Hello and welcome to the Gifted Life Podcast where we have conversations about organ, tissue and i-o nation. You can always find us at thegiftedlife.org. I'm Wurry Steel. I'm Joey Boudreau.
I'm Sarah Blickmore. And in today's episode we'll be talking about the many ways in which we partner up with hospitals. And finding your purpose. All that more right here, the Gifted Life, you guys ready?
Yep. Oh yeah. Here on the Gifted Life, all smiles. Yes, we've got a packed house here.
Oh, hey, it's quiet. Hey everybody. Hello. Hey, we're excited.
We've got Lana, Stephen, very familiar faces. Lana Stevens, one of our community educators at Loba. Her coverage area is pretty much the southeast area of Louisiana. And we've got Tyler Brignac, Trauma Program Manager at North Oaks Health Systems.
Very good partner with Loba. And of course, they've been working together, those two, as he has with many of our other staff on a lot of initiatives that North Oaks has been there. Absolutely. Talk to us about a little bit.
Definitely. So part of what I do in the Trauma program is I'm working close to relationships with Loba and Tawny with Loba and also Lana as well. And what we do is a level two trauma center. We look at all of our data.
We see what's going on in our region. What can we do to prevent injury? We prevent trauma and things like that. And what we did about five years ago, we noticed that there were a lot of pediatric patients coming in for different reasons, ATV crashes and things like that.
So we started our community event called Play It Safe at K-Square Park this year and October. It would be our fifth year. And last year we decided to partner with Lana and Loba to spread awareness about the community on the North Shore for an organ tissue donation. I mean, how great is that?
Yes, it's fantastic. Yeah. Well, so Lana, you called and you were like, guess what happened? I was like, that never happened.
I just tell them I love the forward thinking, the wisdom, but education is key. We talk about that here as well, just spreading the word. But you were telling us that North Oaks, they do lots of things out in the community. So they are good at what they do and then they do more.
Right, right. So we've been really lucky over the past quite a few years now. Say it's only been a long, long, long. Well, definitely.
But that's a long up in there. It's definitely like babies. Yes. Yes.
Yeah. Tell us, when he was 13. I know you do. But no, they've done a lot of partnerships with the community and with the hospital.
Just a couple of them, they usually do donor drives, not necessarily only in April for donor awareness month, but they've done it at different parts of the year as well. So we've done donor drives over there. We've had a butterfly release where we've had families come out to honor their loved ones who have passed and released a butterfly that's always one of the community's favorite events, something in that area. And they always do a flag raising to honor our donor heroes as well.
And then we just walk in a room, Tyler's just so welcoming, like, I'm just going to smile with my white smile and these good teeth. You just come in. Yeah. But you're always so nice.
You focus on education. You make everybody feel welcome. And then, hey, let's do a community event. Definitely.
So we treat trauma as a disease like anything else. And as a disease, it's going to be prevented. And there's various methods of preventing seeing the hospital, right? Like wearing your seatbelt when you're in a vehicle, putting a helmet on when you're on an ATV, don't draw the ATV on the road, things like that.
And that's what we try to spread to our community. We have a lot of rural area in region nine, which is our region of the state of Louisiana. And so we do see a lot of ATV crashes and things like that. And so we try to reach out to the children.
We do some impact program with drivers. I was started at UMC in New Orleans. It's been going on for about 20 years now, I think. And that's focused on sophomore level students who are just getting their permanent driver's license to focus on how to not be distracted and driving or drinking and driving, things like that.
And so that community outreach and education is a huge part of what we do. And it's something that I do really enjoy. So I don't ever mind going anywhere to teach anybody how to do how to prevent, come and see me. I always tell people I would love to not have a job in trauma.
I would love to have to do something else because we don't have to have a level through trauma center. Unfortunately, that's not the case right now. Right. And you guys are so great at what you do.
But how great is it for you, Lana, to have this partner who's so welcoming, open to ideas, wanting to do more. Yeah. Very easy to work with in the community and in the hospital. I mean, Tyler and I met quite a few years back, like you mentioned, doing some impact.
