Jennifer Moe
Director of Communications/PR
Donor Alliance
303-329-4747
GRUELING CYCLING EVENT PAIRS ATHLETE WITH COLORADO LIVER RECIPIENT
DENVER–June 12, 2007–Team Donate Life (TDL), a national non-profit organization that promotes the lifesaving benefits of organ donation while raising funds toward continued transplant research, is participating in Race Across America (RAAM). Starting in California and continuing across the United States, the team will race through Southern Colorado from June 14-16.
Each member of TDL is racing in honor of someone who is waiting for a lifesaving transplant in the United States. One cyclist, Dee Larsen, has selected to race in honor of Colorado resident and recent liver transplant recipient, Clifford Fletcher. Fletcher had been on the wait list for a new liver since October 18, 2005 and was given the gift of life on May 11, 2007.
“Riding in honor of Clifford has really brought home for me the real purpose of our team, which is to encourage as many Americans as possible to sign up on their state's organ and tissue registry,” said Larsen. “The hours we have endured over the past six months to prepare for this event, the training, overwhelming exhaustion, ongoing fundraising and personal financial commitment and planning, is nothing compared to the experiences the wait list candidates have gone through.”
Created in 1982 and currently the longest running ultra-distance bicycle endurance competition in the world, RAAM will take the TDL participants approximately six to eight days to complete. Having grown from one team in 2005 and 2006 to six teams this year (including the first all corporate women’s team) riders competing from TDL (which now makes up 20 percent of RAAM's entrants), herald a unique and annual groundbreaking achievement for the Team Donate Life organization.
According to Sue Dunn, president and CEO of Donor Alliance, the non-profit organ procurement organization serving Colorado and most of Wyoming, nearly 100,000 Americans currently await a lifesaving organ transplant with 18 people dying each day due to the shortage of donated organs. “In Colorado and Wyoming, more than 1,700 people are waiting for an organ transplant,” Dunn explained.
Founded by health care providers, organ donors and organ recipients who are committed to sharing the miracle of life offered by organ donation, TDL prides itself on its outreach and public awareness programs. “There seems to be a new kind of athlete around these days,” said Kent Mulkey, executive director of Team Donate Life. “Team Donate Life provides a unique opportunity to help save lives by promoting organ and tissue donation. One person can save up to eight lives through organ donation and enhance up to 100 lives through tissue donation.”
Across the nation and primarily along the race route, more than 20 patients waiting for a second chance at life through an organ transplant have been "adopted" by a cyclist from Team Donate Life. The cyclists will ride in their honor and hope to meet face to face while racing across America.
To find out more about TDL, visit teamdonatelife.com. For more information about organ and tissue donation, please visit DonorAlliance.org. To register to be an organ and tissue donor, please visit ColoradoDonorRegistry.org or call 303.329.4747 or toll-free at 1.888.256.4386.
We are pleased to announce the creation of Colorado’s new specialty Donate Life license plate. CLICK HERE.
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