PHILADELPHIA, PA – Gift of Life Donor Program, the vital link between organ donors and patients awaiting transplant, is pleased to announce the winners of the 2024 Students Save Lives College Challenge. Fifteen Pennsylvania and New Jersey colleges participated in the challenge, registering 304 people as organ and tissue donors – those individuals have the potential to save more than 2,000 lives!
Each organization was tasked with holding a donor registration drive and special event while using social media to promote organ and tissue donor registration.
Students from 1853 Communications, a student-run PR firm at Arcadia University, won first place with their Food for Thought: U-Knight to Save Lives campaign, rallying the campus around its mascot and identity as “knights.” The extensive campaign consisted of a slew of events that brought the Arcadia and Glenside communities together. The university’s president and entire art department along with local restaurants got involved leading to impressive media coverage.
A week-long Race to Donate campaign run by the Paul Dannelley Chapter of Public Relations Society of America (PRSSA) at Susquehanna University earned second place. Thoughtful race car-themed events, materials, contests, campus outreach and social media posts outshined their competitors. Students even went the extra mile to bring a Selinsgrove Raceway pace car on campus; registered organ donors and anyone who signed up as a donor at the event had the opportunity to sign their name on the car. The COMM 435: Social Media Campaigns class at the University of Scranton took third prize with multiple “awareness table sits,” a variety of special events, as well as an online campaign. Special events included a cornhole tournament and an artist brought to campus to paint in public. Students utilized social media to post fun facts about organ donation.
Last year’s College Challenge champions, Temple University Student Nurses Association, registered 72 people to become organ donors, the most of any school this year.
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. 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 more than 100 others. Registration for next year’s College Challenge opens in Fall 2024. Reach out to Dwendy Johnson at djohnson@donors1.org for more information.
About Gift of Life Donor Program
Gift of Life Donor Program, founded in 1974 and headquartered in Philadelphia, is the federally designated organ procurement organization (OPO) for the eastern half of Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware. It works with 126 acute care hospitals and 12 transplant centers in its region, as well as hundreds of transplant centers throughout the country, to provide the most comprehensive array of services available in the U.S. to the donation and transplantation community. Thanks to the generosity of its community, Gift of Life has coordinated 14,196 donors and 39,469 organs for transplant, the most of any OPO in the country since the inception of our national donation system in 1988. Overall, Gift of Life has coordinated more than 59,000 organs and more than two million tissue transplants since its founding. One organ donor can save the lives of up to eight people, and a tissue donor can improve the lives of 100 others. To honor Gift of Life’s 50 years of saving lives, help us register 50,000 more organ donors. Together, we can provide hope to the thousands waiting for a transplant. Learn more and register at donors1.org.Learn more and sign up at donors1.org.
Congratulations to the 2024 College Challenge winners. _fr Griffin PR Chestnut Hill College 22-23 winners.