Hello, and welcome to the Get to Life Podcast, where we have conversations about organ, tissue, and eye donation. I'm Lori Steele, and normally Joey Buudrow would chime in, but we have a treat for all of you. A couple of LSU Go-Getters will guest host this special edition. With that being said, I'd like to turn the reins over to Dominic McShan.
Alex Noto, and Savannah Barvey. You'll learn why we wanted them to host a podcast, and you'll learn how they're helping us save more lives. You guys ready? We are ready.
You can do it. I'm Dominique. I'm Alex. And I'm Savannah, and we are members of Core Communications LSU, a student-run public relations firm.
We have also had an awesome opportunity to work with Lopa for the past few months, and we greatly appreciate you guys tuning in and spreading the word about organ, eye, and tissue donation. So today, we'll be telling you all a little bit more about our partnership between LSU and Lopa. You'll be hearing from our awesome professor, Dr. James Bruceard, as well as some other students who've worked with Lopa in the past.
Not to mention some of the events that we've hosted over the past few months, all that and more coming up on The Gifted Life. We also want to remind you all to rate and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music, really easy to find. And on Facebook, you can keep up to date on the Donate Life Louisiana page and also on Twitter and Instagram at Donate Life LA. We hope you choose to get involved today.
It's easy and fun. All right, so now we'd like to take a short moment to talk about some of the amazing things we have been able to do throughout the past few months. I remember when we first began our work with Lopa, we had the awesome opportunity to start working with the ARABOLA Run for Life, so kind of adding some promotional aspects and marketing aspects and really boosting and putting the name out there for the ARABOLA Run. So everything from our social media campaigns and creating that new website and soliciting runners for the race has been an amazing opportunity to actually be able to go out there and see everything come together and see all those marketing efforts and initiatives and play with an amazing experience.
And we even got to meet a lot of the donors kind of hearing their stories, and it really did ignite our passion for this cause. So next up kind of something we did was a little bit of campus campaigning, so we posted up in the LSU Free Speech Alley a couple times, just trying to get some donors, spread the word and pass out some awesome Lopa prizes. We had a bunch of kusis, pom-poms, all that great stuff. We even had a photo shoot at one of them.
We also got to really go out on campus and visit a lot of different organizations. We got to meet with a Vietnamese Student Association, a couple of fraternities, sororities, any association of black communicators. So just kind of getting our peers out there and really telling them what we're passionate about and what we're working with Lopa. So then kind of going off what Alex just said, we had two large events this semester.
The first one was actually a tailgate at the LSU Homecoming Game against Western Kentucky, and despite the rainy weather, we were still able to have a really great time and spread the word about organ donation and even got a couple of sign-ups. There was lots of great food there. We had donors from walk-ons, the velvet cactus, as well as Dr. Jinks Brusard helped us out, and we'll get to talk to her a little bit later in the podcast.
There was a DJ playing music, and lots of people around dancing have a really good time. It was awesome because you got to not only share in people's stories and educate people, but you also got to meet connections with them and really talk to them about what we were doing and what our goals were. And I guess you can see kind of a little trend we've got going here. Our group we like to have good music and a good time to kind of celebrate life throughout our whole campaign.
So our big event was Beak-O-Zon, Music Bingo Night. We hosted it over at Caliente Mexican Craving, which is in Baton Rouge. They were absolutely great. They let us have the whole restaurant for the night.
We had an awesome DJ. We had DJ C-Mix, and we played a game of Music Bingo. So if you all have never played that before, it's basically like normal Bingo. But your card has instead of numbers and letters.
They have popular songs every time. Can I just step in here? I didn't know half the songs. I'm just going to say it.
I'm not going to do something. And that's what we had to say. Yeah. I know she told me that.
Yes. It was fun. It was a fair warning. So we were just kind of playing the songs.
And every time you heard one of the songs on your card, if you knew the song's Lori, I didn't even know that. Yes. You got to mark it off. And once you get five in a row, you got Bingo.
And we had a lot of great prizes that we got donated to us. And we had a really good time. We also had a social media contest to get the word out there. If people tweeted or Instagram using our hashtag, hashtag the beat goes on, LSU.
They were entered into our social media contest and could have won a prize that way. And then the last way that you could have won a prize is we had a donor exclusive, our raffle. So anybody who was already previously a donor or people that signed up that night got to get in the raffle for some of our bigger prizes. We had some Kendra Scott earrings.
We had a Fitbit and a bunch of great gift cards as well. The event went absolutely great. We had more than 200 people in attendance despite, again, we had a little bit of rainy weather. And we actually had a dance off in the middle of the Bingo game because two of our people, they won at the same time.
