Hello, and welcome to the Gift-to-Life Podcast, where we have conversations about organ tissue and ideonation and transplantation. You can always find us at thegiftedlife.org. I'm Lori Steele. I'm Joey Boudreau.
And I'm Nyla Schwab. Coming up on the Gifted Life today. We'll be talking to one family who's creating a caring support system for donor families across the nation. And we'll also be talking about what is social support and breaking that down into different types.
All that and more coming up on this episode of the Gifted Life, the Gifted Life.org. Here on the Gifted Life Podcast, we are so excited to welcome back Ms. Tara Storge. Hey, ma'am.
Hey, thank you for having me. We were here to hear our first episode. We have to go way back in the archives to episode 43 of the Gifted Life. So we're going to catch everybody up if we could.
Tara runs the Taylor's Gift Foundation with some wonderful, talented folks. But tell us about Taylor's Gift and how you got started on that track. Yes. So the foundation, Taylor's Gift Foundation, really started with a tragedy for our family.
It was spring break of 2010. And we were on our family vacation in Beaver Creek, Colorado, having an incredible time. And it was on that last run of the day. Taylor and my son Ryan and my husband were to make one last run before the slopes closed.
And it was in that run that Taylor had a very just freak accident and skid up into the trees and hit a tree. And it was from that that we lost her. And she was doing everything right. She was such a great athlete.
She was wearing a helmet. And it just was so confusing and shock filled. And she was careful I did to Green Junction, Colorado, where we were immediately approached with this huge group of doctors who gave us the news that she probably was not going to be covering. It was not looking good.
It was not too soon after that when we were, you know, reality was really setting in from thinking we had hope to recovery to not. And it was around that time when a nurse came in and I remember my husband was standing at the bedside of Taylor and I was sitting down, I'm so weak from all this. And then there she just bent down beside me and she said, Taylor's a beautiful candidate for organization. And would you, your family consider it?
And the way she asked was so loving and compassionate and no pressure. But honestly, I have all the decisions we were having to make pretty quickly. That was the easiest one to say yes to because really it just reflected who Taylor was. We had never talked about organization in our family.
I mean, not even once. I think I had checked my license, maybe, you know, but it wasn't a conversation in our home until we were faced with it. But we knew in our heart of hearts that Taylor, she would ask that question. She actually would have said yes.
And so we did say yes, which sparked this whole ripple effect of good for five individuals where they give to her heart, both kidneys, her pancreas, liver and she gave sight with her cornea. And from there, it just started this whole incredible ripple effect that started for our family. I think on the last podcast, we talked about a nail polish that was blue. Tell us about that and tell us about sucks now that we have seen online.
I'm excited. Yeah. So when we came back from Colorado and started our life really over, we knew we had a choice. We were going to cave up in the grief or we were going to find the good.
And organ donation, the fact that Taylor saved lives was the good that came out of this for us. So, you know, we dove ourselves really into this creation of Taylor's gift foundation. It really kind of was sparked because, you know, my husband just kept saying, no, I really hear my grandfather's voice in my head. And he kept saying, you know, hey, Todd, when he was growing up, it's not what happens to you.
That matters. It's how you react to it that does. And I mean, don't get me wrong. Of course it matters.
We lost Taylor. We were devastated. It shattered our world, but we knew our reaction was very, very important, especially to our other two children. So we decided to focus in on the good and we started looking into the organ donation because we didn't know much about it.
And wow, are we just amazed with it. But we also knew that organ donation is not an easy topic, right? It's just, it's not. We all know that on this call.
It's not an easy topic to discuss because when you bring it up with people, they immediately think of death. But organ donation is all about life. That's what it's about. And so we knew we needed something kind of tangible to really carry that.
So we coined the phrase, outlive yourself. How do you want to outlive yourself to leave a lasting difference in the lives of others? You know, and so when you're sitting around with your family and friends, you can ask that question, you know, how do you want to outlive yourself and leave a lasting difference? And you can say for me, you know, my family, we want to outlive ourselves by being an organ donor or an eye door, a donor, a tissue donor and, you know, be able to save lives.
