22 Transplant Recipients, Organ Donors And Donor Family Members To Ride Inaugural Coalition On Donation Rose Parade® Float; Riders’ Stories of Hope Inspire “A Symphony of Life”

LOS ANGELES, CA, October 2, 2003 – When the 2004 Rose Parade ushers in the New Year, it will also mark a milestone in raising awareness of the critical and growing need for organ and tissue donation as 22 individuals from throughout the country come together to ride the first-ever Coalition on Donation Rose Parade float.

“Each rider tells a unique story about the adversities and triumphs that define one’s experience as a donor or transplant recipient,” said Bryan Stewart, chairman of the Coalition’s float committee and director of communications for OneLegacy, the transplant donor network serving Southern California. “We hope that the ethnic, cultural and geographic diversity of our float riders and their personal stories will help millions of viewers understand that through donation, we each have the power to help one another in a most profound way.”

“More than 80,000 Americans currently await organ transplants, while every year hundreds of thousands of people need donated tissue to prevent or cure blindness, heal burns or save limbs,” stated David Fleming, executive director of the Coalition on Donation. “The Rose Parade offers a unique setting to inspire people to make the commitment to donate life and discuss organ and tissue donation with their family.”

Riders were nominated by organ and tissue recovery organizations, research foundations and transplant centers nationwide. Leading the contingent are Dr. Kenneth P. Moritsugu, U.S. Deputy Surgeon General and an organ donor husband and father, and snowboarder Chris Klug, who received a life-saving liver transplant 18 months before winning a bronze medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.

Of special interest are Los Angeles area residents Patricia Abdullah and Mike Jones, whose chance meeting at a personal development seminar inspired her to donate a life-saving kidney to him. According to doctors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the only way they could have been a closer match was if they were born identical twins from the same cell—remarkable considering that Patricia is Caucasian and Mike is African American.

The riders hail from California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin. Ranging in age from 12 to 63, both the youngest and oldest are heart recipients. Fifteen of the riders are transplant recipients hail from and seven are donors or donor family members.

Click on image to view  A Symphony of Life.