and/or transplantation? Share your story on our website by clicking here, and we may share it on our social media channels. You can inspire others to make a lifesaving, heroic decision to be an organ, eye and tissue donor.

5. Donate Life Rocks! We want to spread community awareness about donation and transplantation.  Put your creativity to work and decorate a rock with a donation and transplantation theme.  Add the hashtags #MidAmericaTransplant and #DonateLifeRocks.  Place your rock somewhere in the city for others to find.  Don’t forget to take a picture of your rock and post it to social media using both hashtags.    

6. Blue & Green Day is April 22nd. Dress up in your best blue and green outfit for Blue & Green Day on Friday, April 22. Blue and/or green shirt? Check! Blue and green shoes? Check! Blue and green hair accessory? Check! Blue and green nail polish? Check! If it’s blue and/or green, wear it! Post a photo to social media and include the hashtags #MidAmericaTransplant and #BlueGreenDay

7. National Pediatric Transplant Week begins on April 24th. Share the NDLM coloring sheet with the kids (or kids at heart) in your life.  If you would like to post your finished sheet to social media, use hashtags #MidAmericaTransplant and #KidsTransplantWeek. Use them to decorate your home or workplace.

8. TV Monitor Graphics.  Included in this toolkit are 1920 x 1080-pixel graphics for use on your in-office monitors.

9. Notes of Hope. Use the included blank note square template to create notes of hope to display in your workplace.

10. Have You Joined the Registry? And most important, if you haven’t done so yet, join the organ, eye and tissue donor registry by visiting SayYesGiveLife.org. More than 110,000 people are waiting for a lifesaving transplant. They are counting on us to raise awareness about organ, eye and tissue donation to give them a second chance at life.

Mid-America Transplant wishes you a happy National Donate Life Month!

Thank you for your support and your dedication to saving lives through organ, eye and tissue donation!

ST. LOUIS (April 23, 2021) – More patients waiting for and recovering from organ transplants will have a place to stay, thanks to a new, expanded Family House. Today, Mid-America Transplant’s Foundation broke ground for the new 34,000-square-foot building, located in St. Louis. Construction will begin in April and the new Family House is expected to open next March, replacing Mid-America Transplant’s existing Family House in the Highlands at Forest Park apartment complex.

“Many patients come to St. Louis for world-class medical care, but it can take months to receive and recover from a lifesaving transplant, and finding a comfortable, affordable long-term place to stay is a real challenge for families,” said Nesa Joseph, Foundation board chair at Mid-America Transplant. “At Family House, families can stay together during this period and focus on what matters most – the health and recovery of the patient.”

The new Family House will be in close proximity to St. Louis’ four major transplant centers: Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital and SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital.

The $10.5 million project will be completed entirely by local contractors, architects and designers. The new Family House will feature 21 apartments ranging from one to three bedrooms, and each will have a private kitchen, bathroom, and washer and dryer. Other amenities will include wireless internet, cable TV and a community room. The vibrant neighborhood also will provide patients and their families with access to restaurants and Forest Park attractions, including a free zoo and museums.

“Family House enabled us to live together as a family with Liam’s brothers – in fact, we brought our newborn son home to Family House,” said Laramy Gregory of Poplar Bluff, whose son Liam received a heart transplant at two-years-old. “It became not just a home but an extended family as we developed a close support system with the other transplant families.”

Mid-America Transplant opened its first Family House in 2013. Since then, an average of 40 patients and their families have stayed at the Family House each year, and the average length of stay is 94 days.

“The Family House is an important part of our mission to be stewards of our donors’ lifesaving gifts,” said Diane Brockmeier, president and CEO at Mid-America Transplant. “By helping to make transplants as successful as possible, our donors’ legacies live on.”

April also marks Donate Life month, a reminder to choose organ donation to provide lifesaving gifts to others. Register to be an organ donor at www.SayYesGiveLife.org.

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 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 in an effort to provide 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. For more information, visit www.midamericatransplant.org.