And so it's a great way to start the conversation. But we knew in order to spread this, outlive yourself message, we needed something tangible. It's a no shave November and it's your beer, it's your best ashes. And you can be there with that.
Okay. Well, so that's their kind of conversation piece, right? Just talk about a difficult topic of prostate cancer, et cetera. So like you mentioned, we were very blessed to have some great partners come alongside us and OPI nail polish.
I created a Taylor blue color that went really global. And for many people out there, probably mostly men who aren't sure what OPI is. OPI is the Nike of nail polish is what it is. It's like top nail polish line.
And, you know, speaking of Nike, I mean, they were just so gracious to come alongside us in this movement and they created outlive yourself socks, which you can find on our website. And the blue on the sock reflects the color of Taylor's eyes. And there's five strikes on the socks that give honor to the five lives she saved. And so it is just a beautiful way for them to come alongside us and help you spread this message.
But, you know, a longer way throughout the years, outlive yourself was so powerful. But we also along the years saw this need for dedicated emotional support for donor families, for all organ, eye and tissue donor families. And there was this kind of this gap. So we wanted to step in this kind of emotional support, grief support space for many, many years.
But, you know, I don't think our world was kind of ready for that. But now with as open and received and hands out and hands receiving of mental health these days, it is the perfect time. So we started our Kindred Hearts program, which is a program dedicated to grief and emotional support specifically for donor families. Because, you know, donor families, grief, I feel personally that it's kind of unique and different in the sense we've got this grief from the sun loss because usually always comes out of a tragedy and an accident mixed with the gratitude that our loved ones save lives.
So it's really where grief and gratefulness really kind of share the safe space. And it's something that, you know, donor families really walk through. And we felt like we really wanted to be there for those families due to our own experience by not having that kind of support and being able to help others who are walking this journey. So we started our Kindred Hearts program.
It is a no cost program to donor families because we never, ever want any sort of financial barrier to be in the way of the family getting help. Where are y'all finding your caring guides? Where caring guides are coming from an organization, a behavioral health organization called U-Turn Health. They are providing our caring guides and they are trained with our curriculum, our grief curriculum and our training.
And so they are very much prepared for walking through all of this with donor families. And if you and the caring guides have truly been touched by organization themselves, but being a caring guide and we also have support groups, peer to peer support groups, every single one of our support group facilitators and all of our caring guides, a requirement is as they've had to have personal experience with grief. It's not they've been trained in it or certified. They have personally walked it because it is so important and experience from my personal grief journey, people to sit with somebody who can say they understand that pain and understand that darkness and despair.
You know, when I was when we got back, we didn't really have any emotional support pieces given to us until my brother came to me with a name of a grief counselor who he heard of or a friend of a friend kind of thing. And immediately I was like, no, I'm not doing that. And Jill, he said, but Tara, she has lost a child. And that immediately made me think she's going to understand.
You know, she's been through something like this. And she was a beautiful lifesaver for me and my family. So for us to be able to step in and help these donor families is going to be such an honor and a privilege for them to have allowed us to walk alongside them. And this program right now is across the nation.
It's not just in one state. We're working with families in Ohio and Indiana and Nevada. We do have a family in Louisiana we're working with right now actually. Let's see, Maryland.
So it's Texas. We're spreading this out throughout the nation through our OPO partners and it's it's making a huge difference. It really is. So someone who is a donor family does not necessarily they do not need to go through their OPO.
They're working with your agency. They can go directly to your website and exactly right and find more information. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so we have donor families who are coming to us through their local OPO.
We have donor families coming to us because they saw our social media post or they saw a friend told them about it or someone at the hospital told them about it. So they're organically coming to us, not just all through the OPO, but absolutely. I mean, we are able to help any donor family. And what we also want to share is that, you know, many of the donor families that are brand new in their grief, but we also have some that are years past their loss and they're still struggling.
So this program can help anyone no matter where they are in their grief, jerk. I think this is such an incredible program. And when we spoke yesterday, not realizing you're going to be on the podcast today or I didn't. And I was so I'm just so excited that there's this resource for families.
