University of Maryland Shore Regional Health joins The Living Legacy Foundation (The LLF) in dedicating a rose for the 2020 Donate Life Rose Parade Float to honor the patients and their families who have given the gifts of life and hope as organ, eye, or tissue donors. The rose dedicated by UM SRH President and CEO Ken Kozel will accompany several others dedicated by The LLF as part of the Donate Life Float in the 2020 Tournament of Roses® Rose Bowl Parade. The parade will take place in Pasadena, Calif., on New Year’s Day with the theme “Light in the Darkness.”
Rose dedications enable hospitals to express their support and gratitude for those who have given the gift of life and also thank their staff, who make that gift possible by facilitating organ donations. The float will highlight the power of unity, light and love through organ, eye and tissue donation, and the many lives touched by donation. As the world’s most visible campaign to inspire organ, eye and tissue donation, The Donate Life Rose Parade® float inspires viewers to help the more than one million people nationally who are in need of organ, eye or tissue transplants each year.
L-R: Chris Wright, in-house Eastern Shore coordinator for the Living Legacy Foundation of Maryland, and Ken Kozel, president and CEO, UM SRH
UM SRH is passionate about saving lives. Each April, National Donate Life Month, the health care system joins The Living Legacy Foundation of Maryland in honoring patients and families who made the gift of life possible for others through eye, organ and tissue donation.
During the past 30 years, UM Shore Regional Health has facilitated 40 organ donations and 133 tissue donations.
Additionally, hospital staff in Cambridge, Chestertown and Easton all honor organ donors and their families through “Walks of Respect” and a unique local program, Quilts of Honor, which provides special quilts, created and donated by local quilting guild, Peggy’s Quilters, as gifts to families of organ donors.
A moving tribute that a patient’s family may elect, the Walk of Respect is provides honor and gratitude to a donor as he or she is making the final journey in the hospital. Hospital staff members line up to show their silent respect for a difficult decision as the patient passes by on the way to the operating room.
“It is a very moving reminder of our mission, purpose and calling,” Kozel says. “I am so moved by the power of what I witness during these Walks of Respect — the compassion, care, respect and the shared bonds between the patient, family and staff.”
The Quilts of Honor program began as an idea in fall 2018 and was implemented early this past spring by Shore Regional Health senior leadership and Peggy’s Quilters, a quilting group from Centreville that provided SRH with 12 quilts to give to organ donor patients and families in 2019.
Owned by Peggy Patterson, Peggy’s Quilters, a group of about 20 women who get together once a month to quilt at Peggy’s Quilting Center in Centreville. The group makes quilts and pillowcases for a number of charitable organizations, including those that provide health care to veterans in military hospitals. They also provide blankets for children in local hospitals through Project Linus, pillowcases filled with needed items for families who have lost their homes to fire or have been victims of crime, blankets for hospice patients and quilts for patients undergoing treatment at the Cancer Center in Easton.
From left are UM Intensive Care Unit staff nurse Patty Tindall, ICU Nurse Manager Alicia Fuchs, ICU staff nurse Dionne Walker, ICU Clinical Nurse Coordinator Jessica Caraker and ICU staff nurse Mary Anne Luschinski.
“Giving and charity is a big part of what quilters do,” says Shirley Seward, a member of Peggy’s Quilters member and family nurse practitioner with UM Shore Medical Group-Primary Care at Easton.. “Taking care of others and ‘wrapping around’ someone in need is important to us. When we found out about the Walk of Respect, we jumped at the chance to be a part of this unique tribute through the Quilts of Honor program.”
“We have been touched to see the beautiful work Peggy’s Quilters have done for those patients and families who have chosen to be organ donors at the end of life, helping others to have a second chance at life,” Kozel says. “Peggy’s Quilters has enabled us to provide a very tangible gift in memory and honor of a patient, which helps us share our gratitude and support with the family.”
The Living Legacy Foundation collaborates and facilitates donation and transplantation in area hospitals, provides support to donor families and educates Marylanders about the life-saving power of donation.
“Local donors save local lives,” Kozel says. “In Maryland, there are 3,353 people on the transplant waiting list. A single organ donor can save up to eight people and a single tissue donor may enhance the lives of up to 75 people. Of the 170,000 people we serve in our five-county community, an amazing 92,688 are registered as eye, organ and tissue donors. That’s just incredible. ”
“At Shore Regional Health, we are committed to patients from birth to death, and also to those who make the renewal of life possible for others,” Kozel says. “We support and stand behind the families and loved ones of these patients who have selflessly donated life so that others may have a second chance at it.”
Now in its 17th year, the Donate Life Rose Parade Float is the centerpiece of a national effort to reach a broad audience with the simple, life-giving message that organ, eye and tissue donation saves and heals lives. Nationally, 113, 222 people are in need of a life-saving transplant. Register today to become an organ, eye or tissue donor by visiting DonateLife.net.
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.