Hello and welcome to the Gifted Life Podcast where we have conversations about organ, tissue and ideonation. You can always find us at thegiftedlife.org. I'm Laurie Steele and this is a special episode of the Gifted Life Podcast. I have a co-host who's been making life happen with Lopa for almost 20 years now.
Wow. All right, Sharon Raymond, she is back on the Gifted Life. Hey, ma'am. Hey, Laurie, how are you?
Good. Wonderful to be here. Some people are nervous to come back, but you're happy about it, right? Oh, I'm just ecstatic because I'm ready to push forward our August campaign of National Minority Donor Awareness Month and I'm really looking forward to our podcast today.
You know, COVID-19 has disrupted a lot of how we've been doing things, including educating the community about the miracle of donation, but the National Minority Donor Awareness Month coming up, the campaign, you're excited about it and your friends that you've invited on the podcast are excited about it too. Yes, I'm super excited about it. Our COVID-19 has shut down a lot of our Facebook presentations, but we have been doing virtual presentations via Zoom and also just doing our Facebook live events with our donor families. But this is going to be a special podcast because we have three powerhouse ladies in the organ procurement organization world and we'll be discussing how we can achieve one voice, one vision to save and heal lives.
I love that. All that and more. If you can even believe it coming up on this episode of The Gifted Life, we do appreciate you listening. Sharon, you ready?
I'm ready. Let's go. Let's do it. On this episode of The Gifted Life podcast, lots of topics to get to.
One of the topics that we'll be discussing today though, National Minority Donor Awareness Month and man, we hope that you will participate. Things look a little different in the country and the state. And so we're going to be throwing out some options there for you that are easy and we hope that you'll want to get involved. So we told you that we had a special co-host today, Ms.
Sharon Raymond. She was on episode 109 of The Gifted Life Share and you're ready to do this? Oh, definitely. That's right.
And Sharon, almost 20 years of her life dedicated to helping make life happen. That's just amazing in itself. To tell you a little bit more about Sharon, she's a community educator in Louisiana. She's in the northern part of our state.
Amazing at what she does. Just a good human. She's also helping with Lopa's strategic planning, moving forward. And she's helping to lead Lopa's equity, diversity and inclusion work group here at Lopa as well.
So, plateful, huh, Sharon? Definitely. But it's a labor of love. We can tell that there's a passion.
And I know that you were excited about having our guests on today to continue that conversation, to continue learning. Exactly. I am so honored to speak with these ladies today. We can consider them to be true pioneers in the organ transplantation world.
And it's a great pleasure to have them sit on our panel today. All right. So, coming up on the podcast, these three ladies have said yes to being our guest here on the Gifted Life where our goal is to educate. So, if you're listening out there, our goal at the end of this is that you share this podcast because we're going to have these conversations today and we're hoping that it's going to be a learning experience for us all.
So, Sharon, tell us who's on the podcast today. We have Ramona Chattman. She's the Gift of Life Community Outreach Manager. She's also the program director for MoTeP, Gift of Life Foundation in Detroit and also the past president of AMAT.
We have Marian Shuck, who is the director of Family Services and Community Outreach for Gift of Hope, Organ and Tissue Donor Network in Chicago. She's also the current president of AMAT. And last but not least, we have Janice Whaley, the chief executive officer for Donor Network West in California, also a past president of AMAT. Thank you, ladies, so much for being with us today.
Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. I've had the privilege to listen to some of you guys on different panels, whether it be a Yoko, the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations, or others videos that are on YouTube. I'm excited to learn with you today.
And I know that we're talking about National Minority Donor Awareness Month and if we could go down and just learn a little bit about the history of what it is this month and then maybe the mission. We have an opportunity here in 2020 to make great things happen. And so I'm just curious to hear across the board what this month means to you guys and how we're going to use that moving forward. Ramona, I'm going to start with you.
I know that you have a little bit of history with this yourself. Listen. Yes, yes, yes. Well, I'm excited because National Minority Donor Awareness Day began in 1996 when Dr.
