Donated Life Month Annual Flag Raising Ceremony

Fort Walton Beach Medical Center’s Flag Raising Ceremony Kicks off
Donate Life Month to Celebrate Organ Donation

WHAT: Fort Walton Beach Medical Center will join the Donate Life America to participate in the Flags Across America initiative. During this celebration, the Donate Life flag will be raised to honor the hundreds of thousands of donors and recipients whose lives have been touched by organ donation.

WHO: Ceremony emcee is Denise Kendust, Director of Marketing at Fort Walton Beach Medical Center. Speakers will include an organ transplant recipient; Dr. Patrick McGraw, trauma surgeon and medical director of trauma services at Fort Walton Beach Medical Center, and Jane Stearns, CPTC LifeQuest Organ Recovery Servicesat. Choctawhatchee Air Force Junior ROTC will present the flag.

WHEN: 10 a.m., Monday, April 3, 2017

WHERE: Fort Walton Beach Medical Center, 1000 Mar Walt Drive, front of hospital by flag pole. A reception will follow. Angelia Utz, Regional Program Manager, University of Miami Tissue Bank will be presiding.

WHY: National Donate Life Month was declared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and instituted by Donate Life America in 2003 as a time for the nation’s organ and tissue donation and transplantation community to focus its attention on the critical need for life-saving donors. National Donate Life Month is celebrated throughout the month of April.

As part of the Flags Across America initiative, Fort Walton Beach Medical Center, as well as transplant centers and recovery agencies across the United States, will fly the Donate Life flag during National Donate Life Month in April. The initiative is a visual reminder about the importance of organ donation and calls attention to the need for more organ donors.

There are nearly 5,500 patients on the waiting list at transplant centers in Florida and each one is waiting for the Gift of Life. By documenting our decisions to become donors on Florida’s registry, we are making a commitment to help save lives.

One person can save up to eight lives through the donation of lifesaving organs – heart, kidney, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine – and help 50 people or more who need corneas to see, skin to heal from burns, and bones and connective tissue for common knee, back and dental surgeries. In addition, approximately 6,000 lives per year are saved by living kidney and liver donors. “With the amount of ER patients growing and the announcement of our Level II Trauma unit, organ, blood and tissue donations will be an even larger focus at Fort Walton Beach Medical Center”, stated Mitch Mongell, CEO Fort Walton Beach Medical Center.