Right now, there are 117,729 Americans waiting for life-saving organ transplants, including nearly 2,000 Missourians. Approximately 46,000 Americans will require a cornea transplant this year, and more than 1 million Americans will receive a tissue transplant. During National Donate Life Month this April, you can help  spread the word about eye, organ, and tissue donation and sign up for the donor registry.

Register
The most important thing you can do to make your own wishes known, after speaking with your family, is signing up on your state’s donor registry. By doing so, you make a public declaration of your intention to donate, which will make it that much easier on your family to fulfill your wishes. You can sign up at the Donate Life America website or your local Department of Motor Vehicles office, and information about each state registry in Heartland Lions Eye Banks’ three-state
service area can be found here:

• Donate Life Missouri
• Donate Life Kansas
• Donate Life Illinois

Share

National Donate Life Month is an excellent opportunity to speak with your family, coworkers, and friends about donation. If you’re reading this, chances are you already support donation. In order to save more lives, it’s important that we reach out in our communities to connect with people who are not yet registered to donate. You can share the registry information above to help them sign up. Other valuable information about the need for donation and the donation process can be found at these web pages:

• Saving Sight – About Eye Donation
• Donate Life America – Learn the Facts
• United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) website

Connect
Finally, social media is a popular and convenient way to share news and ideas. Donate Life America has created profile picture avatars and timeline covers for Facebook that you can access here. You can upload these images to your personal profile in order to share the Donate Life message. And when you do, be sure to write a post explaining why you support donation and encourage your friends to do the same.

Celebrate
When we all work together to share the message of donation, more lives will be saved. Get involved for National Donate Life Month:

• Find a Celebrate Life event near you by visiting our calendar.
• Wear blue and green on National Blue & Green Day on Friday, April 19 and tell others about the donor registry.
• See what our participating bloggers are doing for Donate Life Missouri’s second annual Blue & Green Day Fashion Show.

Meet Jasmine. She works in the Donor Services Center at the Columbia, MO office. As a Family Services Coordinator, she offers donor families support and information during the eye donation process. Working with so many donor families has inspired her to take control of her health and pursue her dreams of travel. Later this spring, she’s going on a trip — a cross-country cycling trip from New York City to San Diego, to be exact. Jasmine decided to undertake the journey as “a full transformation, physically, emotionally, and spiritually,” one impressive goal of which will be 90 pounds of weight loss. “My education has been interrupted this semester due to weight gain and health issues stemming from that,” Jasmine said. “So there is no time like now to heal my body through exercise, better eating, and fulfilling my dream to cycle through the United States.”

Jasmine chose cycling because it’s her favorite kind of exercise, and she chose a cross-country trek as her goal because she’s had the opportunity to see the vast American countryside before. “When I was 17, I took a cross-country train ride from California to New York, and the scenery of America really touched my heart,” she said. Her dog will accompany her in a Cycletote trailer, and while on the road, she’ll camp, visit cities along her route, and stay with friends.

While Jasmine’s trip will certainly have long-term positive effects on her own well-being, Jasmine plans to use the journey to raise money and awareness for the causes near and dear to her heart. “As an employee for the Missouri Lions Eye Research Foundation, I have come to love the mission and philosophy of our group. Not many people know about eye donation,” Jasmine said. “And not just donation, but other programs the Foundation offers deserve to be known. I would love to be one of many people helping to spread [awareness about the importance of vision health].” Jasmine is working to raise $10,000 in donations
and will donate half of that to support Heartland Lions Eye Banks and the Foundation’s other sight-saving programs.

As a violinist, she will also be raising awareness about the importance of music education in schools by visiting schools, hospices, nursing homes, and other places. In fact, she will be bringing her violin with her in order to play street performances along the way to raise proceeds for the Foundation. About departing from her role in the Donor Services Center, she remarked “I am most definitely sad to leave the DSC, but I hope to stay connected with the organization throughout my travels and be of some service either through raising funds or spreading awareness.”

Jasmine will depart from New York on April 15. With plans to bike 50-70 miles per day along a route established by Adventure Cycling Association, she plans to reach her family in San Diego by July 15. “If I thought the country looked gorgeous from the seat of a train, I can only imagine what it’ll look like on the cycling trails,” Jasmine said. “I’ll be able to stop, take pictures, walk around and breathe in the fresh air.” The staff of Heartland Lions Eye Banks and the Missouri Lions Eye Research Foundation will be sad to see her leave, but they wish her safe travels and an amazing journey.

To learn more about Jasmine’s trip and donate to her cause, visit her fundraising website. You can also keep up with her pre-departure training schedule online, and she will be making regular updates on the progress of her travels on her Facebook page.

Update (3/21/13): Jasmine’s website is now available at http://fifijabam.com. There you can keep up with news from her travels, make a donation to her cause, and subscribe to her blog.