Circuit Clerk’s Office Celebrates New Organ Donation Awareness Plate

Mon, 04/06/2015 - 8:14am — Diane Dyer

The Butler County Circuit Clerk’s office had a release party at the Morgantown Mural at 10am on Wednesday morning to celebrate the new Trust for Life Organ Donation Awareness license plate as part of the 13th anniversary of National Donate Life Month.

The release party featured the Butler County Headstart Kids, staff of the Butler County Clerk’s Office, and community members sending off dozens of blue and green balloons in honor of those who have made a difference through organ donation.

Elaine Phelps and her grandson.
One recipient in attendance was celebrating an important anniversary during the event; Elaine Phelps received her life changing transplant 3 years ago thanks to the proactive decision made by an organ donor: “I had been on dialysis for a year. My kidneys had completely stopped functioning. [My grandson] will be 4 the 13th of April and when I started dialysis I wondered if I’d live to see him grown…. He has a little brother that was a year old in January. I had an opportunity to get to know my grandchildren that I wouldn’t have gotten. Most of us live an everyday life and don’t think of the possibilities of ever getting to be a hero, but in organ donation you get the opportunity for that to be the very last thing you do in this world… I would hope that everyone would consider doing one last heroic act in their life.”

After the event, Clerk Melissa Cardwell and the staff of the Clerk’s Office passed Donate Life pens around the office and throughout the building to further raise awareness.

Some facts about organ donation, according to the website organdonor.gov:

Someone is added to the organ donation waiting list every 10 minutes.

79 people on average receive an organ transplant each day, but around 21 people die waiting in the same period of time, because of the shortage of donated organs.