SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Missouri State Athletics will “Go Green” this April as part of a partnership with Mid-America Transplant during upcoming Bears baseball and softball games.
MSU will be playing two Green Up games during National Donate Life Month to raise awareness about organ, eye and tissue donation while honoring and celebrating organ and tissue donors, donor families, and transplant recipients:
The Green Up Games will be held:
• Tuesday, April 10: MSU Baseball vs. Missouri
• Saturday, April 28: MSU Softball vs. Indiana State
The three-year partnership will highlight local, regional and national activities to help encourage Americans to register as organ, eye and tissue donors and to celebrate those that have saved lives through the gift of donation. At each Green Up Game, fans will have the opportunity to learn more about organ, eye and tissue donation and register their decision to be a donor.
Mid-America Transplant is also coordinating pregame ceremonies dedicated to honoring organ and tissue donors.
“We are very excited to begin these new partnerships in the Springfield area,” Mid-America Transplant President and CEO Diane Brockmeier said. “Springfield and the neighboring communities have shown an exceptional generosity to help others through organ and tissue donation for many years. With the support of the athletics department from Missouri State, these partnerships will allow us to continue honoring organ and tissue donors, while also educating the public on the lifesaving benefits of donation.”
The Missouri State baseball and softball teams will wear a special green and blue outlined caps and visors during their featured games. The Donate Life shades of green and blue represent ongoing efforts to increase the number of people registered as organ, eye, and tissue donors.
The partnership is being managed by Learfield’s Missouri State Sports Properties, the University’s athletics multimedia rightsholder.
More than 115,000 people are currently waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant nationwide after a year in which a record 34,768 organ transplants were performed in the United States. Mid-America Transplant contributed to the 2017 record by facilitating the recovery of an organizational record 718 lifesaving organs from 223 selfless, heroic organ donors.
About Mid-America Transplant
Mid-America Transplant enables adults and children to receive lifesaving gifts through organ and tissue donations. For more than 40 years, it has facilitated and coordinated organ and tissue donation, and now serves 84 counties covering eastern Missouri, southern Illinois and northeast Arkansas that together are home to 4.7 million people. It saves lives by providing expert and compassionate care for organ and tissue donors, recipients and families, and transforms the clinical processes required to recover and transplant organs and tissues. Mid-America Transplant was the first such organization in the U.S. to use an in-house operating room for organ recovery and pioneered innovative models of increasing donor registry enrollment to provide more organs and tissues to those in need. It is federally designated as one of 58 such organizations in the U.S. and is the first organ procurement organization to be recognized as a recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence and a three-time recipient of the Missouri Quality Award.