Living Donors Online Message Board
Living Donation Discussion and News => Living Donation in the News => Topic started by: Clark on January 01, 2015, 08:12:03 AM
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http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/tulsa-organ-donor-to-walk-in-rose-parade/article_01fe3d70-076d-5e61-a76d-a65c30f0dd41.html
Tulsa organ donor to walk in Rose Parade
A Tulsa woman will march in the Rose Parade on Thursday.
Cheryl Manley of Tulsa, a recent kidney donor and the mother of a heart donor, will again do her part for the cause when she participates in the 2015 Rose Parade on Thursday.
To help raise awareness of the importance of organ donation, Manley will march with the annual Donate Life Float, alongside a portrait of her late daughter, Amanda Philpott.
Philpott, whose heart was donated after her death in 1996, will be one of 72 deceased organ and tissue donors depicted in portraits on the float.
The Donate Life Float has been part of the Pasadena, California, parade since 2004. Manley will be one of 12 living organ donors walking with the float, and the first, Donate Life officials say, to accompany a loved one’s portrait.
Philpott was 16 when she was killed in a car accident on her way home from church. Her family members decided afterward to donate her heart.
Manley has been a strong advocate for organ, eye and tissue donation ever since.
As reported recently in the Tulsa World, she made her own donation this past October, giving one of her kidneys to a friend, Stephanie Baker of Talala.
She said she’d grown close to Baker, a fellow donor mom, through their advocacy work, and upon learning Baker needed a kidney knew immediately she wanted to be tested.
The transplant was successful, and both women are doing well.
The portraits featured on the parade float — called floragraphs — were crafted from organic materials including seeds, grains, spices and dried flowers, officials said.
Another Oklahoman promoting organ donation will join Manley in the parade. Tim Bishop of Stilwell, a kidney transplant recipient and member of the Osage Nation, will be among 30 organ recipients riding the Donate Life Float, officials said.