Donate Life Event
Organ donors, recipients attend ceremony
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ELKINS -- Davis Medical Center and the Center for Organ Recovery and Education (CORE) offered a flag-raising ceremony to honor donors, recipients and those waiting for transplants in the hospital's Serenity Garden this week.
The service was held to commemorate National Donate Life Month, which is celebrated each April to encourage organ donation awareness and recognize donors and their families. Hospitals across the United States fly the Donate Life flag in April to raise awareness and show support.
Cherly King, Community Outreach coordinator for CORE, is currently making her way across the state to take part in flag-raising ceremonies.
"We are celebrating National Donate Life month during the month of April and we are traveling the state where hospitals are hanging up our Donate Life flags," King said before the DHS ceremony. "We are doing this to bring awareness that we have over 500 people in West Virginia, and over 100,000 people nationally, waiting on a transplant. It's very important and people don't realize how many people are out there needing transplants."
Davis Medical staffers, donors, donor recipients and community members attended the flag-raising ceremony.
"I'm born and raised in West Virginia and I feel like we care about each other so much, that this is just another way of us showing our community that we care," King said. "You never know who is going to need an organ transplant."
Phillips Kolsun, a resident of Elkins, was a guest speaker during the ceremony. Kolsun received a liver transplant in 2018.
"I received my transplant from a living donor who was a co-worker of mine," Kolsun said. "It's really an honor to be able to be here today and advocate for an organization that helps so many. And I think it means even more when one of those people it has helped is you.
"As soon as I received my transplant, I went to a CORE meeting and got more information about what I needed to do specifically. So I try to participate in flag-raisings, or proclamation signings whenever I can."
CORE is one of the more than 50 federally designated not-for-profit organ procurement organizations (OPOs) in the United States, serving more than five million people in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Chemung County, New York.
CORE coordinates the recovery and matching of organs, tissues and corneas for transplant within our service region, and works tirelessly to create a culture of donation in hospitals and communities.
For more information on how to become or find an organ donor, visit core.org.
Davis Medical Center staff members, organ donors and organ donor recipients attended a flag-raising ceremony at Davis Medical Center this week. The service commemorates National Donate Life Month, which is celebrated each April.