Long Beach Teens Help to Raise Awareness about the Importance of Organ Donation

Last week, three Long Beach Polytech students, who founded the school’s Donate Life Club, helped to decorate the Donate Life Rose Parade float in Pasadena. High school juniors Brandon Deutsch, Carol Wersbe and Lane Trachy formed the club two years ago because as Brandon said: “I have had many experiences with people who have been affected by organ donation, and have heard many touching stories that inspired me to start up a club charter at my high school. I was also assisted by my neighbor who had started up a charter at her high school.”

Photo: l-r: Marlene Albers, Carol Wersbe, Brandon Deutsch gluing lentils on the float.

The mission of the Donate Life Club is to advocate for and educate students about organ donation and transplantation so that they can start a discussion (at home and at school) and make their own informed choices about signing up to become organ donors.

Ninety-percent of Americans say they support organ donation, yet only 42.7% have signed up.

Now in its twelfth year, the Donate Life Rose Parade float has become the world’s most visible campaign to inspire people to become organ, eye, and tissue donors. The float, with the theme, “The Never-Ending Story,” features an enormous open book appearing to release 60 butterflies representing the number of lives that can be transformed by a single deceased donor ascending above 72 books adorned with memorial floragraph portraits of deceased donors, (including YEFREYN ROLDAN of SIGNAL HILL), whose legacies are celebrated by their loved ones. Thirty riders, (including GABBY PREAP from LONG BEACH), mostly organ and tissue recipients, will be seated among thousands of dedicated roses bearing personal messages of love, hope and remembrance. Twelve living donors will walk alongside the float that will be seen by 40 million viewers nationwide.

For more information: www.donatelifefloat.org