PRESS RELEASE
SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE DALE R. FOLWELL
Phone Number: 919-733-5787North Carolina House of Representatives
Room 301F, Legislative Office BuildingRaleigh, NC 27603-5925
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEApril 4, 2012
Raleigh – During this Organ Donation Awareness Month we are calling on North Carolinians to take their support for life-saving organ donation public by applying for the specialty Donate Life license plate.
Donate Life North Carolina is collecting applications for the specialty tag and must have at least 300 before the Department of Transportation will start producing the license plates.
They only cost an additional $20.00 to the standard registration fee. These license plates are not just ways for people to express their support for life-saving organ donations, but the additional money raised by them actually helps pay “for expenses incurred by needy families, recipients and expenses related to organ donation.” [G.S. 20-81.12(b88)]
We know North Carolinians are compassionate and committed to helping those in need receive life-saving organs. Before 2007, the heart on your driver’s license could not be used as a first-person directive allowing medical professionals to oxygenate the body in order to preserve the organs. In the 2007 long session House Bill 1372 The Heart Prevails cemented the heart as a first-person directive. Now, when someone gets a new license or renews an existing license and chooses to have the heart printed on it, medical professionals can rely on it as the wishes of the deceased. The chart below shows the success of The Heart Prevails legislation.
At the end of 2007 there were a slightly more than 3.5 million people who had chosen to be organ donors, and more than half a million people have made the same choice the four years since passing The Heart Prevails legislation. That kind of commitment has made North Carolina’s donor bank the sixth largest registry in the country, according to Donate Life North Carolina.
Digging even deeper into the statistics shows North Carolinians care about this life-saving commitment.More than half (52.8%) of the people renewing or getting a new driver’s license or ID card chooses to become an organ donor by having a heart printed on their identification. Nearly half (48.3%) of all North Carolinians with a driver’s license or ID card is an organ donor.
Those statistics are great, and they show why we need to get the word out about the new Donate Life license plates. We only need to get 300 to apply for one of the specialty plates pictured below to meet the DOT’s minimum requirement. It should be easy, and it will be great to reach the goal before the end of April or National Donate Life Month. Applications can be found at Donate Life NC’s website,
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