And so we kind of developed a relationship from there. And he was kind of stuck with us. That's great because in presentations, like you back us up, like you had the facts. If you have questions, like you guys jump in.
I love that. That doesn't happen everywhere. And we're trying to get that to be the key. Exactly.
It's good to talk about LOPA and organ donation from more than just those who work for LOPA because I like for people to see that it does affect everyone around. And I started in the trauma world 10 years ago. I worked in the trauma ICU. And that's when I first got really involved into the donation process.
And I just saw how it changed a lot of everybody around, including the caretakers, not only the family's, the recipients, the donors, but also the nurses and the physicians. And so ever since over 10 years now, I've just been passionate about organ donation and the whole process. And so a lot of people outside of the studio and outside of this office think that our biggest focus, which it is about organ and tissue donation, organization and education. And of course, this shows a little different side of us that we try to focus on a lot of other initiatives.
Well, and I think that the big thing is for us too, is our common ground is we just want to save lives. Right. Exactly. So whichever way we can, we just want to save lives.
And so we just automatically get easy to come together on that. Yeah. And so you started to touch on the initiative that you guys have to play at a safe event. So what got you guys to tie it into the run that you guys got?
Well, fortunately for me, I have a fantastic marketing department. And so when we started five years ago with Play at Save, they just kind of took that ball and ran with it. And we partnered with up to 48 partners last year. We had over 700 people at 10 and talking to Atlanta and talking to some other representatives from local with our marketing department, we decided, look, let's just piggyback on the organ donation, awareness event, tissue donation awareness event with something that we already have going.
And so we already have volunteers out there. We already have partnerships, drinks, food, water, radio stations, things like that. Let's just go ahead. Since we need this community education so bad, let's just tie it into this as well.
So we talk about, so we pretty much get the whole cycle. We get the prevention all the way to the donation awareness. I love the way that play it's safe. You said you get three zones.
Yes. We have three different zones. We have a sports and outdoor zones. Hey, Joe, it's an outline.
Exactly right. We all know about the concussions and things like that. We have a home zone, how to make your home more protective for young children. And also we have a wheel zone.
So obviously that would be ATVs, motor vehicles, car seats, things like that. Alright, so last year was the first year for Operation 5K. So this is going to our second year. So what can we expect?
When they came to us, it was so funny. It was like, I came back here. It was like, North Oak's pretty much handed us a box. I mean, we're the whole half-ton.
It was exciting. Oh, so we were so excited about that. I'm still in. But, um, so last year was our first time partner with him, as he mentioned, and we will do it again this year.
We're located in Kate Square Park, downtown, um, downtown, and I'm sorry. And it's just a lot of fun. The registration starts at 7 a.m. that day, but you can pre-register before.
And the race actually starts at 8 30 a.m. So when we finish up our race and our awards, it's just an easy go right back into the late day. Exactly. So we have lots of awards for our largest team.
Highest fundraiser, best team shirt is always fun for us to judge on because we see so many different fun, exciting designs. So we like that part as well. And we just really invite families to come out to get a large team of their family together to either honor their loved ones who have been donor heroes or to get a large team together to honor recipients that they know or recipient to get their groups together as well. So we're just on and then you do helmet giveaway.
We do helmet giveaway. So we partner with the North Oaks Foundation and they are involved and they are, uh, through them, we're able to donate over 300 bike helmets. And like Lana said, so the race starts at 8 30, you can register at www.give.gov.org forward slash OP 5K. Look at you.
It's a mouthful. You can register there for the race or you can register there. It starts at 8 30 and when she says it just ties into the event that starts from 10 to 12, the place that event and there's going to be food, drinks, a good time. One of our biggest teams for the 5K was actually, uh, employee at North Oaks who also family member, but ended up being a donor.
They're our largest teams and the Sootoon family and they are very, very grateful and they like to spread donation awareness throughout everyone they meet. See, they're paying it forward. You did it. Absolutely.
