Are you an organ donor?

COMMERCIAL APPEAL | Erin Figg

Mid-South Transplant Foundation is joined by Memorial Park in hosting the annual Ride for Life, which will take place June 25 and aims to raise awareness of the need for organ and tissue donation in our community. It includes a 25 mile bicycle ride and a kids' fun ride with a post party catered by The Crepe Maker. For details visit midsouthtransplant.org. Pictured: Riders from the 2016 event.(Photo: Courtesy of Mid-South Transplant Foundation)

“Would you like to be an organ and tissue donor?”

Almost all of us hear some variation of this question when we’re getting or renewing our driver’s licenses. However, more than 60 percent of Tennessee drivers are shrugging it off – even though a recent Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) study found that 96 percent of the national respondents supported donating a deceased loved one’s organs and tissues if that person had expressed that wish before dying.

To increase awareness of the life-saving consequences of answering “yes” to that question, each year the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources designates Feb. 14 as National Donor Day. After all, what better date to remind people of their power to give the gift of life than on a day when most of us are celebrating love?

“When you say, ‘Yes, I want to be a donor,’ there is no greater love than to share a part of yourself with somebody and pass life on,” said Kim Van Frank, executive director of the Mid-South Transplant Foundation. “So the heart and Valentine’s Day has such a connection to what we do.” Continue reading

from Donate Life Organ and Tissue Donation Blog℠ http://ift.tt/2kYjnIJ