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Southern California Chapters Help Save Lives
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One organ donor can save up to eight lives; one tissue donor can enhance the lives of up to 50 others. However, every 13 minutes, a new name is added to the national waiting list. In partnership with Donate Life California, five Sigma Nu chapters in Southern California are helping coordinate donor registration drives and outreach programs to help change these statistics for this generation and generations to come.
Sigma Nu is the first fraternity to partner with a Donate Life campaign to bring awareness to college campuses and local communities. Donate Life California is a nonprofit Organ and Tissue Donor Registry dedicated to saving the lives of |
thousands of Californians awaiting life-saving transplants. Their mission is to serve as a voice and inspire all people to save and enhance lives through organ, eye and tissue donation.
This is what Vice Regent Tim Huerta says he likes most about the organization. "The big difference with Donate Life is that they aren’t looking for our chapters to raise money. They want the brothers to get involved in the cause and help get the word out," he shares. "They are providing our chapters with a fundamentally different approach to philanthropy with a national nonprofit."
Tim was especially pleased with the proposal that Donate Life California provided for a gathering of representatives from Southern California Sigma Nu chapters. It was a comprehensive public relations plan with suggestions about the types of activities chapter members could implement together or as individuals to help educate family, friends and their communities.
"In a high-density region like Los Angeles, we have the advantage of being able to pull a group of 7-8 chapters together for a meeting. Our Southern California chapters are already highly collaborative, and by leveraging our manpower several universities can be touched by the outreach efforts of our members,” says Tim.
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Since April is National Donate Life Month, a few of the chapters decided to implement awareness campaigns as part of other activities that were already scheduled during the month. For example, Sigma Nus at Cal State Fullerton staffed a booth for Donate Life at a big kick-off event to promote organ donation to the Greek community. During Greek Week, they put up a Donate Life booth next to the Sigma Nu booth, and brothers went around to other chapter booths with flyers and sign up information. The members have become knowledgeable about the facts of organ donation so that they can answer questions and speak intelligently about the cause.
Simera Nichols, Youth Education Coordinator for Donate Life California, says they are extremely pleased with the outpouring of support and enthusiasm from the chapters. "The gentlemen of Sigma Nu are providing |
tremendous support in spreading the message of organ/tissue donation in and around campus. At Cal State Fullerton, members attended pre-planning meetings, placed posters and signs around the campus and created a Facebook page for the Save-A-Life campaign event on April 7th, 2008. Several members also came out on April 7th to give away free pizza to students and talk to them about the importance of organ donation," says Simera.
Daniel Ott, Commander of the Fullerton chapter, said they wanted to get involved in this noble cause. "We’ve been looking for an organization to help us take our philanthropy to the next level. As long as there’s a need, we hope to continue to participate. All our chapters in Southern California are really trying to help out, and hopefully this can be a staging point for the National Fraternity to get involved as well,” he shares.
The five chapters involved with Donate Life California are: CSU Fullerton, CSU Los Angeles, CSU Northridge, CSU Pomona and UC Santa Barbara. Fullerton, Northridge and Pomona participated in activities during the month of April, while the other campuses will coordinate their events at other times during the academic year.
Until Donate Life, no official registry existed for those wanting to give consent to be an organ and/or tissue donor. Historically, signing a donor card and placing a pink dot on your driver’s license served as an important symbol of intent, but it did not list your name on any registry. Donate Life California serves California residents who wish to register their intent. California residents can get more information or register at: www.donatelifecalifornia.org.
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Residents of other states wishing to make their intent known can visit www.donatelife.net to access their state registry.
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