Buckeye Transplant Reunion Adds Pinwheel Garden to Annual Celebration

April 6, 2016

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Nearly 1,000 invited guests and volunteers will gather for the 11th annual Buckeye Transplant Reunion on Sunday from 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on the front plaza of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center to honor former transplant patients, organ donors and living kidney donors.

New this year, a pinwheel commemoration ceremony will kick off the event at 11:15 a.m., followed by the pinwheel planting event at 11:45 a.m., which will create a vibrant display of 8,000 multi-colored pinwheels. Each pinwheel illustrates an organ transplant performed at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center since 1967.

Reporters and videographers are invited to cover the festivities.

The invitation-only transplant reunion will commence at 12:30 p.m.

The pinwheels will be on display through the end of April, which is nationally recognized as Donate Life Month. Each pinwheel has eight spokes supported by one stem, symbolizing the power one person has to save up to eight lives through organ donation.

Ohio State’s Comprehensive Transplant Center, the area’s only adult transplant center and one of the country’s largest transplant programs, has performed more than 8,000 lifesaving transplants in almost 50 years, including heart, lung, kidney, liver, kidney-pancreas and pancreas transplants. Each year, more than 250 patients receive the gift of life – a transplant at OSU Wexner Medical Center.

To register as an organ donor, go to: go.osu.edu/Buckeye4Life.

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Media Contact: Sherri Kirk, Wexner Medical Center Public Affairs and Media Relations, 614-293-3737 or Sherri.Kirk@osumc.edu