Penn State Health celebrates Donate Life Month with flag-raising, Blue & Green Day

Greg Allen, left, who along with his two brothers received heart transplants, and Kellie Persofsky, center, who donated her kidney to her daughter, Sophia, right, pose with the Donate Life flag during the 2023 flag-raising ceremony at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center to honor organ donors and recipients.

Penn State Health will honor organ donors and highlight the increasing need for organ donations with two events during National Donate Life Month in April.

The health system’s Transplant team will lead a Donate Life flag-raising ceremony on Wednesday, April 10, at 10 a.m. outside the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center’s North Entrance. The event will feature a Hanover woman who received a lifesaving liver transplant on Christmas Day 2023 and a mother and daughter, each of whom underwent heart transplants. All three transplants took place at Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.

Penn State Health employees and Penn State College of Medicine faculty, staff and students are asked to show their support of organ donation on National Donate Life Blue & Green Day Friday, April 12, by wearing blue and green.

Each April, National Donate Life Month helps raise awareness about organ donation, honors those who have saved lives through the gift of donation, and encourages Americans to register as organ, eye and tissue donors. Penn State Health offers a convenient registration process.

More than 103,000 people in the U.S. need organ transplants, with 17 dying each day as they wait for that potentially lifesaving gift. Another person is added to the transplant list every eight minutes.

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