Celebrating Four Decades of Life-Saving Achievement
This year marked a major milestone for Gift of Life, when in July, President and CEO Howard M. Nathan was honored for more than 40 years of visionary leadership and dedicated service, including 34 as its chief executive.
Howard is currently the longest-serving chief executive officer of any organ procurement organization (OPO) in the United States and is one of the world’s foremost authorities on organ and tissue donation. Today, Gift of Life is the largest OPO in the nation, coordinating to date more than 50,000 organs for transplantation and approximately 1.5 million tissue transplants. It serves 11.2 million people in the eastern half of Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware, with an organ donation and transplantation network that includes 130 acute care hospitals and 15 transplant centers.
Under Howard’s leadership, Gift of Life has been the leading OPO in organ donors in the United States for 10 consecutive years. In 2017, it successfully coordinated life-saving organs from 565 organ donors. These selfless gifts resulted in 1,546 organs transplanted – the most organ donors and transplants of any OPO in the nation in one year. Gift of Life’s annual donation rate ranks among the highest in the world equating to 59-organ donors-per-million-population.
“The power of donation and transplantation is really the power of what life’s about. It’s about people helping people. It’s about neighbor helping neighbor.” – Howard M. Nathan
Please leave a message of congratulations for Howard!
Gift of Life Howie’s House “Room for More” Campaign
Many nights, the Gift of Life Howie’s House has been completely full, and by the end of the year we project we will have had to send away families at least 500 times.
We are looking to raise $200,000 this holiday season to convert already existing space the Gift of Life Howie’s House into two new guest rooms and additional community space, allowing us to welcome many more families home to a place of comfort and hope.