School Presentations Make Big Impact
Students and teachers may be counting down to the end of the year, but for our community education staff, May is one of our busiest months! This year is no exception. The final weeks of the school year find us completely booked as our team works to match last year’s record percentage of schools visited in our service area - 57 percent.
The unprecedented bad weather in February presented some unique challenges. We had to reschedule a number of times and some schools we routinely visit couldn’t work us into the schedule. Fortunately, we have recruited enough new schools to come within two schools of last year’s record! The best news is that we have given 80 more presentations to nearly 7,000 more students this year versus last year.
Ron presenting to a class
We also have some other milestones to celebrate. We visited a record number of schools in Ross, Scioto, Lawrence, Marion and Wyandot counties and we reached 100 percent of the schools in Logan, Allen, Morgan, Noble, Hocking, Vinton and Meigs Counties. These efforts are due to the hard work of our staff and volunteers who take the extra time needed to reach out to schools in our service area.
We find that educating high school and junior high school students is important to help them make an educated decision about donation when they make their first visit to the BMV. Our presentations are not persuasive, but intended to provide all the information students need so they understand what it means to say “yes” to organ and tissue donation.
These efforts are paying off in donor registrations. We have discovered that in counties where we have a long history of presenting to students, residents under 29 years of age say “yes” to donation more often than in counties where we don’t present as often. So, every year, we focus on increasing school participation as part of our ongoing efforts to encourage individuals to join the Ohio Donor Registry. You can help us save lives by requesting a program at your school.
We are excited to be busy right up to the end of the year and look forward to making more progress next year (after enjoying a little summer break)!
- Ron Packard, Community Education Manager
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