Today@Sam Article

Event To Celebrate, Raise Awareness For Gift Of Donating

Oct. 25, 2016
SHSU Media Contact: Tricia Sims

Donations come in many forms. For example, there is the physical donation of the body with blood, marrow, organ and tissue or giving money to others in need.

Sam Houston State University’s Student Legal and Mediation Services will host the second annual Donation Awareness Project to educate students and promote donation in all forms on Nov. 8 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Lowman Student Center Ballroom.

Margaret Mitschke, student assistant at the Student Legal and Mediation Services, said the event is planned to raise awareness of the many small actions students can make that will affect the lives of many.

“It is amazing how those little contributions add up,” Mitschke said. “One person can save so many people. One blood donor can save up to three people. One organ donor can save eight people. One tissue donor can improve the lives of a thousand people.”

The Donation Awareness Project is a collaboration between the Student Legal and Mediation Services and several on-and off-campus organizations, including Huntsville Memorial Hospital, Donate Life Texas, Be the Match, the Colleges of Health Sciences and Science and Engineering Technology, Active Minds Honors College, the Health and Counseling Center, the Senior Class Legacy Campaign, and the Southeast Texas Applied Forensic Science Facility.

One half of the LSC Ballroom will include blood drive information and the other half will include informational tables for the other organizations as a way to connect with students and educate them on the way that they can help others.

“As a department of SHSU, we feel it is our duty to show students ways that they can live by the motto: ‘The measure of a Life is its Service,’” Mitschke said. “This event is an opportunity for students to come out and learn how they can not only help others with their own donations, but how they can educate others, and potentially save countless lives.”

One of the organizations that will be featured at the event is the Senior Class Legacy Campaign, which will allow students to donate money to scholarships for upcoming freshmen.

“This is a way for students to leave their mark and help other students as well,” Mitschke said.

In addition, Be the Match will register students for bone marrow and organ donations.

“It takes 30 seconds to sign up as an organ donor,” Mitschke said. “There are 22 people added to the national transplant waiting list every day.”

Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center also will do blood-type testing and have stations in which people can donate blood.

Attendees can sign up for appointments to donate blood online to make the process go faster.  

Mitschke asks that students consider the donation programs and spread the word to others to donate.

 “If one student that comes to the event can tell two of their friends, and they go and tell two of their friends each, and the word continues to spread, there’s no telling what kind of impact we can have,” she said.

The Student Legal and Mediation Services also will host a similar Donation Awareness Project event on Nov. 10 at The Woodlands Center Campus, which will include a mobile blood drive from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Other activities include a community blood drive and organ donation registration event on Nov. 12 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Gibbs Pre-K Center.

The Donation Awareness Project was held for the first time last November.

The event was inspired by a post Mitschke wanted to write for the Student Legal and Mediation Services blog. Mitschke was doing research for another post and came across an article in which a man was trying to get a kidney donation for his wife’s special blood type.

She asked her boss, Gene Roberts, if there was anything that the program could do for the wife or for future, similar cases.

“I said I could write a blog about it or something,” Mitschke said. “He was said, ‘No let’s make it a big thing.’ So it turned into this giant project just from a blog idea.”

Last November, the event had 30 organ donor registrations,16 bone marrow registrations and collected many units of blood

“It was pretty successful then,” Mitschke said. “We would like to make it even bigger this year.”

For more information on Student Legal and Mediation Services and the Donation Awareness Project visit the website shsu.edu/dept/student-services/legal, call 936.294.1717, or stop by their office in Lowman Student Center Room 330.

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