Clive Callender and then President Bill Clinton wanted to have a time that highlighted the disparities about those minority populations that was in need of organ transplants more importantly to also share that the minority community had a special opportunity to impact that particular need. And so as a result of that, National Minority Donor Awareness Day was born as August 1, 1996 to make a difference. And so over the years, we have celebrated that particular day where we would talk about disease prevention and the impact of reducing the rate of diabetes and hypertension in the African American community as well as other minority communities. It was also a day to encourage health prevention and awareness, a day to promote physical activity to help to make sure that we were physically active and reducing obesity in various communities.
And also an important day to talk about the rates of which African Americans, Hispanic, Asian American and Native Americans were in need of transplants. And so as a result, that day became a week about 10 years ago. And now that day has become a month. So in the midst of, it's very interesting that in the midst of a pandemic, when we have been shut in that this particular month, that the inaugural event of this particular month is happening.
And so we have been joined with all national organizations, ABAT, National Mocha, National Kidney Foundation, AOPO to talk about using, I'm sorry, NDLA to talk about using voices to unite us to once again address the number one problem of transplantation that has always been the shortage of donors. And that brings up the point also about the disparities in the health community, especially those focused on minorities and multicultural communities. Can one of you maybe speak on if that disparity has changed anyway? Well, I kind of started out as my colleagues to definitely join in.
Unfortunately, the disparities have not changed. Again, once again, racial disparities, health disparities did not occur on May 24, 2020. They have been there over the years. And unfortunately, what happened?
And maybe even fortunately, to some degree, that we have had an opportunity to focus our energy than efforts in looking at those particular disparities in a much different way. So as much as I would like to say that 25 years ago, 50 years ago, those disparities have decreased. Unfortunately, they have not decreased because we have not been able to address the issues that cause those disparities to feel be prevalent in our communities. Absolutely.
Ramona, I'd like to chime in and just say, as you take a look at the history and the involvement of Oregon in tissue donation in our country, you know, 30 years ago, there were 10,000 people on the waiting list. Today, we have over 114,000 people waiting for a life-saving organ because of the disparity, because of lifestyle, people of color, multicultural communities make up a huge percentage of that list going forward. And so we still have a lot of things that go into that. We still have misinceptions.
We still have lack of mistrust for health care organizations. And we also still have a problem with access for people of color to be able to get the health care that they need and why they have an organization of transplants. And so, yes, the disparity is real. It continues to be real.
And we want to make sure through our part as women of color, multicultural communities to do what we can to help continue to dismiss those misinceptions, but also to help our communities. And the communities have changed over the last 30 years. So, yes, we have African-American and our Hispanic Latinx community still leading the numbers of people who are waiting for organs on the transplant list. Now we have different communities.
So we have our commercial community. We have Native Americans. We have Asian Pacific Islanders. And we also have our LGBTQ plus community to make up multicultural communities.
And so they have needs as well for organ and tissue transplants. And so, again, the disparities are real. They are ever evolving. And it's our role to really be able to help continue this messaging, to disseminate the message, and to really help these communities.
This is Janice. I would also say that, you know, the awareness, the ability to have discussions within these communities is still something that needs to be magnified. And we have not been able to consistently bring in focus groups and talk about what's going on in our community as it relates to health. We did a documentary about a year ago, which we pitched, where we had people having those type of discussions.
And I think that that is what will help move the needle. But as I've heard from both Marion and Ramona, we should be further along than where we are. And I think that the more awareness and attention that is brought to the disparities on so many fronts, I think a lot of people are now seeing the disconnect that there is. And it starts, you know, from access all the way on down.
Our communities are suffering from two diseases that allow for needing a kidney transplant and hypertension and diabetes and the education and the ability to reach these communities sometimes has been difficult. And we have to have the conversations. You know, there's multiple elephants in different rooms around this topic. And I think we need to be honest with ourselves and also with the public on what that looks like and how we can move to achieving better access within minority communities.
Thank you, ladies. I think it is right now a sensitive topic. And I think it needs to be discussed because one of my mantras is that it's going to remain sensitive until you talk about it. You have to keep talking about it.
And I love the campaign for this year for a national minority donor awareness month, one voice, one vision to save and heal lives. Can you tell me how I know this thing was probably brought up before the Black Lives Matter movement and the killing of George Floyd, but it seems like it's so timely. And maybe Marion or one of you talk about how that thing came about and how we can push that forward. Absolutely.
