Hello, and welcome to the Gifted Life Podcast, where we have conversations about organ tissue and eye donation. I'm Roy Seale. I'm Joey Boudreau. I'm Sally Gentry.
And today, guys, hang on. We're doing something a little bit different on this particular episode, right? Just a little different, Laura. This time we were asked to appear on a podcast called Causcast.
Yes, Joey, and that podcast is about using podcasts to help the world. I like that. We actually got a chance to meet their dynamic host, Matthew Passi. And we'd like to share that podcast and that interview with you now.
Hi, and welcome to Causcast. I'm your host, Matthew Passi. Here at Causcast, we have one simple mission. To highlight the amazing folks who are using podcasts as a way to raise awareness for good causes.
Whether that's a nonprofit they work with, a charity they support, a social justice campaign they're championing for, a medical condition they're battling, or someone who's just looking to make a positive impact on their local community, state, country, or the world. These are podcasters with a positive mission. Along with raising awareness for our guest's favorite causes, we're also going to see if we can raise some money to support their efforts. So make sure you check out the show notes for each episode at Causcast.org to learn more about what they're doing and how to help them achieve their goals.
I'm excited this week on Causcast. I actually not have just one guest, but three guests. Lori Steele, Joey Boudreau, and Sally Gentry are coming to us from the Gifted Life Podcast. This is a podcast, but it's from the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency.
And what they do is they work to raise awareness and educate people about the wonderful world of organ donation. Lori, Joey and Sally, thank you so much for joining me today here on Causcast. It's an honor. Thanks for reaching out.
Oh, my pleasure. So tell me a little bit. I mean, obviously you didn't just want to have a podcast, but you work for an important agency. You do important work in the area.
So what was it that made you decide to take all this knowledge, take all this insight, all this information that the three of you have and deliver it to the community through podcasting? Matthew, I'll give you a little bit of background of what we do just real briefly. We help facilitate and enhance lives through organ tissue and eye donation. And it's so very important that we get the word out so that we can increase the registry.
Like frankly, we use a lot of grassroots efforts where we'll go into civic centers and churches and things like that. So it's very important for us to just raise awareness about organ tissue and eye donation. And actually Troy Perez, who is our producer and our CEO, Kelly Rannam, got together one day and tossed around the idea of what else can we do from an innovative standpoint to reach more audiences to be able to have something available, not just having someone face to face in a grassroots type effort or a civic center, a church or other venue. And of course, Troy being an avid podcast listener himself, talks to Kelly that what about if we start this using this medium, using this avenue to be able to reach more audiences out there.
And of course, Kelly is very big on innovation. As a matter of fact, it's one of our pillars that LOPA we try to create and look for as many avenues from either community standpoint, from a family services standpoint, from a clinical standpoint to stay on the cutting edge of what's out there. And there wasn't a donation, organ donation podcast out there at the time. So they decide, okay, let's give it a whirl.
Let's try the podcasting route because that is an avenue that's been growing as you well, no leaps and bounds over the past five or six years. So of course, we got together, we had a few meetings, kind of a multi-disciplinary approach. We had community represented, we had myself, clinical represented, we had IT represented, family services, hospital development, because of course, we go regularly into the hospitals and make sure we do a lot of hospital education. So we decided what can we do, what should we try to sculpt out our exactly what our audience would be listening to, what our information that we would be given into, is it more of a professional level for hospital and funeral homes and corners?
Or is it more for the general audience? And we decided to take pretty much a general audience approach. And then unfortunately for myself, I missed the last one where we decided who was going to be the talent. And so I got nominated to do the clinical part.
So that's kind of how we started, how we thought about the podcast and then the initial stages of how we got it set up. Yeah. And I think another thing that was crucial was that we went to develop something where content was accessible at any time because we are going into those different venues and we want to pull up all this information so we partner with folks from across the country, across the world. And we talk about donation because no matter what stage you're in, what country you're all moving towards the same goal and that's making life happen, honoring heroes celebrating lives.
