PHILADELPHIA – Gift of Life Donor Program, the region’s organ procurement organization (OPO), is pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 Student Save Lives College Challenge. Seven schools completed the challenge, bringing our life-saving mission to thousands of students and faculty through both virtual and live events and activities.
Returning champion Susquehanna University won first prize for a campaign called “Operation Organ Donor.” Members of the school’s Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) chapter registered 70 donors, hosted a trivia night with 40 participants and engaged students with three days of fun games including giant Jenga and Operation on campus.
Second prize winner Arcadia University’s 1853 Communications organization held three donor drives and reached more than 800 people via an Instagram campaign. Marketing and nursing students at DeSales University teamed up to win third prize by registering 21 donors, hosting a Facebook live event that garnered more than 900 views and participating in Gift of Life’s Dash From Home.
The annual competition invites organizations and clubs at universities and colleges across Gift of Life Donor Program’s region to help increase organ donor awareness and register students, faculty, and staff on campus.
Each organization was tasked with holding a donor registration drive and special event as well as utilizing social media to encourage people to register as organ and tissue donors.
Seven Pennsylvania colleges participated in the challenge registering 138 people as organ and tissue donors, potentially saving more than a thousand people. 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!
Gift of Life Donor Program
Gift of Life Donor Program is the non-profit, federally designed organ procurement organization, working with 128 acute care hospitals and 15 transplant centers to serve 11.3 million people in the eastern half of Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware. Thanks to is compassionate community, for the past 13 years, Gift of Life has coordinated the most organ donors in the United States. Its annual donation rate, 55 organ donors-per-million-population, ranks among the highest in the world. Since 1974, Gift of Life has coordinated more than 52,500 life-saving organs for transplant, and approximately 1.75 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, visit donors1.org.