YSU joins effort to register organ donors

The goal is to get 35,000 new registrants in
Mahoning and Trumbull counties.

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State University has joined a statewide drive to get people to register as organ and tissue donors, but Dr. Jane Reid says, “It’s a tough sell.”

People are not always receptive to talking about something that can be perceived as “a grim reminder of your own death,” said Reid, director of the center for Nonprofit Leadership and a professor of marketing at YSU. She’s coordinating the YSU effort.

Youngstown is one of 13 Ohio colleges and universities that have joined the “Do It Now!” donor registration campaign.

The need is great. There are nearly 3,000 Ohioans waiting for a life-saving organ transplant now, and one Ohioan dies every other day waiting for a transplant, according to Donate Life Ohio.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued a national directive to increase the number of registered organ and tissue donors, and Ohio has been challenged to raise its registrations 20 percent by April 2008.

“A very close friend of mine needed a transplant a few years ago,” said Emily Betts of Youngstown, a YSU communications major and co-team leader of the university’s registration effort. “Thanks to the generosity of another, my friend is a walking reminder of the miracles that can happen when someone chooses to be an organ donor.”

“Participating in this project goes far beyond earning a letter grade. It is a way to give back and help out,” she said.

Reid said her public relations class kicked off the local effort last semester both on campus and in the community.

The group held three events on campus and set up at the Eastwood Mall Community Booth to try to enlist donors.

Reid said statistics show that 43,281 of the 195,991 Mahoning County residents over the age of 15 are registered donors. In Trumbull County, the number is 35,939 of 174,572 residents over 15, she said.

The goal is to get 35,000 new registrants between those two counties, but the first effort netted only 55 registrants, Reid said.

Reid said her marketing and research class conducted a campus and community survey to explore myths associated with organ donation, such as, “You can’t have an open casket if you are an organ donor” and “ Emergency personnel won’t work so hard to save you in an accident or injury situation if you are a donor.”

The class found that people don’t believe the myths, but getting them to register as donors is still difficult, Reid said.

“We’re going to continue it next semester,” she said, explaining that she will ask the American Humanics Student Association, for which she is the adviser, to pick up the ball. Students in that group are preparing for careers in the nonprofits field.

Reid said she would also like to partner with YSU’s Penguin Productions to help promote the registration drive, and students will be returning to the Eastwood Mall to continue their efforts there.

“The need for more registered donors is urgent when you consider that less than 1 percent of all hospital deaths meet the criteria for organ donation,” said Art Thompson, chairman of the Second Chance Trust Fund, which finances educational and action-oriented campaigns such as the Do It Now! program.

“People have the power to save the lives of up to eight people and heal up to 50 more through tissue donation. They just need to do it now and register,” he said.

gwin@vindy.com