ST. LOUIS (April 28, 2021) – Today, St. Bernards Medical Center dedicated a new sculpture in memory of those who have donated lifesaving organs and tissue to patients in need. The sculpture, which features a boy raising a candle in remembrance, is a gift from Mid-America Transplant, the organ procurement organization that oversees donations in northeast Arkansas.

“Families that choose donation for their loved ones are making a heroic decision that truly saves someone’s life, and it often brings them a sense of peace knowing that their loved one’s legacy lives on,” said Diane Brockmeier, president and CEO at Mid-America Transplant. “This sculpture gives families and all those at St. Bernards an opportunity to honor their memory.”

The bas-relief sculpture—a sculpture technique where figures and other design elements slightly protrude from the flat background—was created by Don Wiegand, a world-renowned sculptor based in St. Louis. Wiegand’s artwork is on display in such notable locations as the Vatican, the White House, the J.F. Kennedy Library in Boston and the Museo de America in Spain, as well as in more than 500 private collections. His subjects include Winston Churchill, Pope Francis, George H.W. and Barbara Bush and Bob Hope. He also created the donor memorial located outside Mid-America Transplant’s headquarters in St. Louis.

A total of 84 individuals from the northeast Arkansas area became organ or tissue donors in 2020. Approximately half of those came from St. Bernards Medical Center.

“The greatest gift that we, as healthcare providers, can give is life and healing,” said Michael Givens, St. Bernards Medical Center Administrator. “Sometimes that gift relies upon the sacrificial kindness of organ and tissue donors, and this memorial reminds us all of their selfless donations. Lastly, for the families who have helped us with this process, we pray it honors their loved ones, serving as an open space where they can heal, too.”

Visitors can see the memorial in the Prayer Garden at St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro, adjacent to the Chapel and Emergency Department.

April marks Donate Life month, a reminder to choose organ donation to provide lifesaving gifts to others. Register to be a donor at SayYesGiveLife.org

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 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 in an effort to provide 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. For more information, visit www.midamericatransplant.org.

About St. Bernards Healthcare

St. Bernards Healthcare, a non-profit healthcare system based in Northeast Arkansas, serves as the corporate parent of a number of healthcare entities, including the largest hospital in the region, St. Bernards Medical Center, a 440-bed acute care hospital that serves as a regional referral center for 23 counties in Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri. It is the only Level III Trauma Center in the region, houses the only Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in the eastern part of Arkansas and has served as the trusted provider of comprehensive, compassionate healthcare services for more than 120 years. For more information, please visit stbernards.info or call the St. Bernards Healthline at 870.207.7300.

Each year, Donate Life America (DLA) along with Mid-America Transplant take time in September to recognize the vital role our license offices and DMVs play in helping save and heal lives. DMV staff are front-line champions, committed to asking the donor registration question to customers every day.

Partnerships with DMVs remain the primary source of state donor registrations. More than 90% of individuals surveyed across the country stated that they registered their donation decision through their local DMV (1). License office workers are the people on the front lines of service who have helped 160 million people across the country to register their decision to be a deceased organ, eye and tissue donor (2).

The work of DMVs across the country enables more lifesaving transplants to be performed every year. An increase in donation education and donor registrations have helped drive an increase in the number of lives saved through organ donation and transplantation each year for the past seven years (3).

During the third full week of September, the Donate Life Community will be celebrating this lifesaving partnership through education and outreach to thank DMV staff and leadership across the country. While this is a week-long celebration, Mid-America Transplant will be visiting local license offices to thank them for their commitment to saving lives throughout the entire month of September.

To register your decision to be an organ, eye and tissue donor, please visit your local DMV or driver license partner office in-person or online. You can also register online in the National Donate Life Registry at RegisterMe.org or in your iPhone Health App. To learn more about the DLA DMV partnership and National DMV Appreciation Month, please visit DonateLife.net/DMV.