You know, I think another good opportunity for this area in the Hammond area was we also saw a lot of new families come out to, um, to get involved and because they never really got involved in their area before. So it was nice to bring a new event to that area for the community as far as donation goes. And last year, I know, I thought our butterfly release there was somebody from the Hammond area whose brother had donated, I want to say 12 years ago and just never had anywhere to go to celebrate that because there was nothing on the North Shore that had done that. She was very excited to see that we had a butterfly release and then we do this 5K run.
Yeah, it's definitely opened up the doors off onto a lot of our families and recipients too that live in this area that just were, you know, not, either not comfortable going out of their little area. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So I know that I don't run because there's a lot of supervising and then I would pass out.
But do you get to run time? I can't lie. I sure I broke my foot if you weren't before. So I wasn't able to run it.
I was. Yeah. I'm not a big runner, honestly. I'll usually only run when I'm chased, but I'm going to do it.
But I'm like you, uh, I like to supervise. Yeah. There's so much I got to do behind the scenes. You know, it's like I'm running a 5K the whole time.
Right. He's slick. I like that, right? We got to use that one.
I know. I mean, I'm pretty much running a 5K today. That's what we do. Awesome.
Well, here on the podcast, we talk about one person making a difference. Tyler, we appreciate you. You're helping us make life happen. You're spreading the word.
We always talk about education, myth-busting. I mean, you are quite the champion and we appreciate you. Yeah. Anytime.
Absolutely. I'd love to share the donation process as much as I share trauma and trauma prevention. Yeah. You want to meet Tyler?
October 19th. Absolutely. Where is it again, Lana? Take Square Park and Dale Pannon.
I love it. Be there. Be swear. Oh, no.
That was slick. That was slick. If you want to register for the actual PlaySafe event, you can go to www.northoaks.org.org. And that will get you registered.
If you register now, you can sign up for El Helmut. It's got a big brain needle. It does open September 9th for the El Helmut registration. However, Operation Life 5K registration is now already open.
Just so you know. We're very excited. And we hope that you come out. Thanks, guys.
Thanks for the partner, Jeff. Thank you. More good things to come. Right now on the podcast, we're going to take a moment for mental health with Nissera.
Yeah, in today's episode, we're going to talk about finding your purpose. What you got? Finding my purpose. Tell me how I can do that.
Well, I think you already found your purpose. We're very fortunate here at LOPA and the Get to Life podcast that we know and recognize that our purpose is to celebrate and promote organ and tissue and ideination. But what about those people who maybe don't recognize what their purpose or their passion or their drive is? So let's talk about it.
What are ways that you can find your purpose? You should find what drives you and what energizes you. I think there's a lot of things. There's so much content in this world right now.
So we know that there's a lot of people who need help. We're not going to be able to help everyone. So who do you want to help? How do you want to help and what energizes you to help?
Why do I need to find a purpose? Why can't I wander around aimlessly purposeless? You've got to get back, Joe. Yeah, well, it absolutely improves your quality of life when you just recognize what your purpose is.
Now that can change. Throughout the years, your purpose will probably always change and you probably have a couple of purposes. But it's good to just stay energized and it increases your self-esteem. To increase your self-esteem, you need to do a steamable axe.
So when you find something that means something to you and that you feel passionately about, you should absolutely pursue it and drive towards it. Yeah. When my old life, when I'd wake up in the morning, the alarm would go off and I was like, oh, my day. And now I'm like, yeah, let's go see what we can make happen today, right?
The goal is to make life happen. How can we do that? So there's that purpose that's in there. Yeah.
And sometimes you find a purpose. Sometimes a purpose finds you. That's right. Well, that's very wise, too.
Well, it's true. You know, oftentimes you have certain purposes and you mention having sometimes more than one, two, three, or some people have 10. Yeah. But yeah, it's a lot of work.
But sometimes you go and stumble upon something that really means something, means a lot to you and maybe didn't really know anything about a year or two before. It's actually a good point. A lot of our volunteers tell us volunteering, spreading the message, making that legacy for that loved one. That's what drives them, right?
