Take a shot at saving a life

Today, 80,000 people in need of an organ transplant find themselves on a waiting list – and at risk to die – because there aren’t enough organs available.

Today, the 10,955 students enrolled at SMU have an opportunity to change that.

Today, the Student Foundation and Program Council are hosting a spectacular program called the Mane Event. It offers free food, live music by Vertical Horizon, extreme games . . . and organ donor cards.

During the year’s biggest party, there will be an opportunity for you to save lives by writing your name on a card and sharing your decision to become an organ donor with your loved ones. A single donor can impact as many as 25 lives. Now that’s something to celebrate!

Sharing one’s life in this way is so simple and so positive, yet many people don’t have a clear understanding of how it works. Perhaps that explains why 16 people die every day because of the shortage of organs available for transplants.

The most important thing to understand is that once an individual passes away, it’s up to his or her family to make the final judgment call about organ donation. Even if he or she was carrying a signed and completed organ donor card at the time of death, relatives must also give explicit permission.

That said, the key to saving lives is to share your decision with your family. Often living away from home, college students may find it difficult to initiate a long-distance discussion about what happens in the event that his or her life is cut short. Introducing the subject isn’t much easier in person, either. But this essential conversation doesn’t have to take a serious tone.

Here’s where the Mane Event comes in. As you take advantage of the festivities in front of Dallas Hall, keep an eye out for the “Take a Shot at Saving a Life” shot bar. Stop by, fill out an organ donor card, show your new form of “identification” to the bar tender and then enjoy a non-alcoholic beverage of your choice: a margarita, cosmopolitan, screwdriver . . . you name it.

Then, the next time you call home, tell your family about your experience at Mane Event and how you literally took a shot at saving a life. It’s an easy way to address the topic clearly and effectively. Hey, everybody loves a good drinking story.

And everybody can be an organ donor. As long as you’ve got the guts, your age, race, size and walk of life don’t matter. There are all types of people whose well-being depends on the availability of organ transplants, so a wide range of donors is urgently needed.

The Southwest Transplant Alliance even lists several members of the SMU community on its list of transplant recipients. You can bet that those individuals will be glad to see you raise a glass at Mane Event!

So now an easy way to save lives just got easier, and a heck of a lot more fun. All you need to do is grab your friends and take a shot at saving a life. You’ll be doing yourself and those 80,000 of your fellow human beings a great service.