While most of us go through our daily lives thinking little about our health or our futures, there are more than one hundred thousand people in the US right now who are clinging to life and wondering if they will ever have a future.
With anxious loved ones by their sides, they are in hospitals, in homes, in wheelchairs, and in beds. These warriors fight to survive, praying that their opportunity to get a second chance at life will come soon, before it’s too late. Every eight minutes, another person is added to the Organ Transplant List, and each day fifteen potential recipients die because their bodies cannot hold out anymore. Last year forty-nine thousand donations were made as The Gift of Life was given, yet fifty-six hundred people died, waiting for a gift that didn’t come.
One organ donor can save up to eight lives with their primary organs, they can give the gift of sight to two people through cornea transplantation, and they can help seventy-five more through tissue donation. When we were notified that Hannah’s life was ending, we realized that it was our responsibility to help keep other families from losing their loved ones. We recognized that we were giving up something that we could not keep anyway.
We at Hannah Helps support and spread awareness of organ donation through 1. Sharing Hannah’s Story: This gives us a very unique, powerful, and personal way in which to share both the reasons for our decision and also the healing that it has helped bring to us and to our recipients.
2. Advocacy: We spread awareness of organ donation related information through personal interactions, public speaking, and social media.
3. Partnerships: We are able to work with organ donation organizations to help spread awareness and support for the necessity of organ donation. Hannah’s Story and Organ Donation are about giving The Gift of Life.