And I don't know how you want to get into this, Miss Sarah, but I remember you, a college student and you're working toward a 100 degree social worker. Yeah. And so now you're here at LOPA, like how did your life? So I knew I wanted to be a social worker in high school and it wasn't until I, my brother was an organ donor and it wasn't until we met my brother's liver recipient and I met Kirsten Heinz that it all connected for me.
I know I still wanted to pursue mental health and I also knew that I had found a passion for organ donation. And so I wanted to use the skills of my mental health background to support families in their end of life decisions. And so I really connected for me. I'm very lucky to have had that.
And I think if you don't have a circumstance of life that has pushed you to your purpose, do research, find something that gets you excited that you want to read more about, that you find that you click on two or three more articles. Go out there and try to find it because life without purpose is, like you said, it's drifting along and that's not any kind of quality that we want for anyone. Yeah. And sometimes life can be overwhelming because like you said, there's so many avenues and so much.
So much. I mean, just focus on something that makes you happy. Make sure you're out. Right.
Absolutely. Awesome. And we learn more about him from his family. He attended St.
Stanislaw and played soccer for the school and for GCU. He was the sweetest, most kind 15 year old boy. His love of soccer and writing four wheelers consumed his weekends. And I'm so thankful for times we had together.
My heart is completely broken, but I do get a little peace knowing he helped save the lives of three people. Our hearts were broken, but he told me when he turned 15 and got his driving permit that he wanted to be an organ donor. He is and will always be my hero. So now we'll pause and say thank you to Dominic for the gift of life.
In today's question and answer segment, we got this question from one of you listeners out there. What is the easiest way to register as an organ tissue and I don't know? Oh, I'm so excited. I love you.
What are you always? I want to know more. First of all, are we all registered organ donors at this table? Yes.
Absolutely. I'm Emily. Friends. Man, I hope you are too.
As you listen, we certainly appreciate you taking the time to learn more about Dev Nation. But number one, the easiest way, register me.org doesn't matter where you live. Write register me.org. That'll take you to a registration page.
You sign up and you say, if I can help save lives, I will. That's great. You're telling me an easy way that you signed up to give an iPhone? Yep.
If you have an iPhone, the Health app, once you go through the app, it'll ask you if you want to register and it registers you with Donate Life America. So that's also national registry. Was it easy for you? It was so easy.
All right. There's also the Walgreens app. You can sign up there. Joe, how'd you do it?
When I went to our DMV, the Department of Motor Vehicles to get my license, some years back, maybe three, five or ten or greater phone. I signed up then. That was the first time I was ever asked. Yeah, great partner partnerships that we have.
So we try to make it as easy as possible for all of you. It does not take a lot of time. Each state has their own registry too. So we're here in Louisiana, donatelifela.org.
We push that here in the state. We're just hoping that people talk about it. We spur those healthy conversations about donation and that we can help make life happen and you are our partner. So we hope that you help spread the word as well.
I'm so excited. I like what people ask. And if you have a question, you can give us a call at 504-648-3477. We may even play your message on the podcast.
And that'll do it for episode 117 of the Gifted Life. It was fun. Yeah, big packed house we had in here with Len and Tyler in here talking about the play at Safe Operation 5K coming up on October 19th and Hammond. I always love our partners.
That was great. Hopefully we'll see you out there. Listen, maybe you were inspired to register as an organ tissue and I don't or you can do that easily. Register me.org and remember the best place to find us is at our website, the Gifted Life.org.
Listen to us there or on Apple Podcasts or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. If you like this podcast, give us a five star rating so others can find us. On social media, like our page on Facebook, the Gifted Life podcast and follow us on both Twitter and Instagram at Gifted Life Pod. Done.
It's easy. It's fun to watch that feed too. We hope that you do that. And most importantly, we thank you for listening and we do hope that you go out and do something that you wouldn't normally do to help us make life happen.
That's what it's all about. We'll talk to you next time. This is a production of LOBA, or the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency. The Gifted Life is hosted by Lori Steele, Joey Bujro and Sarah Blakemore, 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.