Well, I think that's amazing. And I find it so fascinating that you were looking for alternative ways to get that information out there. And I mean, other than possibly Troy and self-interest of having a job of producing a podcast that is passionate for it, was there something about specifically audio medium that you thought made this a more effective way to share that content and to tell those stories? Well, we try to figure out based on our data, where are people getting their information?
So we know that today a lot of people use their cell phones, right? Also social media. And so our thought was is that we can broadcast this content, they can listen to it on their way to work, on their way home from work. We try to get them at about 30 minutes so that they have time to get the meat of what we're trying to put out there.
And that we try to inspire, call to action at the end, go out and register, learn the facts. Because sometimes on our initial talk with someone, they're just scared to talk about death in general, they're scared to talk about death in donation. And so hopefully once they learn more, they get more familiar with it, they're having these healthy conversations. Then we can increase that registry, we can save more lives.
So I also find it fascinating that your ultimate goal is to get people more educated, more comfortable with the idea and then to register. And not knowing a ton about this, but once people register, I think many people would think, well, the battle is done. Like they've registered and got for a bit of that moment comes. And we know we have a source of life for more people to be able to use.
But you've put out, at the time that we're chatting, 86 episodes. So what is it that you're trying to do on a recurring basis? You know, podcast is all about subscribing and tuning in week and week out or every other week or whatever that might be. So what's part of the continued conversation that you're hoping to accomplish doing this as a podcast?
So our main goal is education across the board. So you're right when you say, Hey, if they are signed up, that's great. But then we know that if there is a case, we're going to have to work with that family and we need them to have conversations at home. We need to understand brain death.
We need them to understand the donation process and those kinds of things. So it's education not only for the community, but some of our clinicians as well and all those donor families who are coming out of it and recipients and those waiting. So education was key for us. And then another aspect in addition to the education, especially for the community portion, she touched on the clinical so much misinformation out there and there's so much to learn.
There are quite a bit of professionals that do listen to the podcast positions, nurses and people that work in healthcare as well as people in the community. So another portion of our podcast and many segments over those 86 had to do with learning more about the clinical side, understanding brain death, the impact there on donation, learning more about the ins and outs of organ allocation, which organs can be transplanted tissues and things like that. So there's a lot of clinical aspects where we felt was important. And then of course, explaining to the public the waiting lists and how it's really an anonymous as of right now, I believe there actually it's over 114,000 people who are waiting on a life saving organ.
And when someone says yes, when someone puts it on their license and we talk to that family and you know, proceed with donation, it's an immediate life saving gift. The people at the top of the waiting list are generally very, very sick and oftentimes won't make it for the coming weeks or a couple months. And so immediately they have that second chance of life. So we try to explain that to everyone, you know, from a clinical standpoint and both from toward the professional realm and the community realm.
And we also do follow up with families post donation and I've been with LOPA for 18 years and this was a program that was put together strictly to work with owner families and as it has evolved over time working with the donor families, speaking with recipients, with transplant center staff. And I came in later on to the podcast. I'm not quite sure why Matthew, I'm still wondering, but I'm also a mental health professional and they asked me to start doing just a five minute segment about different mental health issues because as you well know, both physical mental health go together. And a lot of folks don't want to openly discuss it, but when they can hear it in an anonymous sort of way, it's much easier for them than to access different pieces of information online or through hot lines or that sort of thing.
So I think that's another component that's added to what we do that's a little bit separate but still all comes together with everything else. You literally took the words out of my mouth, because that was going to be my next question, was that it's not just the decision to become a donor and then the moment either that life is going to be donated or you're going to be the recipient of that gift, but it's also the ongoing care and mental health that's associated on both sides. So I do believe that a lot of your listeners, a lot of your engagement comes from people who have both been from the donating family as well as from the receiving family. I think so.
And I also believe that some of these folks are probably professionals in the field. There's a lot of either compassion fatigue or just plain burnout that happens for the folks in the medical communities. And I'm hoping that some of them do listen to this specific part of it, if you will, that maybe otherwise they would not be sharing with their coworkers. Completely understood.