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About Donate Life America (DLA)
Donate Life America (DLA) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization leading its national partners and Donate Life State Teams to increase the number of donated organs, eyes and tissues available to save and heal lives. DLA manages and promotes Donate Life℠, the national brand for the cause of donation; motivates the public to register as organ, eye and tissue donors; provides education about living donation; manages the National Donate Life Registry at RegisterMe.org; and develops and executes effective multi-media campaigns to promote donation.

1 National Survey of Organ Donation Attitudes and Practices, 2019, Report of Findings, Published February 2020, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Healthcare Systems Bureau, Division of Transplantation.

2 Donate Life America Registry Overview Reports (ROR), Year End 2019 Report, Donate Life America

3 Letter from the Secretary of Health and Human Services. (2020). National DMV Appreciation Month Letter. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

A diverse panel of experts, community leaders, and transplant recipients provided insight into the impact and importance of organ and tissue donation and transplantation Saturday during a Facebook Live Townhall sponsored by Mid-America Transplant. Hosted by Illinois State Senator Chris Belt and Illinois State Representative Latoya Greenwood, the event was designed to bring heightened awareness to donation and transplants in multicultural communities as part of National Minority Donor Awareness Month.

Click the image below to watch the Townhall.

Panelists for the event included:

• Sen. Belt, D-Centreville, the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus chair for the Illinois State Senate, who shared his personal testimony as a kidney recipient through Barnes-Jewish Hospital;
• Rep. Greenwood, D-East St. Louis, who spoke about the role of legislators in ensuring education and resources are available to the community;
• Dr. Will Ross, Professor of Medicine, Division of Nephrology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, who spoke about the challenges to donation in multicultural communities and the disproportionate need for transplants in multicultural communities;
• Dr. Henry Randall, Division Chief, Surgical Director, SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital’s Abdominal Transplant Center, who shared about the importance of donation and myths about donation held by multicultural communities;  
• Pastor Ron A. Young of the Impact Church St. Louis, headquartered in East St. Louis; who provided a spiritual perspective on organ and tissue donation;  
• Nikki Love-McIntyre, a volunteer with Mid-America Transplant, who told her personal testimony as a kidney and pancreas recipient though SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital;
• Connie Boatman, Director of Organ/Tissue Donor Program, Life Goes On, for the Office of the Illinois Secretary of State, who shared statistics about donation in multicultural communities and programs offered through the program to increase education and registrations. 

National Minority Donor Awareness Month, observed during the month of August, is a collaborative initiative of the National Organ, Eye and Tissue Donation Multicultural Action Group to save and improve the quality of life of diverse communities by creating a positive culture for organ donation.

While organs are not matched according to race/ethnicity, and often people from different race/ethnicities are matched with one another, organ recipients will fare better in receiving a match from someone with the same race/ethnicity as them and having this option is important for their survival. Minority donor awareness is critical because compatible blood types and tissue markers—critical qualities for donor/recipient matching—are more likely to be found among members of the same ethnicity or race.

Mid-America Transplant proudly sponsored the virtual event to raise awareness for organ and tissue donation in support of more than 1,000 people in the region waiting for a lifesaving transplant. Nearly 40 percent of the wait list in the St. Louis region consists of patients of multicultural backgrounds.

The virtual event was part of Mid-America Transplant’s continued commitment to educating the community about organ and tissue donation. Register your decision to be an organ and tissue donor today!

About Mid-America Transplant
For 45 years, Mid-America Transplant 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 donors, donor families, and recipients. Through innovation and process improvements, the organization transformed the clinical processes to recover and transplant organs and tissues. Mid-America Transplant is federally designated as one of 58 such organizations in the U.S., and is the first organ and tissue procurement organization to be recognized as a recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence. For more information, visit www.midamericatransplant.org.

License offices are an important part of the organ and tissue donation process with more than 98 percent of those on the organ and tissue donor registry joining at their local DMV. Because registry enrollment is so important in the donation process, Mid-America Transplant is committed to supporting DMVs throughout our region.