And we decided, let's spice this up a little bit and let's have a dance off. So it looks like we got about 12 registered donors that day. We were really excited about all of that. And we got to meet and hear a lot from the donor families, some recipients and some students as well.
And while we're at our event, we had the awesome opportunity to connect with so many students that may not have known about Oregon donation and what Lopa does as well as some of the donor families and recipients. So here's some clips from some of the interviews that we were able to take throughout the fun and games throughout the night at our music bingo night. All right, we are out here right now with the donate live music bingo night. I have Savannah here with me and Savannah.
So let's talk a little bit more about your story. Hey, everyone. I was born with a rare liver disease called billy area trecia. And that meant that I was sick off and on my whole entire life because I didn't have a common bile duct to drain off the toxins in my liver.
But I had a liver transplant last year, May 31st, 2014. And without my donor's family saying yes to ordination, I may not have been here today and starting college. These events mean more than I can even out somebody saying yes to ordination. I really wouldn't be here.
So if you have other people's lives that worry about how much I appreciate it. All right, that's awesome. Thank you so much. We're going to have a great time here.
I'm hopefully you don't want to surprise us as well. All right, thank you. All right, so right now we are here with the music bingo night. We have officially in everything.
We have our DJ for the night. DJ C me too with us. DJ C makes us a little bit more about how you feel about the night and how great they've been and was and kind of your take on everything for tonight. Actually, I appreciate that everybody came out to support organ donors.
I really love the fact that one person can be the defining factor between life and that I encourage everybody to be organ donors. It actually encourages me to tell my friends to be organ donors because I really like helping people. And this is one of the ways that somebody can help someone, you know, not going out their way or actually having to spend money. This is something that can really be valuable because you can actually save the life of somebody's mother who can actually, you know, still be there for someone just by you being an organ donor.
So I really appreciate everybody coming out. A lot of food, a lot of prizes, and I think a lot of people gain a lot of information today from this event about organ donors. We get to know. So I really am glad to be a part of this organization.
Seamish Redemption supports our donors. That is awesome, y'all. Thank you so much for DJ C. It's been an awesome day.
He sponsored our event for us. It's been an awesome event and thank you so much to J C. So today we're going to be talking to Dr. Dr.
Jinks Bruce Arndt. She's the PR area head for LSU and also our fearless leader in our class for our capstone as seniors. And she is just has been working with Lobo for the past couple of years. Has had a lot of wonderful memories.
Can you tell us a little bit about what your experience has been like working with Lobo over past few years? My experience has been phenomenal because not only have I been able to have a front row seat in witnessing how my students have from being very nervous and anxious at the beginning of the semester to planning and implementing a campaign that enables LOPAs to go. And of course we know the goal is the need for organ donation as well as to request some of the teaching standpoint and also from the community service. So just to touch on that, how much of a difference do you really think you see in this course which is a service learning structured course compared to just traditional course curriculum?
Well this course, sure that students are able to really do as we say in the academy to enact as a major difference from the teaching standpoint and as learning standpoint students also pressing community needs. The need for our end owners is certain. So these students not only learn how to plan and implement campaigns, they also get very much involved and invested in the nonprofits with which they work. And when you have a nonprofit and a fearless leader such as Lori Steele, that's so much easier.
That is why I go back every semester and I contact Lori, it's the personality to say which is the work with you again this semester so that she also marrying those areas to meet a great need. And I definitely think that's something that all of us as students can really vouch for that we've got a lot more out of this class than we have in just typical classroom education. So like you said, you've been going back to LOPA for the past couple of years. What are some of the accomplishments of your past students that you're most proud of?
Well my students have gone on to do excellent things but graduating but even while students for example in 2014, this won a national society of America one first place. This year, this is positive ability of the students, the abilities of the students that they do. So the students, some of the students that go on on the graduate school, them are gainfully employed because the campaign such as the one that the students do for LOPA is really a calling card. It's really a portfolio and resume builder all while in the community.
My students have told me in the past, views have changed the community issues or how community issues, so are the organizations. And one of the funniest things and really it's not so funny are the myths. So the students are always fascinated once they do the research and find out all of the bad information regarding donations and they come back and say, Dr. Grustar, can you believe that we told so and so about LOPA and that person said, well I will be able to have an open carpet or some of the other things are that they are hard to be cut out of the road if they are in an accident.
That's not funny but the students do tend to chuckle a little bit when they find out and that so many people hold which then means that my students in order to get the word and to be proactive in signing up volunteers. And that's definitely something that we have all seen, just talking to students, talking to family members, hearing about those myths and we definitely do agree that we can't believe that some of them are still floating around there. So we just really wanted to say thank you from all of us as your students for helping us through this whole process and continuing this partnership with LOPA for so many years. And I think my excellence is this semester as well as every semester service learning because as I said I see you all block them from that first day as we're here.