So how is it that the three of you all got involved with this agency specifically? What was it about wanting to become part of the world that helps to procure an or range for organ donation that drew you to this work? That was an interesting story. Well, they are.
I'll start with mine first because these other two have much more exciting stories to tell. I've been in the mental health field for about 35 years and I had worked in the real world out there doing business and found out that wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Then I went to work for another not-for-profit agency many years ago and then decided, you know, I kind of like to do something a little bit different. And I had worked for a couple of different federal and state disaster relief and this sort of thing.
And I had seen an ad in the newspaper looking for somebody who had that sort of experience. I'm like, okay, I've got it. This is something that I'd like to do. Little did I know.
And I think it was just listed as LOPA. And I thought I have no idea what LOPA is, but hey, I think I can do the job when I went ahead and applied for the job. I thought, wow, this is really a different venue for me to pursue after being in the mental health field for all these years and not working with death and dying. I was more into crisis intervention, which I found that worked out very well as time went on.
So that's how I kind of got into it. And again, here it is 18 years later. And I think what's the most rewarding part for me is the fact that I can see and hear in people what a sense of relief as time goes on that donation has given to them. And of course, needless to say, the recipients are thrilled because of this second chance of life also have some pretty good coworkers too.
So I want to throw that out. She's looking at me, Matthew. I'm glad you answered that ad. I'm not sure about that.
That was a good one. I come from a TV news background. And as my family started to grow, I started to realize I didn't like chasing a story as often as I did prior to that family coming. And I said, if I ever got out of news, this was one of the places that I'd like to land.
And the reason why was one of my first stories was covering a donor family that was doing a balloon release. And it was for a young man named Justin, Justin fell out of the back of a pickup truck. He hit his head and he saved lives. And we didn't know much about that back in 1997.
So I can learn with the family. But as I started on my career track, my kind of became like a media liaison for LOPA. So I'd like to spread the good news because that was something good that was happening. And it was such goodness coming out of such a tragic situation.
And so I was inspired by that. And I thought, wow, this mom, how tough is she, right? So I continued on in my news journey. My family continued to grow.
And I was praying for a change. I needed to be somewhere else because news wasn't the answer for me. And I got a call from LOPA. Would you consider transitioning out of news and helping us save more lives?
And that was the easiest answers. And here I am today. So I get up. I'm inspired.
I'm excited. I love to work with the donor families and the recipients. I'm not just seeing donations as hope and love and it's just an amazing place to be. I have to follow YouTube guy.
So I started my career in nursing as a registered nurse, I guess that was 22 years ago. And I worked in the emergency room and the critical care units. And my intent was to get a master's and go into anesthesia. And it was now 16 years ago when I saw an opening at LOPA.
I had known about it, of course, through the emergency room in ICU. And also a close friend of mine was one of the critical care nurses for LOPA. And he would tell me quite often all the things that they were doing that were, you know, I thought was so cool as a nurse to have that type of impact. And it was an immediate impact from a clinical standpoint that I just couldn't have wasn't able to have in the emergency room.
So I started with LOPA in 2002 and it hooked me in, to be honest, because initially I was thinking clinical, you know, I was very clinically driven. And it was such a different field echoing what Sally and Laurie mentioned. But it was really the impact that I could see on the donor families. I would talk to the families at the worst time of their life and try to bring some goodness and bring some sense to an otherwise senseless time for them.
And then at the same time, you know, and support them for the next 24 hours or so. And at the same time, I was able to use my clinical skills and see the impact, you know, that that was I can make decisions on ventilator settings and treatments of the lungs and treatment of the kidneys and the balance that's there and see the impact for one particular donor, maybe saving two to three lives, then saving five to six or seven lives just because of a couple of different things that I did in the process, of course, of the treatment. So that clearly, once I saw, I started seeing just how impactful the job was from a clinical standpoint and, you know, the support and emotional standpoint with the donor families, it connected me and I felt like there was no way I was going to be leaving anytime soon. So kind of that thing that hooks you in and it's very impactful on us.