Now, let's say somebody is four years out or 18 years out with their their loss and they want to walk alongside of a donor family who, like you said, is just faced with their loss. Could they become a caring contact? I mean, a caring guy. Yeah.
I mean, you can go to our website and get involved and right there, you can show your interest in being a support group facilitator or a caring guide and we'll be right back in touch with you to kind of share the details of that. It's it would be amazing to have other donor families join us in this effort, those who are along the way, because those donor families that I met when I was so new in my grief, looking at them and talking to them gave me hope that I can just take that one step forward. I remember looking at a family that was 10 years ahead of me and thinking, I will never make it 10 years. But now, I mean, you know, you but looking at them thinking, wow, they were like that beacon of I can survive this.
Yeah. And so, yes, absolutely. It was just absolutely that would be wonderful to have them. And you know, I really feel that, you know, OPOs, you'll all do such a beautiful job of caring with your donor care, you bring your donor families and giving them all these resources.
And we just want to be an additional resource that you know, OPOs can offer that it's out there for even the families outside of OPOs that we are a resource out there that understands being a donor family, what this is like and can help you in those dark moments. And you know that we have so many people listening to this and that they're not necessarily donor families or recipients or maybe they're recipients. So, your caring gods, can they be just anyone that's had a loss or do they have to be a donor family? No, the requirement is that someone who has a truly experienced grief in their life because it's so, they don't have to be touched by organization or transplantation.
That of course would be wonderful because that's a different level of understanding they could bring. However, it's not something that would ever turn them away from us to not allow them to be part of this and be able to help others. Because I know that that is so important to many is giving back and helping others and believing it's helping others also helps you when you're going through things. It's this beautiful reciprocal comfort that comes when you help others.
So, I mean, I just, I would encourage anyone who's interested in being a caring guide, which means that you will be with a family and individually helping them and being there for them. Or you could be a support group facilitator, which means that you would lead a group. And you know, it's just so important to have that kind of involvement. So we can continue carrying on the program.
It sounds like a great program that you guys have put together. Thank you. I think you hit the nail on the head earlier when you mentioned the fact that, you know, we as OPOs, we do as much as we can, you know, with the resources that we can to help support families as well as we can. And Nyla wouldn't say this, but Nyla, of course, is one of our integral parts of our family support program.
And she's done and along with the others in family services, family support services have done a great job kind of adding layers of support to those donor families that we come into contact with. There's still always certain gaps, right? There's never we can't have enough resources, honestly. And it's so wonderful that you guys have put this together as an additional resource for us as OPOs to help steer families to and for those donor families that are going to you guys, like you mentioned, organically.
So from the OPO perspective, we do have a lot of OPO colleagues that listen into the gift of life. So and obviously I am part of I'm also part of the family support department. So how would I and how would the others in the OPO world? How could we put ourselves next in line for you guys to work with as those next OPOs?
You know, you could just go on our website and go to our contact desk page and send a message and it will come to me and I will get in touch with them right away. You know, we have a couple of OPOs that found out about our program at AOCO just through other OPOs talking about it. So you know, we are very open to expanding this program. And like you said, yeah, I mean, we feel like, you know, you can't really have enough resources, right?
Because there's not a cookie cutter way to help a donor family. But what the feedback we're receiving from the OPOs that are utilizing our Candor Hearts program is that they feel so comfortable sharing this with their donor families because it is an organization led by donor families. They've walked it. They get it.
And so it's not just outsourcing. It is truly directing them to a place that they know has had that experience. And so, yeah, we would absolutely love to expand the program to the OPOs. And if anyone's interested, just go to our website, tapers.com and click on contact us and we'll be in touch very soon.
I think what's so beautiful about this program is it is all about giving and receiving. So whether you want to help someone along their journey or you need help along your journey, this is a resource that is for both and that you have taken a tragedy and found the beauty of that and are sharing that with others is just remarkable. Thank you. You know, it's become my why.
It is my why. You know, it just keeps me going in his broad purpose to the pain. And I just know in my heart, Taylor steering us on along the way. I know she is.
