PHILADELPHIA, PA — Gift of Life Donor Program, the region’s organ procurement organization (OPO), is pleased to announce the winners of the 2022 Students Save Lives College Challenge. Ten schools completed this year’s challenge, bringing awareness of the life-saving importance of organ donation to thousands of students and faculty through numerous virtual and live events and programs.
Students from Alvernia University won first prize for a campaign called “Pledge with the Pack.” Event Planning and Public Relations students worked together to register 30 people as organ donors. The campaign included multiple events, information tables and a robust social media campaign across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Second prize winner Chestnut Hill used survey research, social media and a kickoff event to register 42 people through their campaign, “Griffins for Life.” Susquehanna University took home third prize for a campaign called “Giving Grows: Plant the Seeds of Life.” Members of the school’s Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) chapter registered 45 people as organ donors.
Bloomsburg University registered 189 people to become organ donors, the most of any school involved in the challenge.
The annual competition invites organizations and clubs at universities and colleges across Gift of Life’s region to help increase organ donor awareness and registration among students, faculty, and staff on campus.
Each organization was tasked with holding a donor registration drive and special event while using social media to promote organ and tissue registration.
Ten Pennsylvania colleges participated in the challenge, registering 403 people as organ and tissue donors – those individuals have the potential to save more than 1,000 lives! The impact of an organ donor is tremendous. One organ donor can save the lives of up to eight people, and a tissue donor can improve the lives of about 100 others. Learn more on our Students Save Lives College Challenge here!
College Challenges judges
Betsy Linaberger, EVP Tierney Communications
Maggie Barton, Deputy Press Secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Health Communications
Bill Soloway, Heart Transplant Recipient and Ambassador for Gift of Life Donor Program
Phillip Suits, Gift of Life Social Media Specialist, Gift of Life Donor Program
Dwendy Johnson, Community Relations Supervisor, Gift of Life Donor Program
Gift of Life Donor Program
Gift of Life Donor Program is the non-profit, federally designated organ procurement organization, working with 129 acute care hospitals and 14 transplant centers to serve 11.3 million people in the eastern half of Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware. Thanks to its compassionate community, for the past 14 years, Gift of Life has coordinated the most organ donors in the United States. Its annual donation rate, most recently 62 organ donors-per-million-population, ranks among the highest in the world. Since 1974, Gift of Life has coordinated more than 55,000 organs for transplant, and more than two million tissue transplants have resulted from the generosity of donors and their families. One organ donor can save the lives of up to eight people, and a tissue donor can improve the lives of about 100 others. For more information or to register, visitdonors1.org.