Op-Ed by OneLegacy CEO Emphasizes Importance of Organ Donation

Earned media can play a valuable role in an organization’s communications strategy. Hershey Cause Communications has a strong record of success helping clients with their earned media efforts, including assistance placing op-eds. Op-eds can help an organization expand its reach and have its voice heard by key audience groups. Our client OneLegacy, the organ procurement organization serving the greater Los Angeles area, has a float in the Rose Parade each year. With the parade approaching they wanted people to know the life-saving reasons behind the choice to produce the float, and leverage the Rose Parade coverage to talk about the importance of organ donation. We are proud to have helped them place the op-ed in the Los Angeles News Group, which reaches nearly 2.4 million people each week in print and online. This consortium of newspapers was a perfect fit as they cover OneLegacy’s target market of the greater LA area. A brief excerpt of their poignant article is below – and you can read the full op-ed here.

Volunteers decorated the Donate Life float with organic material in the days leading up to the parade.

“Thanks to a heroic organ donor, Mason Sommers got to marry the love of his life. He survived his first cardiac arrest at 16. A few years later, after suffering a second cardiac arrest, it was discovered he had a heart defect. With medication, Mason was able to manage his condition for 30 years, until age 50 when he was put on a pacemaker and slowly began to suffer from progressive heart failure. In the fall of 2009 he was told he needed a new heart. After months on the waiting list, a donor match was found and he received the transplant necessary to save his life. Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court approved marriage equality. “I lived to see the day,” Sommers told me. A few months later, he could finally exchange vows with his partner of 19 years….

One of the best parts of my job is the ability to share the stories of hope and celebration that are present in each life-giving donation and successful transplantation, and there is no bigger opportunity to do so than on Jan. 1.

On New Year’s Day, millions of Americans will see Mason Sommers riding the Donate Life float at the Tournament of Roses Parade, as one of 96 recipients and donors whose stories are honored this year. Donate Life America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing organ, eye and tissue donations, participates in the parade to spotlight the heroism of donors and to celebrate the journeys of new life, health and hope that donations make possible. But its most important goal is to inspire more Americans to register as donors.”

OneLegacy CEO Tom Mone addresses volunteers decorating the float. Photo by Chris Chavira.

Floragraph images of honorees were placed on the float to honor those who have donated organs.

The Donate Life float travels down Colorado Boulevard during the 2016 Tournament of Roses Parade. Photo by Scott Weersing.