Thank you so much for mentioning that. And I think that the vision came together at a meeting. And we decided to put together a coalition because we recognize that everybody was doing something different to really reach the communities in terms of education and awareness. AMAC continues to lead the pack in terms of having conversations, not only with the staff in our Oregon Procurement organizations who reach out to the education and community outreach in these communities, but then we also wanted to bring together groups that had different points of access and different areas of opportunity.
So we put together this coalition called the National Minority Action Group. And this group, as Ramona mentioned earlier, is made up of AMAC, the Association for Multicultural Affairs and Transplantation, DLA, which is Donate Life America, the National Kidney Foundation MULTAP, HRSA as well. And we get together and we put together our thinking cap and we brainstormed about one how to change a national minority donor awareness day from a week or a month as different people celebrated and how do we make a very succinct concise. And so we made a succinct concise by changing it to a month because we recognized one day was not sufficient to honor all of the multicultural communities.
And so we got together and we made it a month with Dr. Callender as well. I'm sorry, Dr. Callender is a big part of this coalition.
And more importantly, how do we use all of our resources to really navigate the challenges that we see and to really speak to all of the disparities? And so we came together as one voice over a series of months to be able to put this together and to agree, as you know, a lot of people in the room, you may not always agree, but this group did a fantastic job of really coming together and putting together this and coming up with the logo, coming up with the language, coming up with a charter to be able to really speak to how are we going to collectively work in a way that was collaborative, in a way that would really be able to reach and provide materials to our communities to be able to disseminate this message and to have collateral. Sometimes, or a lot of times, people don't do things because they don't have the resources, they don't have the collateral. Well, we took that aside and said, okay, we're going to develop collateral, we're going to give you the resources, and we have lots of things going on from web banners, social media, traditional media, things collateral that people could use from fans and things of that nature.
We really tried to do a fantastic job of thinking about how do we allow people to have in the game and how do we allow them to disseminate this message more clearly, and how do we navigate this entire month? And so I think that this has been a really great opportunity. I enjoyed working with everybody on the team, and I think it's done a fantastic job of really providing a way to help people celebrate. As you mentioned, in one voice collaboratively and to have a shared messaging.
And I love the fact that you don't have a date or a year on the promotional items because we have a lot of collaborations within our state with HBCUs and also with foundations like the Lynx Foundation. We also have some collaborative outreach with Delft & Sigma Theta and Alpha Kappa Alpha, the groups that are sorority leaders and fraternity leaders within HBCUs. And when you know that school here, some of the sessions have been delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. So it's great that we can still have these campaigns to push through social media.
And without having to tie down to a date, we can actually use this later on in the year. Was that the meaning behind it? Did the COVID-19 pandemic play any role in the types of materials that you had available? Actually, COVID did not play a part in this for the simple fact that we've been working on this since last year.
And we actually finalized it before COVID really hit. So it was really the genius of everyone to really make this timeless materials, classic materials that we could continue to build on. So by having a succinct logo and having all of our partners, this allows us to really grow on this. How do we build?
We may change the collateral from here to here, but the logo in the messaging remains the same and it remains timeless and updated. And so for our listeners, what pages do you want them to follow? What do you want them to do? What's the call to action?
How can we help? We have a little information on Mary and said, the Association for Multicultural Affairs and Transportation on our website. There'll be information on multiple websites dealing with websites. And they can always just kind of go.
We're using a couple of hashtags, hashtag in MDAM for National Minority Donor Awareness Month. We're on social media, one voice, one vision. And we're asking people to put it up on their social media platforms and expand that. We're asking them to use it on web banners.
The same way that we promote National Donor Night Life Month. It's the same way that we want people to promote National Minority Donor Awareness Month. And so, again, there's a toolkit that's available that we have all again worked together for the public to be able to download, get information about their t-shirts that you can order, their sanitizer, they're all kind of things. And I think the hands-out-out size probably was also a part of being smart in this, again, in this particular pandemic.
But, you know, there's stories that we want people to share, again, the social media graphics and the statistics about how many people that are waiting, that over 60% of the persons that are waiting on the National Transport Waiting List are ethnic minority. So, and I'll let my colleagues jump in and add other things. Right. Into Ramona's point, we also conducted a webinar in May that is housed on both DLA and AMAC website.