It's just to being real communicators and all those public relations professionals, PRPro, you know you still have a little way to go in terms of being the PRPro because that comes with the guys all the time how proud I am of you. I try to be there to brainstorm with you to support you at various events and to be a founding board so amazingly well. I salute you guys. I thank you message and say you rock.
You know like Dr. Bruce R trying to do here. She's trying to find cool but I want you to know that because you're working so hard. If I'm not at any event typically I am there mentally and I want to be in touch for being such a phenomenal partner in this endeavor.
And it really does seem like a win-win situation for us as students building our portfolios and for LOPA because they get to use us as fresh new opinions and minds to get new ideas out there. Alright well thank you so much for being with us today Dr. Bruce. I really do appreciate your opinions and all of the information that you have acquired through the past couple of years working with LOPA.
You're so welcome. Okay so now we have Courtney and Francesca calling in from Baton Rouge. Basically they were us last year and we have some congratulations in order because their campaign won second place in the PRSSA National Conference. For those of you who don't know PRSSA is the public relations student association of America and they were second in the entire nation.
So hey ladies. Congratulations ladies. Hi ladies. Do you guys want to just tell us a little bit about the campaign last year?
Absolutely. We started the campaign and you chosen by James to represent LOPA. It was definitely a growing experience. Last year we chose the campaign title list to give because we felt like LOPA or passing out flyers.
We targeted the drivers association just to really get the name of LOPA everywhere. Yeah so Courtney had a mission we did on campus events. We were part of at least 20 on campus events that were connected with LOPA or organization. And then our big event was LOPA gave Louisiana a pretty on campus event and it was just a to promote organization and ever growing the way we needed to do that.
And then we also continued with stewardship efforts after our campaign. So we had a design for the RAVA line for the poster and t-shirt. We did a car wrap design for the road scholars, institute of driving. We did a red and l-e-s fundraising night.
So even though our campaign had to come to an end we still wanted to have, you know, a car processing rep we were able to sign up $139 and we think about that each donor we find out has opportunity to stay and enhance more than 60 lives. So in our campaign we really had a major impact on the impact we are so proud of the impact we make in. We know that. What would you guys say was your favorite part?
I don't know how many people there are. That are saved from this gift of life that someone can give. So I just love being able to meet those families because you can just see how much they're gonna change because someone chose to get. Yeah definitely can agree more.
That's about it. This is through your working with us as well. This PowerPoint showed us information and truly gave me phone over the organization allowed me to, you know, follow us as well. Why do you think it's important to spread the word about organization?
I think you are really affected in digital donations. So can you say your hands through your order to pick you up and have such a great accomplishment? You guys did such a great job with y'all campaign. Do you have any words of wisdom for anyone else looking for the word about organization?
Because the organization topic but it's yeah I think that's something we would all agree with when we did our table sets and all the stuff for our campaign. Thank you guys so much for calling in. We really appreciate it. Thank you guys.
You guys are doing a great job. Thank you. All right you all do as well. All right and for those that may not know each podcast we take the time to honor our heroes for their self-assisted and to dedicate their organs to people that may need them in the long run.
And today we're going to be honoring Christopher Gregory. You can see his pictures and read his full story on lupa.org faces of donation. So this story is coming from Chris's family. Christopher Mark Gregory believed that the best things in life aren't things at all.
Money meant little to Chris. He valued friendship. He believed in God and family in loyalty. He placed a greater value in friendships with people than objects he possessed.
It came as no surprise to anyone that Chris was a registered organ donor as soon as he got his license. The family was on vacation and went one night at dinner and the conversation somehow drifted to organ donation. Of course I'm a donor he said. Why wouldn't I be?
What am I going to do with my organs after I'm gone? And then with a twinkle in his eye that was uniquely Chris he continued. And besides who wouldn't want this body? That was Thursday before Easter in 2008.
A few days later Chris collapsed while hanging out with friends. He was 19 years old and a freshman at Loyola University, New Orleans. He was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. Chris died through no fault of his own.
He never saw it coming and neither did his family. In an instant everything changed. But that wasn't the end for Chris. Today Christopher is a hero and here's why.
Mac who received Christopher's heart is alive today and keeps postponing his plans for retirement. It seems he's just too busy. And then there's Xavier who has one of Chris's kidneys. And Carolyn who has his liver.
Each is Christopher in the present, not the past. Christopher is still a part of their lives. Christopher's heart still beats his eye still see and his lungs still draw breath. And the love that he had for humanity did not get buried on that cold April morning when they laid him to rest.
