Grandview will hold a flag-raising ceremony to promote organ, eye, and tissue donations on Thursday, April 16, at 12:30 p.m. in the hospital’s Ohio University Auditorium, 405 West Grand Avenue in Dayton.
The ceremony will celebrate organ, eye and tissue donations as the gift of life. Deborah Letlow, a kidney recipient, will talk about how organ donation saved her life. She will sit in the Donate Life Ohio Green Chair, which serves as a reminder of the many different people affected by organ, eye and tissue donation. They include recipients, donor families, those waiting for a transplant, and the families of those who died waiting.
The ceremony will then move outside where the Donate Life flag will be raised.
Life Connection of Ohio is an independent, non-profit organization that has promoted and facilitated organ donation in northwest and west central Ohio for 25 years. More than 123,000 people are waiting for life-saving organ transplants in the United States, including 3,200 Ohioans. Those waiting would more than fill the Ohio State University football stadium. Twenty-one people die every day because the need for organs far outweighs the supply. More than 28,000 people’s lives are saved through organ donation every year. And more than one million people benefit from tissue transplants annually.
Fort Hamilton held a Donate Life ceremony on April 13. Southview will hold on on April 21, at 10:30 a.m. in the cafeteria classroom.