So, you can go and get information about the National Minority Action Group. You can get information and resources on different things that people have done historically for National Minority Donor Awareness Day so that you can get an understanding of different things that have been done through Ramona's point. You can get all of the collateral, the hashtag, the social media, and how to utilize them as well. And so, the toolkit is very resourceful and allows everyone to just have a seamless process for how to incorporate all of the things that you can do.
And by no means is it just those things that we have in the toolkit, people are very imaginative and they do a really, really great job. So, not only do we want you to go and utilize these tools, but we'd also like to hear how you've incorporated it and what are your thoughts and how you've been creative. And so, it's a two-way street to be able to share and disseminate information. Thank you, ladies.
One of the things that I've seen since I've been working with the strategic planning process with LOPA and on our equity diversity and inclusion team, we have tried to show our solidarity not only with our community and our minority community and how many people are waiting and trying to get them to register to become donors, but we also are showing our solidarity to our employees. And, Janice, as the first African-American CEO of an OPO, which is an awesome feeling to break through, you've been in that role over a year now. Can you tell us about how we can include equity diversity and inclusion in our OPO, but also did you see any changes when you shifted from Texas to California and how to reach out to the community and the staff? So, you're missing one chapter in my life and that was in Oklahoma.
So, I went from Oklahoma to California. And I think, initially, my thoughts were there would be quite a bit of a difference between Oklahoma and California as far as diversity and inclusion was thought of. But to my dismay, I joined a team that there was no diversity on the executive leadership level or the senior leadership level. And so, I asked a lot of questions.
Over the past year, we've looked at certain things. We're going to start having someone that is going to function in the role of diversity and inclusion to help us navigate the future. There's a lot of talk and you hear people say, oh, it's hard to find people of color to work in this business. Well, are we really looking at the right places to recruit?
Are we engaging our team members who we have that are just not on a leadership level? Are we developing them to become the future leaders? And this is across the board, not just minorities, but it's a challenge sometimes for people to invest in their own team members to move them to the next level. And so, we are in a much better place, but we did not represent the population that we serve in terms of people of color.
And so, I admonish my team to really think outside the box with recruitment and to look at ways to identify people of color that can join our team. And then we also have to look into ourselves, too, our internal biases that may not have the be intentional, but they're there. So, we're doing a lot of work on that, too, to make sure that we unintentionally are not dismissing or not looking at diversity and inclusion. And so, my experience, I think, a year and a half now, it's been really telling.
And I will tell you that we can speak to our communities all day long. But people look to see whether or not there's representation and leadership in our industry in itself, as you just pointed out. We have not really engaged people of color on the senior level. There's just a few of us that exist.
And I think we need to work harder so that our messaging is not just in speaking, but also we represent the people that we serve across the country. Definitely. Thank you so much. Ramona or Marion, do you have anything to add?
I would concur that, you know, I've been in this industry now over 20 years. And I think that I've seen the improvements occur slowly. But I think, as Jen just pointed out, there are a lot of people of color that are able to not only, as we pointed out earlier on, be a part of community education and outreach, but they're also persons that should be a part of the C-suite. And I think that the genesis comment about how people look to see, you know, is there the saying that says, what you do speak whole loudly, people don't hear what you say.
And so, therefore, people are looking in the organizations to make sure that the organizations are representative of them in the decision-making policies that occur. And I think that those are things that, again, are very important. So, again, when we talk about disparities, we not only talk about disparities that are they externally, we have to also address the disparities that are in charge. And I'll quiet in the very kind of chime on it here.
Thanks, Ramona. Prior to working for an OPO, I actually spent quite a number of years in talent acquisition management recruitment and was able to really change the, to Janice's point, to really change what an organization looks like by having people of color work in those organizations and utilizing tools, not just using Indeed, which is new, but LinkedIn or the recruiter or Monster or Career Builder, but really partnering with different organizations, partnering with historically Black College of the University, partnering with organizations that specialize in people of color and candidates of color to really fill spots. I think that the challenge is that people have to be willing to think outside the box. You cannot just put an ad in the paper in all white neighborhoods and expect people of color to see that ad and then apply for position.
