Southern Miss Wins Inaugural Organ Donor Challenge

Donate Life Mississippi honored The University of Southern Mississippi, its fans, alumni and students with a special presentation as winners of the inaugural Donor Challenge for 2012.

Chuck Stinson, community outreach manager for the Mississippi Organ Recovery Agency, presented the trophy to Southern Miss College of Health officials and students during a ceremony held Jan. 29 at the Thad Cochran Center.

“Members of the Southern Miss community deserve a lot of credit for working so hard on this initiative,” said Stinson. “They not only accepted the challenge, but took the effort very seriously and accomplished quite a bit in a short period of time.”

During a three-month period this past fall, Southern Miss and Mississippi State University participated in the Donor Challenge to see which university could register the most organ and tissue donors – either on campus or via the Internet. Southern Miss responded to the challenge by signing up more than 68 percent of the nearly 300 registrants.

Some organ donation facts:

• More than 1,100 Mississippians are part of the 116,000 Americans in need of a lifesaving organ transplant
• An average of 18 Americans die each day waiting on an organ transplant
• A new person is added to the national transplant list every 10 minutes
• One organ donor can save up to eight lives
• One tissue donor can enhance the lives of as many as 85 people

To register as an organ donor visit: www.donatelifems.org or www.msora.org