Awareness Campaigns
Carolina Donor Services is continually striving to raise awareness about organ and tissue donation through public awareness events, media campaigns and public relations. Below are just some of the activities and events we have conducted in the past.

Governor Easley Designates April as Donation Awareness Month
Governor Mike F. Easley has issued a proclamation designating April as “Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Month” in North Carolina. Governor Easley’s proclamation states that sixty-two percent of North Carolinians are aware of donation, yet only twenty-two percent of them have made their wishes known to their families.

The proclamation encourages those who decide to become organ donors to discuss their wishes with their families, sign a legal donor card, and ask for the heart to be placed on their driver’s license.

Wall of Hope - Tour Across North Carolina
The Wall of Hope is a display of faces representing 3,000 North Carolinians who are waiting for organ transplants and the biographies of local transplant candidates. During the month of April, the display traveled throughout the state to educate the public about the need for organ donors and the legal method for signing up to become a donor.

Representatives and volunteers for Carolina Donor Services made themselves available to answer questions and distribute legal donor cards during the exhibit in each city.

The Wall of Hope has been to Winston-Salem, Wilmington, Rocky Mount, Raleigh, New Bern, Durham and Greenville and many hospital locations.

The Wall of Hope is a valuable educational tool that explicitly and succinctly tells the story of the 3,000 people in North Carolina who desperately await transplants. Across the United States over 90,000 people wait for the phone call that will tell them an organ donor is giving them a chance for a new life.

Annual Donate Life Walk
North Carolina Baptist Hospital, Forsyth Medical Center and Carolina Donor Services have teamed up to create the “Donate Life Walk” each April. The walk begins at Forsyth Memorial Hospital and ends at North Carolina Baptist Hospital. The walk takes participants through local neighborhoods to let everyone know the importance of the Gift of Life. Donor family members, recipients, patients who are awaiting transplant and individuals who believe in the cause can join the walk. At the end of the walk educational activities, food and raffle drawings entertain the audience.

Living Waiting Room
The Living Waiting Room is a mock doctor’s waiting room that represents the nearly 3,000people waiting for transplant in NC.

The Waiting Room has been staged in four locations across the state - Wilmington, Raleigh, Greensboro and Rocky Mount. It generated extensive awareness of donation through television, radio and newspaper coverage and donated advertising space reaching an estimated 2 million people.

It also provided a great venue for the distribution and signing of donor cards. Dozens of local media sponsors, location sponsors, corporate partners and volunteers contributed to this event.

Golf Tournament
CDS holds an annual invitational golf tournament each Fall. The event is designed to bring hospitals, sponsors and staff together to raise awareness of organ donation.

The funds raised are used for the Donor Family Fund which provides services to donor families. The event is co-chaired by NASCAR drive Scott Riggs and local transplant surgeons.

To become a sponsor or player, please contact CDS at 1-800-200-2672.