And you know, I do remiss to say that, you know, we really rely on the generosity of others to continue this program, you know, to help find this program because it's the only way we're able to provide this is free support for these families. And so I've encouraged anybody would like to support the foundation in our efforts. That's also on our website. Taylor's gift.org and there's a give section right there.
What's amazing to have watched Taylor's gift foundation grow to help even more families like what a legacy for Taylor, what a legacy for your family to leave behind. And earlier you said you were looking at others and thought, man, I can't imagine being in that spot the hope right and you're providing that hope for so many. That's just an incredible thing. Thank you.
Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. It's a labor love, right? Is what it is.
But it means so, so much. Well, we can't wait to have you back on an open invitation for you as we know you continue to do great things to help even more people. Taylor's gift.org is where you can go to get more information. The program that we talked about today is featured on that site.
Very easy to get to very easy to click to become a caring guide and to be part of the process of healing for so many families. Thanks for your time. You're welcome. And you can find everything about our Chandered Hearts program just right there on our website.
Here on the gift to life podcast, we take a moment for mental health. Yeah. Now, today is going to be talking about something that I think we all need a little bit help with. Building support systems.
Yeah, this is a big one. This is a really big one. And especially coming off of COVID and the pandemic that, you know, people have tend to isolate me. We've been in isolation and if you want to add in grief when you have grief or trauma, you also tend to isolate and that can be dangerous.
We need our time, but we also need people with us. Life is not meant to be lived alone. And so when we say social support, you kind of think party, but no, social support means other people in your life. And so the different types of social support are emotional, informational, tangible, self-esteem and belonging.
And I'll just break that down real quick. But emotional is that's the person you want to go to about your fears. Somebody that may give you encouragement or empathy. Maybe that's your person.
Yeah, your person. Your person can wear different hats and we were, you know, it's easy to go to someone. And if I'm needing emotional support and I go to my husband who just wants to solve my problem, I'm going to leave not feeling good about that conversation. Maybe I'll be angry.
Maybe he'll be frustrated. It's not going to be a good conversation because what I want it was somebody to hold me or hug me or say, it's going to be okay. But I have to know what I'm searching for. So I know who to go to.
And if I'm missing this piece in my social support, I want to go find this. I want to work toward building my support system. So informational support, that can be a friend that just has a lot of good knowledge. Like if I'm sick, I might call Joey.
He's got this clinical background and he may suggest a path that I should take and I'm going to follow that because I need information. Tangible, that's where you go to your neighbor because you need a cup of sugar and your trading services. You'll walk somebody's dog. So if I'm going out of town, I'm going to think about my friend that'll be there to help me.
Grab the mail. Yes. Or if I'm in grief, that person that says, hey, I really want to help. I'm going to say, I know I need meals for my kids because I don't have the energy to cook.
I'm going to go to that person that I know will follow through on something tangible and that's going to be making meals for my children. But we have to know to ask for that. Self-esteem, that somebody who's really going to be like, you're hearing about the self-esteem art, our frontline workers are really, I mean, they are working, they're drained, they're seeing a lot of sick people. So it can really take a toll on their self-esteem.
They need somebody maybe that's going to build them back up and remind them, why are you doing what you're doing? So that's just an example of self-esteem, knowing where to go when you're feeling low about yourself and who can help bring you back up. And then belonging. We all want to belong.
It's human nature. Even animals need a pack. So with this, it's just finding where you fit and that takes you thinking about what you need and then searching out where you can fit in. It might be your work, it might be your family, but just somewhere where you feel accepted.
And so you got to get creative, like what's your, with the support? So if you're missing stuff and that's not bad, it's just recognizing that's what you need in your life. So that you, Laura, you talk about volunteering with Loba, great way. You have a donor family that's got this story they want to share.
That might be a great avenue to build that support system, other donor families. Also, you can take parenting classes. There are in some cities have corgi walking. So you can go walk your corgi with other corgi dog lovers.
I was going to say, I don't know what corgi is. The queen, the queen, Elizabeth. Yeah. So it's just, it's getting creative and looking and then reaching out to people if you can't find that support system and helping them.
