Joe Goldeen
Record Staff Writer
October 18, 2009
 
STOCKTON – San Joaquin Delta College students are signing up in record numbers to become organ donors, outdistancing their closest Northern California college rivals by almost six to one in the 2009 Donate Life California Campus Challenge.

While the message is worthy – registering with the California Department of Motor Vehicles as a designated organ and tissue donor – perhaps it’s the local messengers who are making a difference.

Brother and sister Paul, 24, and Laura Amador, 27, of Stockton, who were involved in Northern California’s first kidney donor chain this summer, have started a college club to bring greater awareness to the need for organ donations and to register people with the D.M.V.

In June, an altruistic donor gave a kidney to a very ill Laura while Paul simultaneously went into surgery to donate a healthy kidney to a stranger in the historic medical connection. The club, Dance for Donors Inc., uses the motto, “The spirit of giving life.”

Since the beginning of the college campaign this fall, club volunteers have registered 329 donors, or 58 percent of the 566 people who have signed up at 11 campuses around Northern California. They volunteered this week at a campus booth to bring their message to as many members of the college community as possible.

Since their successful operations in June, the Amadors have gotten involved with the nonprofit Donate Life California “to advocate the necessity of organ donation to save lives,” Paul Amador said. More than 20,000 Californians and 100,000 Americans are waiting right now for an organ-transplant operation.

Minorities especially are in disproportionate need of a transplant because of higher incidences of diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, according to Donate Life California. One organ donor can essentially save eight lives, while a tissue donor can enhance up to 50 lives, according to the statewide registry.

“A lot of people are unaware of how many lives organ donations can save. A lot of people we talk to are scared. When I talk to people, I find out they all have a family member or friend in need of a transplant,” said a healthy Laura Amador, who suffered for five years with a debilitating, life-threatening disease before her transplant.

Their efforts, along with those of volunteer student Michelle Balgobind, 18, of Manteca – whose father, Binesh Balgobind, 44, is currently in Stanford Hospital awaiting a compatible heart to save his life – have made a sizable impact on the Delta College campus.

No. 2 on the list of colleges is the University of California, San Francisco – one of the nation’s leading graduate medical schools – with 61 registrations. University of the Pacific’s campaign had attracted 10 registrations as of Oct. 11.

The 2009 National Donation Campus Challenge is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to educate college communities on the importance of organ and tissue donation, with a goal of registering 60,000 new organ donors by Nov. 30.

Delta College club volunteers Nazia Khan, 19, and Avni Patel, 18, roaming the campus quad with clipboards in hand, tried to alleviate fellow students’ fears about donation, telling them that in death they can be heroes. “Everybody wants to be a hero, and you’re remembered more because a part of you lives on in someone else,” Khan said.

Student Joshua Scott, 18, of Stockton, was matter-of-fact after registering as a new organ donor. “I don’t need my organs anymore when I’m gone,” Scott said. Angela Beier, 27, a phlebotomist working with Delta Blood Bank who was on campus Wednesday during a simultaneous blood drive, also registered as an organ donor.

“We’re inside trying to save lives (through blood donations) and they’re out here trying to save lives (through organ donations). I feel good about registering. If I can provide something for somebody else after I pass, then that’s good,” Beier said.

Joining the Amadors at their booth Wednesday was Jose Zaragoza of Manteca, whose son, Matthew Vangelderen, died Sept. 23, 2005, a week after suffering a concussion on the football field playing for East Union High School. Zaragoza displayed a poster of Matthew that described how his harvested organs saved the lives of four people:

» A 39-year-old Maryland woman in need of a heart and lung.
» A kidney for a 57-year-old Iowa man.
» The other kidney and pancreas for a 47-year-old man from California who suffered from diabetes for 30 years. His liver for a 17-year-old California girl.

“Paul and Laura are doing a really wonderful thing here. I told them you have to approach people. I tell people, ‘Just think if it was you. We all need help in this life.’ Just think about it and touch your heart and think if you want to save somebody else’s life,” Zaragoza said.

Perhaps a phrase on Matthew’s poster sums it up: “Don’t take your organs to heaven. Heaven knows we need them here.”

Contact reporter Joe Goldeen at (209) 546-8278 or jgoldeen@recordnet.com.