Articles from OneLegacy

Forty-four honorees representing 9 states in the U.S. will be a part of the 2025 OneLegacy Donate Life Rose Parade® float on New Year’s Day. With ages ranging from 2 to 80 years old for floragraph honorees, and from 15 to 62 years old for floragraph honorees, these participants and their families will travel to Pasadena to be part of America’s Donate Life celebration on New Year’s day’s traditional Rose Parade®.

One 3-time cornea recipient, one tissue recipient and 17 cornea and tissue donors will be honored on the 2025 OneLegacy Donate Life float, which will ride down the streets of Pasadena during the iconic Rose Parade® on New Year’s Day.

OneLegacy will honor 19 Southern Californians whose lives have been touched by the power of organ, eye and tissue donation on the 2025 OneLegacy Donate Life Rose Parade® float, themed “Let Your Life Soar.” The announcement was made at a press event that took place earlier this month at Rosemont Pavilion in Pasadena, where the float is being decorated with dried organic materials by Artistic Entertainment Services (AES) staff and volunteers, ahead of the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day.

OneLegacy announced today the theme of their 2025 OneLegacy Donate Life Rose Parade® float. The float will join dozens of floats, marching bands, and equestrian units participating in the iconic 136th Rose Parade® on New Year's Day in Pasadena, California.

OneLegacy Inspires Hollywood, formerly known as Donate Life Hollywood, announces the first three board members of the revamped initiative: Danny Trejo, Carol Barbee and Freeway. OneLegacy Inspires Hollywood is a project of the OneLegacy Foundation, the organ procurement organization that serves seven counties throughout Southern California. The project is led by Writer-Producer Sarah E. Fahey, under the guidance of OneLegacy leadership.

Nearly 4,000 deceased donor families and friends, transplant recipients and donation advocates touched by the power of organ, eye and tissue donation gathered last Saturday, April 27 at Azusa Pacific University to celebrate the gift of life during the 22nd Annual OneLegacy Run/Walk and Family Festival. More than 200 teams and over 20 exhibitors participated in this special event, which marked the culmination of Donate Life month. Dozens of hospitals, transplant centers, DMV offices, local cities and community partners joined OneLegacy during the month of April to honor the power of organ, eye and tissue donation.

OneLegacy, the local organ procurement organization serving seven counties in Southern California, is hosting its 22nd Annual OneLegacy Donate Life Run/Walk and Family Festival with the goal of raising funds for the OneLegacy Foundation, while inspiring local communities to say “yes” to organ, eye and tissue donation. The event will take place Saturday, April 27 at Azusa Pacific University’s soccer fields, and feature a stellar entertainment lineup, led by returning host, Phillip Palmer, who is a living donor and ABC 7’s news anchor, and accompanied by returning cohost and Univision News Anchor, Gabriela Teissier.

Dr. Robert Mendez, a pioneering figure in the field of organ transplantation and organ donation, passed away on March 29, 2024, leaving behind a legacy of medical innovation and compassion. Along with his twin brother, Dr. Rafael Mendez, Dr. Robert Mendez was a worldwide pioneer in kidney transplantation and organ donation, who revolutionized the field with his expertise and dedication.

OneLegacy Inspires Hollywood partnered with Danny Trejo and Trejo Music to present SOULDIEZ, a music concert that took place at the OneLegacy’s Headquarters in Azusa with the goal of sharing the power of music with the critical message of organ donation and transplantation. Hundreds of concert goers visited the local organ procurement organization last Saturday, and enjoyed the show hosted by legendary actor and musician, Danny Trejo, co-hosted by Becky Lu, and including the performances of Baby Bash, Cota the Barber, Pepe Marquez, Amoraa, Tarah New, and Raquel. The event also included testimonials from donor families, transplant recipients and living donors.

Hundreds of local residents visited the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza this past Saturday to attend OneLegacy’s Connecting the Dots: Hip Hop & Health Community Event and Panel. This inaugural event hosted by the local organ procurement organization offered a variety of free services including free A1C and High Cholesterol health screenings from OneLegacy’s OPO/HBCU Coalition partner, Charles Drew Medical School, as well as free oral hygiene services from Chinatown Service Center. The event also included free haircuts, manicures, yoga and wellness sessions, COVID-19 tests, and fresh produce, followed by a health panel.

