The ongoing battle between ASU, NAU and UA now has a noble cause.
April is Donate Life Month and marks the Donate Life Campus Challenge, a competition to see which public Arizona university can sign up the most organ donors. The challenge is hosted by the Donor Network of Arizona, but Ability Counts Tempe will be on campus signing up students.
UA won the competition by a landslide last year with 400 registered versus ASU’s 56 donors, and this year Ability Counts Tempe (ACT) is trying to help the schools reach higher numbers than last year. NAU had 140.
Donor Network of Arizona contacted ACT to help reach ASU students to get involved in the cause.
Ability Counts Tempe is an ASU organization that helps promote disability awareness to students and the community.
Shaylyn Savage, a special education sophomore, is the president of Ability Counts Tempe and has been sending out e-mails and talking to classes to make people aware of the cause.
Through the contest, students can register to donate their organs, tissue and corneas for transplant patients.
There are 1,954 people waiting for transplants in Arizona, according to information from Donor Network of Arizona.
On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays of this month from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., ACT members will be in front of the Memorial Union to register students or give information, T-shirts, bracelets and brochures to students who are interested.
Sociology junior Tanner Robinson, an officer for ACT, has been helping the cause by using Facebook to get people involved.
“Facebook has given us around 35 people who are interested, but it’s hard to tell which ones have actually registered,” Robinson said in an e-mail.
Right now, the group doesn’t have a desired goal but ACT wants people to know that not all organs can be used from registered donors.
Only 1 percent of donors’ organs can be used for transplants, and patients have to be brain dead in order for them to be used, Savage said.
“My goal is just to get as many registered people as I can and let people know about the cause and that there’s a need for it.”
Journalism junior Jordan Moon is legally blind and received his first cornea transplant at six weeks old.
Since then, he has had nine more.
“If I wasn’t able to receive them, then my vision would be much worse,” Moon said.
If ASU wins, the University will receive a trophy and an award.
In order for ASU to beat UA and NAU, students have to indicate they heard about the program through the ASU Campus Challenge, when they register to donate.
Reach the reporter at mpareval@asu.edu
