Gift of Life Campus Challenge

Pull out your “Bucket List.”  What’s on it?  Run a marathon?  Travel the world?  Start a successful business?  Become a CEO / CFO? 

Become an Organ Donor Today!

For a passionate group of students, saving a life is not only on the list, but also an item that can be checked off as accomplished.  These students have become organ donors and starting from January 16th  until February 27th will be encouraging other students, family, and friends to do the same.

Business school students, the School of Business Student Senate, Beta Gamma Sigma, and the Global Supply Chain Management Association (GSCMA) will be partnering with other student organizations and volunteers to register organ donors as part of the annual Gift of Life Campus Challenge. 

The challenge runs until February 27th and is a competition between the colleges and universities in Michigan to see who can register the most organ donors.  Wayne State has won the campus challenge each of the last two years, registering almost 2,000 donors. Students will be reaching out to all their connections and asking them to register for organ donors.  In addition to creating Public Service Announcements and tweeting, posting, and hash-tagging, students will be manning tables throughout campus registering donors and raising awareness about organ donation. 

Let’s take a minute and think about why these students are getting involved in the campaign.  Failing organs do not discriminate: it is a problem that affects people young and old, rich and poor, and knows no race boundaries.  For this reason, the need for organ donors grows every day. On any given day, an average of 18 people die waiting for a life saving transplant.

Here are some facts everybody should know in considering registration:

• One organ donor can save up to 8 lives. Tissue donation can improve the lives of many others.
• You need the “Donor” sticker on your license for your desires to be official. Just writing on the back of your license is not enough.
• Anyone can be a donor. Even if you have a medical condition, one or more of your organs may be viable for donation.
• The need for organ donors is constantly growing. The national waiting list is close to 120,000 and as of January 1, Michigan has a list of over 3,000.
• Registration is free and easy.

These are just a few of the facts to consider. Please follow this link -- http://www.giftoflifemichigan.org/become-donor?tag=waynestate -- and by filling out a few blanks, you will be registered and give Wayne State University credit for the Campus Challenge contest. Visit the site to get answer to any questions you may have about organ donation.

The choice to register is, ultimately, a personal decision, but for the next few weeks students from many organizations will be encouraging others to add their names to the National Organ Donor Registry.

Consider putting this simple task on your bucket list.  Once you register as a donor, you will then be able to cross “Save a life” off of your list—and you won’t even need a medical degree to do it!

WSU Gift of Life is being supported by the Global Supply Chain Management Association, the School of Business Student Senate and Beta Gamma Sigma. 

These pictures are of WSU students from the GSCMA and Student Senate taken on BOSS (Business Organizations and Student Services) Day. 

(All accolades for this tremendous blog post are for Lauren Olson who is the author and content creator.)