With the purpose of highlighting the importance of saying “YES” to organ, eye and tissue donation, OneLegacy Inspires Hollywood is hosting a special event on Saturday, March 2nd, titled Connecting the Dots: Hip Hop & Health, with the goal of sharing the power of music and entertainment with the critical message of health advocacy and organ donation and transplantation among communities of color. The star-studded community event will feature Hip Hop legend and kidney transplant recipient, Leslie Pridgen, as well as celebrity TV and radio host, Nicole Richardson, better known as Nikki Rich and writer, comedian, and filmmaker, J. Snow.

Support for lifesaving organ donation and transplants continues to rise at a record-setting pace in Southern California, with the nonprofit OneLegacy announcing an 11% increase in organ donors to an all-time national record 721 donors and a 13% increase in successful organ transplants to 1,840.

The OneLegacy Donate Life Float will ride down the streets of Pasadena this coming Monday, January 1, 2024. With 56 participants including organ, eye and tissue recipients and donors, more than 2,000 individually dedicated roses, and a group of Hopi tribe members who will perform the traditional Butterfly Dance, the Donate Life community is celebrating 21 years of participation in the Rose Parade® with its Woven Together: The Dance of Life float. The 135th annual parade will start at 8:00 a.m. PT (11:00 a.m. ET) and it will air on ABC, The Cowboy Channel, The Cowgirl Channel, Great American Family, KTLA, NBC, RFD-TV and Univision.

The 2024 OneLegacy Donate Life Rose Parade® float will feature 59 honorees representing 17 states in the U.S. With ages ranging from 16 to 64 years old for riders and walkers, and from 3 years to 78 years old for floragraph honorees, these participants and their families will travel to Pasadena to be part of America’s Donate Life celebration on New Year’s day’s traditional Rose Parade®.

Two women whose lives were saved and healed thanks to the generosity of others through tissue donation will be among the 56 participants on the 2024 OneLegacy Donate Life Rose Parade® float on New Year’s Day.

OneLegacy announced that 24 Southern California honorees will be recognized on the 2024 OneLegacy Donate Life Rose Parade® float, themed “Woven Together: The Dance of Life.” Each honoree is personally touched by the power of organ, eye and tissue donation. At a special ceremony held last Thursday at Fiesta Parade Floats in Irwindale, Calif., OneLegacy welcomed hospital partners, elected officials, special guests and OneLegacy staff to join local float participants and their families as they provided a first look of the OneLegacy Donate Life float.

In recognition of the 40th anniversary of the Trauma Center System in Los Angeles County, the L.A. County Emergency Medical Services Agency (EMS) partnered with OneLegacy to host a 40th Anniversary Celebration on November 29, 2023. Los Angeles County was the site of one of the first Trauma Center Systems in the United States and to date is one of the largest nationwide.

The 2024 OneLegacy Donate Life float, Woven Together: The Dance of Life will honor six Native American nations and their rich cultural heritage on New Year’s Day. One organ recipient and four life-giving donors will be honored on the float.

OneLegacy announced today the theme of the 2024 OneLegacy Donate Life float: Woven Together: The Dance of Life. Building on their 20 years of floats and their 2023 Tournament of Roses Sweepstakes Award, the highest Tournament of Roses honor, OneLegacy will again be a part of the Rose Parade® on New Year’s Day of 2024 in Pasadena, California.

OneLegacy announced today that the Donate Life Rose Parade® float will now be known as the OneLegacy Donate Life Rose Parade® float, with the goal of deepening the connection with community and medical partners in our community and sharing more stories of organ, eye and tissue donation from Southern California, while still including honorees from around the country. The OneLegacy Donate Life float will be a part of the traditional Rose Parade® on New Year’s Day in Pasadena, California.

OneLegacy announced today that they are on pace for significant increases in the number of donors and organs, tissues and corneas recovered over the first six months of 2023. The not-for-profit donor recovery organization serving seven counties in Southern California had a total of 378 organ donors in the first half of the year, which puts OneLegacy on track for 756 donors for 2023, a 17% increase compared to 2022.

OneLegacy, the country’s largest organ procurement organization that serves seven counties in Southern California, has partnered with the world-renowned Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach since January 2023 to highlight the importance of saying “YES” to organ, eye and tissue donation. The Donor Appreciation Night takes place on the first Thursday of every month, welcoming registered donors and waiving the $25 cover charge, so they can enjoy a FREE comedy show.

OneLegacy, the country’s largest organ procurement organization that serves seven counties in Southern California, announced today that it will be present at VidCon, an annual convention for digital creators, social media fans, executives and online brands. The VidCon booth activation will include a series of games and activities for younger audiences to enjoy, while learning about the importance of saying “YES” to organ, eye and tissue donation.