Nowadays, with social media being such a plethora of how we communicate, what are the things that we're doing as an industry to really think about social media as a platform for recruitment, to go on campuses to the sort of white colleges and campuses to partner with recruitment firms and agencies that specialize in talent of color. I will tell you, a lot of times to Janice's point, when we need it to specialize and find someone for an executive level role, that is what we did. I have to think outside the box and I think that something our industry has not typically done. I applaud Janice for even thinking about having an inclusion expert for really taking a look at what does our senior leadership team look like?
What does our director level team look like? What is our next level of managers and our supervisors look like? How do we create a succession plan that really includes to Janice's point moving people up the ladder? You already have people in your organization, so take a look at a succession plan.
That is something that we do here at Give to Hope and we really take a look at that. I am hopeful that all of this will change in as a result of Black Lives Matter, as a result of COVID. People will really think about what are we doing to move our organization forward and not just an OPL land, but across our sister organizations as well. Whether it be Donate White America, whether it be National Kidney Foundation, whether it be AAPB, how are we making the most and how are we promoting that we are great places to work and there is opportunity for employees of color.
I love this. I love what is coming out of the collaboration that seems to already be going and if there is an organization out there or representative of an organization and they are saying I really like to be a part of AMAT or MoTEP. And how do they go about doing that? Absolutely.
MoTEP is a current president. I have learned so much from Janice and Ramona and I thank them for championing me into this role. When I started at Give to Hope, I was in a recruitment area in HR and in that process and then I moved to a manager of community outreach and currently as a donor. But as a result of AMAT, how I have been able to show my leadership is how I have been able to grow and AMAT with Janice and with Ramona and with Bobby Howard and Ruth Unkendell are people who are leadership roles who help me get there and help me understand how to learn and how to be that leader.
And so I am in the role that I am currently in and because of that AMAT you have to understand in the long term organization. All of us do what we do because we have passion for what we do and it is not just the organization for African Americans. Our organization works with every diverse community you can imagine whether it is Indigenous populations, Asia, Pacific Islander, Hispanic Latinx, African Americans, Caribbean, Muslim, LGBTQIA. So what we would love for people to come and be organizational members, we would love for people to come and be a member of AMAT to help us continue this conversation.
I am happy for people to call me. I am the president, I am passionate about this. This next two years we will be soaring at AMAT. That is our acronym and I am happy to have a conversation with people.
I am happy for people to reach out to me at mchuck.giftuphelp.org or they can call me at 312-203-0665 so that we can start a conversation and we can continue this collaboration in cross collaborative messaging so that we can reach the entire United States. Not just a couple of organizations who are committed to AMAT and committed to us growing but this needs to be a very huge opportunity. Let me explain. At AMAT we are unique positions to have this conversation.
No other organization is having this conversation in the multicultural community and people look at AMAT to further those conversations and get information. I welcome as president the opportunity to talk to people to help them understand what value AMAT can bring and just how we can help your communities. We have webinars, we have toolkits, we have committed volunteers from all across the OPO who give their time and energy to developing all these things that help us to be the unique organization that we are. You know AMAT is positioned to be called upon by anyone in this country with regards to expertise in so many communities of color.
I think we want to, and this is something that way back when I was president, my vision was that whenever there was a crisis, whenever there was a challenge in the communities or an issue that we needed to address regarding donation and transportation in our community, that AMAT would be the voice. They would be where people would go first. We continue to want to do that. I think a lot of times people justify not identifying the right experts to go to and the messages that get out there just don't move our communities.
It's different for Ramona, myself or Marianne to have a conversation with people of color. It's not the same when people, others who don't have that similarity speak. That has truly been the challenge. Even times when we're talking to families on real cases where they're more open to a person of color than they would be of someone who is not.
I think we need to tap into identifying experts and allowing them to help formulate and charter the path moving forward. They have a wealth of knowledge within AMAT, which I'm still a part of. I think it's important that when people are looking at their communities and they want to identify ways to improve, AMAT should be their source to help guide them moving forward. This is Ramona.
I would concur with everything that has been said that, again, when you're getting contact with Mocha, I can also be with AMAT, the professional organization that is connected throughout the transplant community and beyond to really galvanize and mobilize not only talent on a professional level but also talent via community. Just as Marianne mentioned earlier about Dr. Callender, when he first began Mocha, the whole concept was the first national organization that really went into the community to talk about the importance of organization on the issue. One of the things that was there was that particular motto, suggested that you have people of the community talk to the community.