Working with license office managers across the service area this summer, Mid-America Transplant has provided 46 free plexiglass partitions to protect essential workers in the DMV community. Mid-America Transplant plans to install 75 more partitions in the near future. License offices also have the option to apply partition decals encouraging community members to register to be a donor. 

In addition, as DMVs have moved lines outside for social distancing purposes, Mid-America Transplant volunteers have showed up to provide cold water and donation information on hot summer days. The water provides respite as the customer waits, and volunteers take a moment to share their story and encourage guests to considering joining the registry.

Mercy Hospital Jefferson raised a Donate Life flag Tuesday morning to honor heroic organ and tissue donors after a ceremony to bless the new flagpole. The flagpole was donated by Mid-America Transplant.

“Today, we’re blessed to raise another meaningful flag at Mercy Jefferson, the Donate Life flag,” Mercy Hospital Jefferson President Eric Ammons told a crowd at the flagpole. “This flag represents not only those from Mid-America Transplant who provide such a valuable service to us, but also those heroes and their families who made a very difficult but beautiful choice to Donate Life and joy, often in the most adverse circumstances.”

Two organ donors from Mercy Hospital Jefferson have saved the lives of two people so far in 2020.

“We hope this will be a reminder each time a family sees this flag that their loved one is a hero,” said Kevin Lee, Chief Organ Operations Officer at Mid-America Transplant.

Tuesday’s ceremony included the song “Unintentional Hero,” played by Teresa Stamey who is a Music Therapist at Mercy Home Health & Hospice.

National Minority Donor Awareness Month is a collaborative effort by the National Organ, Eye and Tissue Donation Multicultural Action Group to save and improve the quality of life of diverse communities by creating a positive culture for organ, eye, and tissue donation. National Minority Donor Awareness Month, which will be celebrated for the first time as a month-long observance this August, stems from National Minority Donor Awareness Week, founded in 1996 by the National Minority Organ Tissue Transplant Education Program (MOTTEP), to bring heightened awareness to donation and transplantation in minority communities.

Our voices are united to address the number one problem in transplantation: the gap between the demand for organ transplants and supply of donated organs. The waiting list currently stands at more than 100,000 with more than 60% representing racial and ethnic minorities. Even though a record number of nearly 40,000 people, including more than 18,000 racial and ethnic minorities, received the gift of life in 2019, the gap remains staggeringly high. On average, 20 people die every day waiting for a transplant.1 

In the St. Louis region, more than 1,000 people are waiting for a lifesaving transplant, with more than 38% representing racial and ethnic minorities. Locally, 761 lifesaving organs were made available for transplant in 2019 from 271 heroic organ donors.

The need for donation and transplant is more pronounced in multicultural communities where disproportionately higher rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease contribute to organ failure, especially kidney failure. African Americans are three times more likely than White Americans to have kidney failure. Hispanics are 1.5 times more likely than non-Hispanics to have kidney failure.2

On average, African American/Black transplant candidates wait longer than White transplant candidates for kidney, heart and lung transplants.3 These healthcare disparities are part of the need for National Minority Donor Awareness Month education and outreach to help heal and save lives in our communities. 

During National Minority Donor Awareness Month, organ and tissue donation organizations like Mid-America Transplant will highlight the need for more organ, eye and tissue donors within multicultural communities, provide donation education, encourage donor registration, and promote healthy living and disease prevention to decrease the need for transplantation. National Minority Donor Awareness Month is another important effort to promote the positive messages that are necessary for minority communities to make the decision for organ, eye and tissue donation.

National Multicultural Action Group partners consist of the Association for Multicultural Affairs in Transplantation (AMAT), Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO), Donate Life America (DLA), National Minority Organ Tissue Transplant Education Program (MOTTEP) and National Kidney Foundation (NKF). A toolkit to promote National Minority Donor Awareness Month is available for download at DonateLife.net.

About Mid-America Transplant
For 45 years, Mid-America Transplant 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 donors, donor families, and recipients, and transforms the clinical processes required to recover and transplant organs and tissues. Mid-America Transplant is federally designated as one of 58 such organizations in the U.S. and is the first organ and tissue procurement organization to be recognized as a recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence. For more information, visit www.midamericatransplant.org. 