Nearly 5,000 participants, more than 200 teams and over 30 exhibitors gathered last Saturday, April 29 at Azusa Pacific University to participate in the 21st Annual OneLegacy Run/Walk. This celebration concluded a month of ceremonies and special events to honor Donate Life Month. Thousands of donor families and friends, transplant recipients, local hospitals, funeral homes and transplant centers, corporate and community partners, as well as organ, eye and tissue donation advocates, celebrated the gift of life with family and friends, while raising funds that will benefit the OneLegacy Foundation.

Every April the donation community celebrates National Donate Life Month, and annually OneLegacy closes the month out with their OneLegacy Run/Walk and Family Festival. This year the event will take place at Azusa Pacific University on April 29 and include several competitive and non-competitive runs, an opening ceremony, dozens of exhibitors, musicians, community groups, food trucks and a family festival.

OneLegacy, the local organ procurement organization that serves seven counties in Southern California, joined The California Highway Patrol and San Bernardino College’s Nursing School to host a special event to promote the importance of organ, eye and tissue donation with local students and community members.

OneLegacy announced today that it achieved two major milestones in 2022, helping more organ donors and families share the gift of life than ever in its history and the December opening of its new Transplant Donor Recovery Center in Azusa. The not-for-profit organ, eye and tissue recovery organization serving seven counties in Southern California enabled 647 organ donors in 2022, which is a 9.5 percent increase from 2021. One-third of these donors were transported to OneLegacy’s Redlands and Azusa Transplant Donor Recovery Centers, saving the lives of more than 1,600 people and freeing hundreds of hospital ICU beds to serve other patients, while also enabling 133,000 site-saving and healing tissue transplants.

OneLegacy has opened the nation’s largest and most sophisticated transplant donor recovery center, providing an unmatched bridge to life for 20 million Southern Californians including those waiting to receive a lifesaving or life-altering organ, eye or tissue transplant.

Popular television programs Chicago Med, Grey’s Anatomy and The Resident were among the six productions honored at the 2022 DLH Inspire Awards, held recently in Hollywood. Presented by OneLegacy Foundation’s Donate Life Hollywood project, the Inspire Awards salute Hollywood’s most authentic and positive organ donation and transplantation storylines, sending messages of hope and inspiration that can literally be the difference between life and death for thousands.

Three of America’s best known television programs, three non-scripted storylines and television broadcaster Robin Roberts have been named recipients of the 2022 DLH Inspire Awards, to be presented August 25 at the Taglyan Complex in Hollywood. Awarded by OneLegacy Foundation’s Donate Life Hollywood project, the Inspire Awards honor Hollywood’s most authentic and positive organ donation and transplantation storylines, sending messages of hope and inspiration that can literally be the difference between life and death for thousands.

Celebrating 20 years of inspiring local communities to donate life, OneLegacy’s 2022 Donate Life Run/Walk will host an in-person event on June 4 at Azusa Pacific University’s soccer fields. With a new location and a new date, OneLegacy’s largest fundraising event of the year benefiting the OneLegacy Foundation will feature a star-studded lineup, led by returning host Phillip Palmer, who is a living donor and ABC7’s news anchor.

OneLegacy, the organ procurement organization (OPO) that serves the greater seven county Southern California region, announced Monday that longtime Chief Operating Officer and Chief Information Officer Prasad Garimella has been promoted to Chief Executive Officer of the organization. Garimella joined OneLegacy 15 years ago, bringing with him a sophisticated understanding of organ donation, the systems and skill sets it requires, and a clinical background as a physician.

OneLegacy, the local organ procurement organization that serves seven counties in Southern California, is joining thousands of organizations, hospitals, transplant centers and cities across the country to celebrate National Donate Life Month in April in an effort to inspire more people to register as organ, eye and tissue donors.

The high prevalence of chronic kidney disease and the need for kidney donation and transplantation in communities of color was the subject of a timely and important webinar conducted yesterday by OneLegacy. Held in conjunction with National Kidney Month, the virtual “town hall” was the latest in a series of “Connecting the Dots” events produced by OneLegacy aimed at bridging the gap between the demand for organ transplants and the supply of donated organs in minority communities.

High school and college students from throughout Southern California are being encouraged to showcase their talents and creativity in a way that can help save lives by participating in OneLegacy’s Donate Life Hollywood (DLH) third annual Storytellers Contest. This year’s contest invites students to create a one-minute PSA that dispels the myth “they won’t work as hard to save me if I have a donor dot.”

After two years of virtual gatherings, the 20th annual Donate Life Run/Walk celebrating the power of donation and transplantation will return to an in-person event June 4 at Azusa Pacific University, in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley.