We see the impact that it has on the donor families. A lot of people just think about the recipient side and Sally can attest to this. It's so much about the donor families and the donor family impacts that keeps our staff engaged and wanting to work the next day. That's all three very powerful, very, very touching stories that you have, their amazing backgrounds.
I imagine when you did this, all you're all thinking and expected to become big podcast stars too at the same time, right? Yeah, absolutely. I still are thinking. Ironically, the one thing that I said when I was interviewed, I said, I will do all the cases, I will work as an ICU nurse as much as you guys need it, but I cannot speak in public.
That's the one thing I can't do is speak in public. And then what happens later on, I'm constantly speaking in public, the physicians, hospitals and now podcasts. And I was on the podcast. And Matthew, we have to go back to 2015, try very first podcast.
And now it takes us a couple hours because we feel we're a well-oiled machine. Don't ask for our IT guru, but our first day, we were from almost sun up to sundown and we thought, oh, why did he take all that? But we kept that. We kept that at here.
So I mean, it sounds like not only have you been able to have an immense impact on the show, but it seems like you really clearly enjoy your work. But clearly you enjoy doing the podcast as well. I think we've become closer because Joy locks us in a tiny room and doesn't let us go until the podcasts are complete. But we get to know each other.
I learn from it because I listen to Joe way, I listen to Sally because I'm concentrating on my volunteer, so I'm out in the community working with him. And then I get to hear what happens in their worlds. And I'm like, oh, all of this comes together and it clicks. All these people from these different walks of life coming together for that one goal.
And to me, it's just amazing. But I love it. That's incredible. And I know it is, you're supported by Lopa, you do this all for Louisiana, but you have a global reach.
This isn't just if you're listening, you have to be in Louisiana. You are talking to anybody in the country, anybody in the world about organ donation and what benefit this can have on so many different people. It's funny that you mentioned that because as she was saying just a second ago, I was thinking about the impact that our colleagues, so we go to a lot of conferences and we network with quite a bit of people from across the United States from where you are in New Jersey, you've got friends in California and everywhere in between. And they talk about our podcasts and they talk about the fact that some of their donor families listen to it, some of their staff and the education that it provides even for them.
So it's really neat when I'm networking with those guys and they're like, oh, yeah, you're the podcast guy. And to see that someone in Utah, for instance, listens and appreciates it. And not only nationally, we have been downloaded quite a bit internationally as well. In fact, Japan, who's been trying to improve their organization, their organization, their organization, their organization wide, that's our second largest or most downloaded country.
And we've downloaded quite a bit in Ghana and Canada and France and Germany and the UK and many others. So it has been something, you know, we were thinking initially, Lopa and what can we provide here in Louisiana. And then we realized that it was much more broad reaching. So we started including more people who are known internationally in our podcast.
Relationships are key. We've learned that. So we were focusing on what we did here in Louisiana and Sally said, well, let's start looking outside at folks who do what I do in other state because they serve different populations. So we started exploring that and we started trying to get those folks on our podcast.
They would share it. They would learn. But I think I'm going to speak for the group and, you know, let me know. But we actually got a phone call into the podcast when we talk about our reach.
We try to cover all sorts of donation. We talked about living donation. We interviewed folks who decided to give just because it was the right thing to do. And we have a hotline and we had a message that said, I was thinking about doing this.
And I started searching for information and I was led straight to your podcast. And I started listening about these people who gave just because it was the right thing to do and my surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. And we just thought, whoa, right? Because we hope to have that impact and we hope to make that difference.
But that was something. So her name was Jennifer. She's been on the podcast before. And we talked to her and we said, you know, what was it?
And she was, I just needed information and I needed to hear people talk about it and I needed to hear other people have gone through it. And it worked. And so that was our hope from, you know, many years ago when we sat down thinking, I think we could reach people. And so to me, that was like validation, like, okay, the information we're putting out is making a difference.
