My personal campaign to bring some more awareness around organ donation was motivated by the tragic loss of the Humboldt Bronco’s hockey team, one of whom was an organ donor himself. A few days prior to the tragedy, I had also seen some beautiful work around the cause from a National Geographic photographer/editor, David Y. Lee, through his Instagram page, and TheWaitingList.org.
And with National Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Week (NOTDAW) just a few days away, I realized that I didn’t have a minute to spare, so I decided to roll up my sleeves to try and find a few authentic stories around organ donation.
With the help and support of Canadian Blood Services, The BC transplant Society and The David Foster Foundation, I was able to find and capture five powerful stories to share on my social channels, as well as the local media (which included Victoria’s Times Colonist, CBC radio, Victoria Buzz and YAM Magazine).
Within a few days of the awareness campaign, I was pleasantly surprised to read that almost 100,000 Canadians registered to be organ donors within days of the Humboldt Bronco’s tragedy. To give some perspective on what an achievement this was for the cause, a province as big as Ontario (with 13.6 million residents) there are typically 42 online organ donation registrations a day. But since the tragedy, that number had exploded to almost 800 registrations per day!
It’s that kind of response that has made my small contribution to the cause that much more rewarding, and I’m very proud to be a part of it.
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And here’s just one of five stories that was shared for NOTDAW.