As part of its ongoing commitment to bring heightened awareness to the disproportionate need for organ donation and transplantation in communities of color, OneLegacy will be hosting a virtual town hall on February 14. On it, a distinguished panel of community leaders will discuss how Americans can work together to address this health inequity through awareness, education and donor registration.

OneLegacy, the not-for-profit organ, eye and tissue recovery organization serving seven Southern California counties, announced today an 8% increase in organ donation in 2021, marking the seventh consecutive year of record-setting organ donation and transplantation. The 2021 increase reflects OneLegacy enabling the transplant of 1,688 organs from 591 donors.

Four members of the Hollywood community gathered at Fiesta Floats in Irwindale yesterday to place “Dedication Roses” on the Donate Life Rose Parade Float that will travel down Colorado Blvd. on New Year’s Day. The roses, and the float itself, are the centerpiece of a national effort to reach a broad audience with the important message that organ, eye and tissue donation saves and heals lives.

Grateful organ, eye and tissue transplant recipients joined living donors, deceased donor families and other local officials to help unveil the 2022 Donate Life Rose Parade® float, which will travel down Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena on New Year’s Day. Celebrating 19 years of participation in the Rose Parade and other Tournament of Roses’ events, the Donate Life float is produced by OneLegacy and is the world’s most visible campaign to inspire organ, eye and tissue donation and share the important message that donation saves lives.

OneLegacy announced today that J. Martin Heur, MD., PhD, has been named Associate Medical Director for the OneLegacy Eye Bank located in Los Angeles, CA. The OneLegacy Eye Bank is the largest, not-for-profit eye bank servicing the Southern California area.

Television’s Squid Game’s portrayal of a black market for organ donations and transplants is not only false but “can cost lives and do long-lasting damage,” says the industry’s foremost watchdog on entertainment’s portrayal of a very serious healthcare topic.

A OneLegacy Foundation funded clinical trial at UCLA Health announced today its first two successful kidney transplants with the potential for no immunosuppressive drugs, a feat that will open the door for safer, more effective organ transplants for the more than 107,000 Americans in need. The transplants were made possible by a $2 million research grant from the OneLegacy Foundation and demonstrates the importance of cross-collaboration between Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs), transplant surgeons and hospitals.

Ava Kaufman, founder and executive director of Ava’s Heart, has been honored as one of CNN’s Heroes, a program which for 15 years has been celebrating inspiring stories of “everyday people changing the world.” You can view her story at cnn.com/specials/cnn-heroes.

Surrounded by local officials, transplant recipients, donor families and healthcare professionals, OneLegacy has held a “topping out” ceremony for its new state-of-the-art headquarters in Azusa that will serve as a critical connector for Southern California’s regional healthcare system.

To continue with its mission of inspiring local communities to Donate Life, OneLegacy is partnering with Team SoCal and Transplant Life Foundation to help celebrate the Reimagined 2020 Donate Life Transplant Games. The Games are celebrated in the U.S. every two years, gathering thousands of transplant recipients, living donors, donor families, people on the waiting list, caregivers, transplant professionals, supporters and spectators. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Games were postponed to 2021, including a mix of in-person and virtual activities around the country.

At a time when the entertainment industry’s proliferation of awards is increasingly being criticized as “fluff and self-aggrandizement” comes an award that can literally be the difference between life and death for thousands. The 2021 DLH Inspire Awards, honoring Hollywood’s most authentic and positive organ donation and transplantation storylines, will be presented via a LIVE stream on July 15. The virtual awards show will air at 4 p.m. Pacific Time on Facebook @DLHCampaign.

As part of the 2021 Donate Life Virtual Run/Walk’s opening ceremony, which streamed LIVE on Facebook and Instagram on April 24, OneLegacy unveiled the 2022 Donate Life Rose Parade® float’s design and theme, Courage to Hope. The float will be part of the 2022 Rose Parade that will take place in Pasadena, Calif. on New Year’s Day.

High School and college students across America are being encouraged to showcase their talents and creativity in a way that can help save lives by participating in Donate Life Hollywood’s (DLH) second annual Storytellers Contest. The contest invites students to create a one-minute video about living kidney donation and submit it for cash prizes and broad national exposure throughout the DLH network.

With the goal of engaging thousands of participants in Southern California and around the U.S. to share the importance of organ, eye and tissue donation while keeping everyone safe during the current pandemic, OneLegacy will host its second virtual Donate Life Run/Walk this Saturday, April 24 with a virtual opening ceremony that will stream LIVE on Facebook and YouTube.