By Kaila Snyder, Staff Writer
On April 25th, 2019 the Susquehanna chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) hosted a “Move the Line” event on Kurtz Lane at Susquehanna University.
Occurring from 11am-2pm, the event focused on raising awareness of the benefits of organ donation and the fact that one organ donation has the ability to save 8 lives.
The title of the event, “Move the Line”, refers to the fact that the more people who sign-up to be organ donors, the shorter the line becomes for the thousands of Americans currently waiting on life-saving organs. The goal of the event was to rally the campus community to join the fight to spread knowledge of organ donation throughout campus and nationwide.
According to organdonor.gov, in the U.S., 113,000 men, women and children are on the organ waiting list. In Pennsylvania alone, someone dies every 18 hours waiting for a transplant.
When asked what went into coordinating an event such as this, Dr. Linda Burkley, the head coordinator of PRSSA, responded “Our PRSSA chapter’s involvement in this promotion is the result of a statewide contest sponsored by Donate Life PA. DLPA partnered with the National Organ Donor Awareness Competition (NODAC) to challenge PRSSA Chapters in Pennsylvania to not only spread organ donor awareness, but also register students, faculty and stuff on campus as organ donors through the PennDOT online portal. Our chapter was asked to create a campaign driving organ donation on campus that included grassroots efforts, a social media component and a culminating campus event. Campaigns are scored on creativity, promotional efforts and number of organ designations.”
Burkley went on to say, “We registered for the competition in November and began kicking ideas around early in the spring semester. The rules specify that the event must occur in April, which is National Organ Donor Month. PRSSA students really came together and worked hard to pull off a fun event that raised a lot of awareness on campus.”
Overall, the event had an impressive turnout, with over 100 students signing the “Move That Line” vehicle.
Student signatures on the vehicle signified that they had either signed up to be an organ donor at the event or were an organ donor prior to the event. Each signature therefore gave a visual representation of “moving the line”.
PRSSA President Noa Albilia stated “We plan on spending a lot of time in the future participating and organizing similar events to this one” when asked whether Susquehanna planned on coordinating more similar events in the future.
Albilia added, “This was a PRSSA organized event and we all worked together to make it happen. WQSU also helped out with promotions.”
Besides Albilia, PRSSA Vice President Julianna Whalen took the lead in the student coordinating of the event and Zoe Keim created the logo for the event, as well as all of the materials.
Many are hesitant to take part in organ donation due to the many myths surrounding the topic.
When asked about this, Burkley stated “One of the biggest myths surrounding organ donation is that an organ donor will not be resuscitated. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The medical team trying to save your life is separate from the transplant team. Every effort is made to save your life before donation is even a possibility.”
PRSSA plans to continue raising awareness about organ donation and other important issues and encourages the campus community to continue learning and participating in events such as this.