At any university, the topic of donors comes up frequently.
There are two schools at ASU bearing the Fulton name after Ira and Mary Lou Fulton who have generously donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the University. According to the ASU Foundation’s 2008 annual report, gifts to ASU in 2007-2008 reached more than $120.5 million from individuals, businesses and private foundations.
Without them, the school would cease to exist and the quality of education doled out to students by ASU would be severely damaged.
However, with all due respect to those who invest in our future, there is a much more important form of donation taking place on campus this month — one that we can all be a part of without giving up a single dollar.
Through the generosity of living and deceased organ donors, thousands upon thousands of lives have been saved.
Between Jan. 1, 1988 and Dec. 31, 2008, there were 449,852 organ transplants performed nationwide, according to numbers from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) and 6,507 of those were performed in Arizona alone.
As of last week, there were 109,294 Americans on waiting lists for an organ — be it a kidney, liver, pancreas, heart, lung or intestine — that will save their lives. OPTN estimates 1,796 Arizonans were listed among the waiting.
Lately, the topic of organ donation has been in the news after actress Natasha Richardson — a film and stage star and the wife of actor Liam Neeson — tragically passed away on March 18 after sustaining a head injury. According to People magazine, Richardson’s family requested that her organs be donated.
Beyond the tabloids and mainstream media, stories arise every day about people saving lives — family members, friends, neighbors and strangers — through this precious gift.
On Wednesday, members of the Donor Devils organization tabled in front of the Tempe campus Memorial Union to drum up support within the ASU community for April’s Donate Life Month and to kick off the Donate Life Campus Challenge sponsored by the Donor Network of Arizona. Overall, the goal is to produce many new Sun Devil organ donors this month.
While we often find people hawking Cause A or Cause B to captive students walking around campus — perhaps so much as to write an editorial one week ago listing creative solutions for avoiding their aggressive “do you have a moment?” pleas — this one stands out at us as one we can get behind.
While there are obviously pros and cons to organ donation, as there would be in any situation, the best effects are stacked heavily toward the “pro” side. After all, what reward is better than knowing you gave someone another shot at life?
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, an average of 18 people die every day in this country because there are not enough organs available to the thousands of people on waiting lists.
This month, ASU can help fight that problem. There are more than 67,000 students and more than 12,000 employees within our behemoth of a university — and a small percentage of those approximately 79,000 people taking action is all it takes to make a large difference.