I tell you what, alcoholic anonymous, AA, great support system. You don't even have to be an alcoholic to join, to attend some of the meetings if they're an open meeting. So just knowing there's so many different ways to connect through hobbies, through likes, through relationships, and it's trying to find that fit. And I've been experiencing that because at this stage in my life, my little ones are into sports.
And so we spend a lot of time at the ball field. We have sibling. So who's going to do this? Who's going to be in charge of making sure everybody has dinner tonight?
Who's going to be in charge of the activities for the littles? Who's going to bring the sunscreen because mom forgot or who's going to bring the extra ice? So it's like a village, like a Tasty village just for these like 12 kids on the field. So but it works so perfectly.
But I wouldn't have been put with those people having not been playing the same sport kind of thing. But you see, it's just natural. And it gives you a feeling of belonging. Yeah.
And I can help too. I brought the ice. Maybe you have a topic you'd like for us to cover here on The Get to Life. Simply email us info at thegettolife.org.
It is time for our question. Answer segment here on the Get to Life podcast. Yeah. And this one is for you.
So the question came in from one of our listeners. What can I say when I write to my loved ones recipients? Oh, I love this question. And I love this question for two reasons.
The first one is that when any, whether it's a donor family or a recipient wants to write, it just, it just makes me so happy because it's gratefulness and wanting to share their story. And then the second thing is just it's building those relationships and it just grows what organization is all about. So I would suggest that you can go to our website, which is www.lopa.org. And on our family service page, you'll find a video that has suggestions and tips.
But what we usually say with Lopa for the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency, we just kind of talk to the family about share. Share what you want to share. It's really up to them. I've seen where families write one page and just, you know, give an update.
I've seen where some families send three pages and pictures. Sometimes somebody just gets a card and writes, I'm thinking about you, would like to know more or just I'm thinking about you. So it's really left out to that individual, what they feel like they need to say. But our family service department is available to support and to help you with those letters.
And you do a great job. We hear it all the time. Thank you. The hard work.
Maybe you have a question you'd like to ask us here on the gift of life. All you have to do is give us a call. 5046483477. In every episode of the Get to Life podcast, we honor a hero.
Today's hero is Christopher Cabrera. And we learn about Christopher from his mom. He was a very happy, private person and full of life. He loved his family, fishing with his brother every Saturday, rain, shine, morning grow and holidays.
After he was gone, our lives have never been the same. He was an electrician by trade and had a bachelor's in business from Southeast University. He donated both kidneys and heart valves. He was able to save two people, a 50-year-old and a 70-year-old.
We were fortunate enough to meet one of his recipients. We keep in touch monthly. I am so thankful to the local family. And now we pause and say thank you to Christopher for the gift of life.
And that is going to do it for episode 193 of the gift of life. Thanks for listening friends. And remember you can register anytime as an organ tissue or eye donor at registerme.org. Huge thank you to Tara Starch for not only coming on once with us in episode 43 when we were a little infants in the podcast world.
We're coming on again 150, exactly 150 podcast later episodes later. So how great is that? Especially the work that she's doing with the Taylor's gift foundation and how great is outlive yourself. That's like the best online slogan for exactly.
It's kind of all encompassing of what we do here. So thank you to Tara. I love it. A ripple of good.
I wrote that down. Remember the best place to find us at our website, thegiftedlife.org. Listen there and find links to listen on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you listen on Apple podcast, please leave us a five star rating.
It really helps for others to find our podcast. On social, you can like our page on Facebook. It's the Gifted Life podcast. You can also follow us on both Twitter and Instagram at Gifted Life pod.
Thanks for spending some time with us today. We hope that you go out and do something you wouldn't normally do to help us make life happen for one big team. Until next time. This is a production of the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency or LOPA.
The Gifted Life is hosted by Lori Steele, Joey Buutro and Malishwab. Our executive producer is Kirsten Hines. Producer is Shalom Caraway. In turn is Rebecca Renham and we are recorded, engineered and mixed in our Covington, Louisiana studio by Troy Perez.