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OneLegacy to Sponsor Donate Life Float in 2017 Rose ParadeOneLegacy announced today that it will once again serve as the producer and lead sponsor on the Donate Life Rose Parade float, January 2, 2017, in Pasadena. Now in its 14th year, the float is the centerpiece of a national effort of more than 50 sponsoring organizations that have teamed up to share and celebrate the lifesaving and healing power of organ, eye, and tissue donation. The 2017 Donate Life Rose Parade Float, appropriately named "Teammates in Life," will recognize 96 honorees including 24 organ, eye, and tissue transplant recipients rowing in unison to symbolize the teamwork required to make a transplant possible and the renewed energy and life thanks to their donors. Among the rowers will be recipients sponsored by local healthcare providers UCLA Medical Center, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Dignity Health. In addition, the sails of the Polynesian-style vessel will feature 60 floral portraits of donors, and 12 walkers - including six living kidney donors and a "kidney chain" of three living donors and their three recipients - will walk alongside the float in celebration of renewed life. The Donate Life float began in 2004 as a vision of lung recipient Gary Foxen, who wanted to show gratitude to donors and their families and inspire milions of Rose Parade® viewers to make the decision to donate. More than a thousand volunteers work to decorate the float and to turn Foxen's vision into reality each year. "With the theme 'Teammates in Life,' this year's float reminds us that no one succeeds alone and that we all thrive by working together," said Tom Mone, chairman of the Donate Life float committee and CEO of OneLegacy. "Donors save the lives of grateful recipients and help families heal, and it is the large community of registered donors that makes it possible to save and heal thousands of lives across the country each year. But while progress is being made, there is so much more to be done." Tragically 21 people die every day in the United States waiting for an organ transplant. In California alone nearly 22,000 are waiting to receive lifesaving hearts, livers, lungs, kidneys and pancreas transplants; but there are simply not enough donors to meet the growing need. Nationwide there are nearly 120,000 people currently waiting for a lifesaving organ and hundreds of thousands more whose lives could be healed through eye and tissue transplantation. "A single organ and tissue donor can save up to eight lives and heal more than 100," says Mone. "The Rose Parade is an incredible opportunity to honor donors, families and recipients while inspiring millions of Americans of the power they possess when they register as donors." As the largest organ, eye and tissue recovery organization in the country, OneLegacy enables 1,400 organ transplants and nearly a quarter million tissue transplants each year by serving more than 200 hospitals, 11 transplant centers, and a diverse population of nearly 20 million people throughout seven counties in Southern California. More information on OneLegacy or on becoming a donor is available at www.onelegacy.org. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161101005904/en/ |