Well, not only are you the three of you have a fantastic chemistry just listening to a couple episodes of the show and talking to you before we start this interview. And within this interview itself, you know, you're very passionate about what you do. You're providing such an amazing resource and something that I think people don't take time to think about either. They just check the box and think whatever or more often.
Probably they don't check the box and they say, you know, no, and they don't think about how they could be impacted the world. But clearly, the three of you are also clairvoyant because you took the words out of my mouth again. I was going to ask you what you get? You know, what have you gotten from this experience beyond just being able to share that information and it seems like you are getting as much as you were giving and putting out this content.
Oh, absolutely. Yes. I think one of the more rewarding things overall for me is I don't walk away at the end of each day going, oh, I'm glad that's over. I mean, you know, she loves us now.
But you know, as far as just the overall interaction, it's a constant difference, even though much is the same with donor families and the circumstances of why, you know, we're speaking with or to them, but there's, you know, a lot of jobs go, oh, man, do I have to go through this one more day? And I just found that this is just so rewarding. It makes me feel good about what I do in the fact that I know other people are like, I believe this, that other people are benefiting from hopefully my experience or my skill sets. And it makes a big difference.
And I like when our volunteers come either at donor family side or recipient side, are those waiting and they say, oh, you know, it'll be a good topic on the podcast. And I'm like, yes, I like that because we went from having, you know, nothing in the podcast world to these folks saying more people need to hear about this. So we have this content that we try to produce and now we have this list. And before we were like, oh, what do we talk about next time, guys?
So, but it's been a fun journey. I think we've all grown together. But yeah, it's made us love our job a little bit more. And so I mean, it's probably a little bit easier for you to talk about this since it's all part of your day job and what you've been doing for so many years.
But for somebody else who's thinking about launching a podcast or they're currently producing a podcast and they want to do it for a noble cause like this one, any advice, any key take away things that you've learned along the way that makes you more effective or makes it easier for you to open up that mic and be able to help so many people using this medium? So you need to find a Troy. Troy's on here. He keeps us on track.
You won't hear from him because he doesn't do that. But when you hear our podcast, you hear the quality. And I think it was something we were scared about because we were unsure of the unknowns. And then after that first podcast, there were so many hours that we spent in there because I think we were trying to have everything be perfect from English to, you know, everything.
And then we said, you know, we just have to be ourselves. Like that's what it came to like. I like hanging out with Joey sometimes. That's not crazy.
And Sally. So let's just be ourselves going there and just became fun. And then it became exciting. And then if we're out at an event, oh, this will be a good topic.
So we've been learning things. We can grab audio on our phones. We can send it to Troy. We have a cool little group now of folks to do it.
So don't, you know, it's scary. It's tough learning all the lingo. So, I'll try for that. The rest of the stuff you can call me Sally and Joe.
But just do it. It's fun if you have something to say. Like this is a great medium to do it. And if I could interject from someone who wasn't a TV personality completely clinical and you know, froze up every time I try to give a presentation, my advice is it's certainly easier if you're having dialogues and you have two or three people on the podcast doing it in a studio or doing it, you know, together, I can tell you from my standpoint, we tried different ways because I actually live two and a half hours away and I have kind of a tight schedule.
So, I'm trying to get it done in my office and did certain things and where I couldn't interact. It's just so much you can pick up on obviously with a face to face with a nonverbal cues and things that for someone like me who's an amateur that was a huge benefit when we decided okay, we're going to do it in a studio. This is how we're going to do it every time with this type of format. That's actually my two cents for from the clinical guy.
I can add to this being an older person. That. How old are you? I'm really old.
Okay. That it's been so much fun. It's new. It's different.
So, you don't have to be a specific age to be involved in a podcast. You can really whatever your passion might be. I think is probably the really defining element that one needs to decide to do something like this. It's funny because it's the same advice that I think so many podcasters get regardless of what they're trying to do but especially if they're trying to do something that they are truly passionate about and they are doing with such altruistic goals in mind is don't be afraid to just go out there and do it.