(Notes: 1 Data from Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) data as of July 2020, https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/; 2 National Kidney Foundation, as July 21, 2020, kidney.org ; 3 SRTR Risk Adjustment Model Documentation: Waiting List Models, as of July 21, 2020, https://www.srtr.org/reports-tools/waiting-list/)

We are excited to announce the Celebrate Life 5K Run/Walk on October 11th will be VIRTUAL! While we sadly can’t be together in-person, we are creating new ways to honor your loved one and share the importance of donation and transplantation through this virtual event.

What does this mean? It means we will come together online, from near and far, to honor all organ and tissue donors, celebrate new life with recipients, support those waiting for a lifesaving transplant, and inspire others to say “Yes” to donation.

With your participation in the virtual Celebrate Life 5K Run/Walk - by running or walking in your neighborhood or local park and with the reach of social media - we can share the powerful, lifesaving message with even more people.

Together, we will honor donors and save lives.

Mandy Young was conducting a telemental health session with a longtime client grieving the death of a spouse. Mandy had many in-person sessions with the client at the NEA Baptist Center for Good Grief before the COVID-19 pandemic and heard many stories of the client’s spouse.

During this teletherapy grief session, the client was able to show the flowers he and his spouse planted together. He showed quilts she had made, and pictures from trips. For Mandy, it was a glimpse into the new possibilities telemental health services could provide her clients.

During her team’s winter planning sessions, they brainstormed ideas on reaching those who couldn’t attend in-person sessions because of injury, disability, or because the client lived too far away. Supported by a grant from the Mid-America Transplant Foundation, the NEA Baptist Center for Good Grief planned on introducing telemental health services in January of 2021. They expected to take 2020 to plan and develop a program, train staff, and build the infrastructure needs to accommodate remote therapy sessions.

Then, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived. “Things started shutting down,” Mandy said. “We weren’t allowed to have people in our building, so we decided to just jump in and start immediately. We wanted to still see our clients.”

The Mid-America Transplant Foundation proudly awarded a grant for this program as part of its ongoing commitment to support donor families through the availability of grief counseling services throughout the region.

Startling Numbers

The NEA Baptist Center for Good Grief has served more than 415 people since 2017. In 2019 alone, the Center provided more than 1,200 individual grief sessions to 237 individuals. Many of their clients are children.

According to the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model, 1 in 11 Arkansas children will experience the death of a parent or sibling before the age of 18. That ranks 11th in the United States. In Missouri, 1 in 12 children will experience the death of a parent or sibling by age 18, and according to Mandy, the Missouri counties bordering Arkansas are rated higher.  “These are pretty startling numbers,” Mandy said.

Adapting telemental health sessions for children has required additional innovation. “A lot of children therapy is play based,” Mandy said. “We get very creative with that now.” The team continues to use play-based therapy, while working with families to ensure they have necessary materials, such as paper, crayons or markers, and glue.

“For our younger generation, telemental health session may be more predictive,” Mandy said. “There’s some sort of security behind a screen. They almost tell us more.”

‘Things are changing’

Telemental health sessions have created new challenges too. Many of a counselors’ tools are in the office and not compatible with video conferencing. In addition, body language and non-verbal ques are important in evaluating a situation.  “If there’s nervousness, we can’t see a foot or leg shaking,” Mandy said. “Some of our kids and teens, they don’t even like their face to be in the camera.”

It also limits personal interactions. “Many of our clients cry and share with us,” Mandy said. “They hug us. They’re used to physical touch of even a handshake or pat on the back. But in our world, those things are changing.”

Reaching More People

Overall, Mandy is excited about the development of the telemental health program, and the prospect of reaching more people with these important grief services.  “I think of all those people who are grieving a loved one or a friend,” she said. “I can’t wait to see where this goes.”

Click here to learn more about the NEA Baptist Center for Good Grief.