A UF club will register organ donors next week.
For the first time, Big Heart Gators is partnering with the Katie Caples Foundation to try to register 2,000 students to become donors. They will register students from Monday to Friday on Turlington Plaza and at the Reitz Union, except for Wednesday, where they will be at UF Health Shands Hospital.
The foundation began in 1998 after Katie Caples died in a car accident at 17. Because she was an organ donor, she saved five lives, said Jennifer Cook, the executive director of the foundation. Katie’s parents helped found the organization to save others’ lives.
“It is really rather inspiring,” Cook said.
Bradley Bean, the president of Big Heart Gators, said he helped found the club with friends after he heard Caples’ story. The club has been growing ever since.
“If something does happen and you’re not going to make it, the greatest gift you can give to someone else is the gift of life — the ability to keep on living,” Bean said. “Because something happened to you, you’re going to keep on giving to somebody else.”
Bean, a 21-year-old UF industrial and systems engineering senior, said students can help others by registering.
“Honestly, there’s no downside to being an organ donor — there’s absolutely not,” Bean said. “It’s an act of love and helping others.”
When someone dies, a donor’s organs will go different places depending on blood type, body type and location, Cook said. Caples’ heart, for example, was donated to someone in New York, she said.
Cook said she thinks the club can reach its goal.
“That’s a lot of people, and that is a big goal, but I am very confident that we are going to chip away at that,” Cook said.