That is it. If you believe in the cause, if you believe in the reason everything else will pretty much come together as long as it plays. Yeah. There's a Troy.
Hey, goodness. Hey, goodness. Well, this has been a fantastic chat. I am so happy I got a chance to chat with the three of you.
It is the gifted life podcast. You can find it at thegiftedlife.org or if you check out lopa.org. That's the Louisiana Oregon Procurement Agency and right there on the front page you'll see a link to their podcast. It's a beautifully done website.
All the information is organized nicely. The podcast is available on all the podcasting platforms that you would want to check out. They do a fantastic job. If you're listening to the most recent episode of the recording, hopefully you speak Spanish because they did a great episode there to make that information available to an even wider community and we're going to be very excited to launch a charity drive to benefit Lopa and to encourage you to just go out there and learn a little bit more and think about checking that box through becoming Oregon Darrin.
Lori, Joey and Sally just want to thank you so much for your time and thank you for what you're doing and for joining me here on Causecast today. And if we could pop in there, Matthew, register me.org. So if you were inspired to learn about donation, maybe you want to sign up to save more lives, register me.org. That's the place to go.
Thank you, Matthew, for checking us out. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Causecast. Again, if you've been inspired by the work of our guest, please check out the show notes in your podcast app or head to causecast.org. There you'll find links to the work of our guest and a special donation link set up to support their favorite cause.
All the proceeds are going directly to that cause minus any administration CEO on the platform that they set up. None of the money is coming here to the causecast production. Also while you're at causecast.org, make sure you follow and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, wherever you enjoy your podcast show and follow us on social media as we'll try to provide updates with what's going on with our guests and some other folks who will be featuring on the show and any other efforts that we have to support, the community of cause casters that are out there. Now, there's also going to be a special Facebook group dedicated to causecasters.
So if you already have a podcast for a cause or you're thinking about launching one, join the group. It'll be dedicated to providing resources and answering questions specifically for cause casters. Hopefully we can do things like arrange some special nonprofit pricing of various podcast services to help you with your venture and keep you under budget because we know a lot of people doing causecast are not going to be reaping in the money. So we want to see what we can do to help you produce a high quality product, get your story out there, get people inspired and not break the bank.
Lastly, if you are a causecaster want to join me here on the show for an interview, please head to causecast.org and fill out the interview request form. We'll take a quick look at it and if approved, we'll schedule you for chat and show the amazing work you're doing with causecast, raise some awareness for what you're doing and ideally raise some money as well. Thank you so much again for staying with me and we will see you next time on causecasts. As we do in every podcast, we like to honor a hero and today's hero is Brittany Renee Darby Falcone.
And we learn about Brittany from her family. On July 27, 2017, at the young age of 28, my daughter Brittany became an organ donor. She registered as an organ donor just four months prior. She was married but did not have any children.
She loved her pets, a dog and a cat. She had a younger sister and two younger brothers. She always had a feeling that she should be doing more in her life. Well in the end, she did do more.
She was able to make life happen or for others. And she was able forever and always be our quiet hero. And now we pause to say thank you to Brittany for the gift of life. Well that was a lot of fun.
I know. I expected. I was good. What a novel idea that he's got promoting podcasts with a purpose for nonprofits.
Yeah, I usually like asking the questions but it wasn't too bad. No, I'm sorry again. It was really enjoyable to talk with. We sounded like podcasts professionals.
Yeah, it only knew. But thank you Matthew. We enjoyed spending time with you. We enjoyed getting to know more about causecasts and you can find causecasts on iTunes or your favorite podcast app and listen, you're still with us out there.
We want you to go out and do something you would normally do to help us make. Life happens. Bye. This is a production of the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency or LOPA.
The gift of life is hosted by Lori Steele, Joey Buudro and Sally Gentry. Our executive producer is Kirsten Hines, producer Ishelon Caraway. And we are recorded, engineered and mixed in our Covington, Louisiana studio by Troy Peros.