Media Fact Sheet

Newsroom | Events | Press Releases

UPCOMING EVENTS:

January: Rose Parade - Donate Life Float
The 2006 Donate Life Rose Parade float, themed Life Transformed, will mark the third appearance of organ donors, donor family members and transplant recipients in America’s New Year Celebration.®

January: National Volunteer Blood Donor Month
A time to highlight the importance of giving life through the donation of blood and to honor past and present donors and encourage new ones. The theme, Give Blood... The Gift of Life, is as constant as the need for blood. Give Thanks! Give Twice! Give Blood.

February 14: National Donor Day
Focused on the Five Points of Life: organs, tissue, marrow, platelets, and blood donation. Saturn dealerships and United Auto Worker partners sponsor blood, marrow, and organ donor drives.

April: National Donate Life Month
Organ procurement organizations, transplant centers, and other organizations sponsor special awareness events and donor recognition ceremonies to promote donation awareness. National Donate Life Month is proclamaimed by the President of the United States.

June: U.S. Transplant Games
(Alternating even-numbered years)
Olympic-style athletic events for transplant recipients celebrate the life-enabling gifts given by organ and tissue donors. Organized by the National Kidney Foundation. Medals are awarded to recipient winners, and to living donors and donor family members at separate recognition ceremonies. The Transplant Games illustrate that transplantation works to extend and enhance life.

July: National Donor Recognition Workshop & Ceremony
(Alternating odd-numbered years)
Donors and their families from across the country are honored in the nation's Capitol by the Federal government and the transplant community for giving the Gift of Life. Includes Saturday workshops and a donor recognition ceremony on Sunday.

August 1: National Minority Donor Awareness Day
Intensive awareness campaign focuses on obstacles related to minorities and donation, promotes healthy living and disease prevention to decrease the need for transplantation and reaches out to all ethnic groups. Observances have included prayer breakfasts, health walks, and donor drives.

November: National Marrow Awareness Month
A special nationwide effort to recruit volunteer marrow, blood stem cell, and umbilical cord blood donors and to increase patient awareness of the option of unrelated transplantation. More marrow donation information:

November/December: Give Thanks, Give Life
Theme of a national program intended to bring the life-saving issue of organ and tissue donation into the holiday season - the season of giving. National Donor Sabbath, which is traditionally celebrated two weeks before Thanksgiving, kicks off the season by using houses of worship to not only remind Americans of the critical need for organ and tissue donation, but also to instruct them in the best manner to commit to donation.