Those are persons that trust those are persons that, even though sometimes we think language barriers in certain communities, that's probably language barriers in all communities. What happens with a diversity of talent, you begin to break down, not language, but communication. I think that's the part that's so exciting and that's the part that I think is so important that we see in this national minority donor awareness month. It's just not, it's communication.
It's the ability to say, even though we're coming with one voice and one vision. There are different ways to get there and different voices are not the vision voices. It's just voices that will resonate and connect with people differently. We're really excited about that.
I think it's a learning place too, as Ramona said. We engage everyone, not just people of color and A-MAT. I have team members who are not people of color that have joined because they want to learn. I think it's important that we engage everyone in this process.
It's going to take all of us to change the narrative. Being sensitive and knowing who should talk and when to talk is important. But overall, everybody, knowledge is power and everybody should take the opportunity to understand what's going on in diverse communities today. Awesome.
Thank you, ladies, so much. This has been a wonderful segment to our gifted life podcast and our jumpstart of all this one voice, one vision to save and heal lives for national minority donor awareness month. I want to thank you, ladies, for joining us today and your insight and perspectives have been invaluable. Thank you so much.
In every episode of The Gifted Life, we honor a hero. Today's hero, Rashan Dromgul. We learn about Rashan from her family. Our hero has always been a hero long before now.
She set the trend for all of us. No one was ever a stranger. She helped everyone young or old. It was with great pleasure to share her with whomever needed her.
Whoever received her organs, trust me, she's rejoicing. She loved helping anyone at any time. We miss her so much. May God bless you.
And now we pause and say thank you to Rashan for the gift of life. And that'll do it for episode 140 of The Gifted Life, Sharon. Powerhouse today. I'm setting that up.
Oh, this was awesome. I want to listen to it over and over again. Don't forget to join us September 14th through 18th at AMAT Virtual Week is going to take place. And you can look for the information on AMAT1.org.
I love that. I said one of the things about COVID-19. Some of the things have changed. But really, via technology, we're able to get so much more learning in is how I feel.
You sent links to the ladies that we had on the podcast today. And it just spurred healthy conversations just like we talk about donation. But real life, world issues, everyone's going through, not awkward, but raw, honest, open. I love that.
And no one has any excuse not to listen to this podcast because the upcoming one of the AMAT is going to be totally free. It's no charge. Listen to it. Find out and share it with others.
I love that. Now, guys, the best place to find this podcast is the GiftedLife.org. One of the ways that you can help spread donation awareness is by sharing this podcast. So please do that as our goal is to educate is to learn, is to move forward together.
If you are not registered as an organ tissue and eye donor, you can do that today. Register me.org. It's a one stop shop. The podcast are you in the podcast?
Remember the GiftedLife.org. I mentioned that other links, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, your favorite podcast app. We're kind of easy to find on Sharon. We are super easy to find.
And I'm hoping that you're rating and subscribing right now. Subscribe and sign up and rate us five stores because we are the bomb. Oh, she's advised. I like sharing.
Okay. We're going to keep having you on this podcast, girl, on social media, on Facebook where the GiftedLife podcast, you can also follow us both on Twitter and Instagram at GiftedLifePod. And we do want to hear from you. Email your questions.
Email your topics that you'd like us to cover. GiftedLife.org. We want this to be a back and forth of Volley. Right?
Sharon, that's how we learn. We talk about it. And don't forget to request a presentation because we offer free education throughout the entire state of Louisiana. So if you want to learn more, just come to local.org's website and sign up and request a speaker.
All right, Sharon, we appreciate you taking the time out to co-host today on this podcast. And we hope that if we ask you again, you'll say yes. I'll think about it. I love that.
You know, our ask that we put out there. We want you to go out and do something you would normally do to help us make life happen. We're one voice for one team. And you're part of that.
All right. We'll talk to you again next time. Bye-bye. This is a production of Lopa, or the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency.
The Get to Life is hosted by Lori Steele, Joey Buudrow, and Sarah Blake Moore, our executive producer is Kirsten Heis, producer is Shalom Caraway. Intern is Rebecca Rannam, and we are recorded, engineered, and mixed in our Covington, Louisiana studio by Troy Perez.