You can hear more about Christopher's story at Lopa.org. Wow that was very powerful and very inspirational. So right now we'll have to take the time to take a pause and say thank you. Thank you Chris Gregory for his gift of life.
It's awesome. It's awesome. And you guys are going to go off and make great successes of yourselves and then we'll have local partners all across the country which is awesome. So D.T.
let's bring you in. Tell us about kind of your background where you were doing it before you even know about donation before it was you know dropped in your lap that you'll be helping us save more lives. Yeah so actually I was not a donor before coming into this class. I didn't really know too much about organ donation other than the fact that you know when you go to go and be and you're getting your life and they ask you want to be an entrepreneur.
I remember the first time I went and got it done. I was like I don't really know what that is. I don't you know I wasn't really educated enough to know what it is. So I just said no.
I want to say that one of my favorite experiences was just hearing Wendy would see come into our class and tell them her story because I think just from hearing that it made me realize like wow like I didn't know that organization really does do a lot of wonders for a lot of people. And then I think after that I just realized like I do want to become an organ donor once I you know we did the research I learned more just from like what Lopa had to say about it learning that you can say not a lot and that type of thing. So I did become an organ donor. You have to even know that y'all are amazing.
Yeah. That is great. Definitely from there I was able to advocate more because you know like one of our main focuses with our campaign this year was the fact that you know minorities there's not a strong presence on the registry. And I know that it's just due to like culture and religion and different things like that.
I would be able to get a couple more of my own friends who were just kind of big nose on it to be able to sign up which is pretty cool. But yeah basically I think after this it was just a really good learning experience. That's definitely because of the third-pointing class. And I just am such an amazing PR campaign group and I know that they'll all be successful once they enter the work field as well.
I love it. Listen to the confidence. I just love it. I love it.
I also love you know we kind of become a little family right because we're working. It's early the morning at night. I know and we still like each other maybe. So I got to meet Alex's mom which I lost my mom a long time ago so I love to see mom supporting children and she was just so proud of you.
But she said hey we have a connection to donation like it's in our blood right. Yeah so I actually had a little bit of a connection before I joined the group. My mom was actually a bone marrow donor to her sister whenever they were young. My aunt had a plastic anemia when she was very young so she got the opportunity.
She was a matcher in her brother where she chose her sister to be the marrow donor and she got to save her sister's life and she now has three amazing kids that they're my cousins and we love them and that would not have been possible if it wasn't for a donation and I'm glad I kind of got to give back through that way. Yeah that's awesome. And then you and your heart started from 15. Yeah so I went to the DMV at 15 and they were like do you want to be an organ donor and I just said yeah sure why not that I get a heart right.
And they were like yeah and like it came home and I was like why did you do that and I was like because I wanted a heart and I mean that's how I thought until I took this class and then I learned and now I'm super passionate about it and I'm definitely going to be a part of Lupa after this semester for sure. Passion I love it and I'm going to keep some shy just I know what to say. I was definitely just like Savannah so when I went to become an organ donor I just kind of went around my life but I had no idea exactly what that meant or what that process was like but now that I'm an organ donor and I've been working for so far it's been a great opportunity to be educated and learn about it. So just me going out and being able to educate people so a lot of my friends a lot of my colleagues a lot of them just don't really understand how that process works and how you can be an organ donor.
There are so many myths associated. So often that's one of our biggest goals is to tackle those myths and kind of let people know the truth about organ donation and that way they support organization in saving and enhancing lives everywhere. Man I'm just so proud of you guys. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Alright so that's going to be it for us y'all. Thank all of you for listening and thank everyone who supported us during our project.
Everybody from Dr. Jinks Brewster our amazing professor said last year's LSU Loper crew that worked with Loper as well and volunteers out in the community everybody's been so helpful and supported throughout this entire campaign. And we just want to say thanks to all the guests we had on today who had Dr. Dr.
Jinks Brewster we had Courtney and Francesca and we also had Tess and TTR group members and just a second thanks to all of those who attended MusicBango who attended our tailgate and all of our different activities we had on campus during the semester. I'm so proud I'm sitting here smiling. Thank you core communications because that's what you guys make up the name is core communications and thank you to those listening. Everybody let's thank them.
One, two, three. Thank you. And that puts another episode in the books. Thanks for supporting life.
Go out and do something you don't normally do to help spread the word. You just heard what these students did something outside the box. You can do it. It's a simple share on Facebook or something.
Even Dominique's Grammy's going to do that right? Coming up soon. Alright everyone thanks for tuning in to the gifted life.