TRIO Chapter Activity Report

NE Florida Chapter - May 2008

TRIONEFL had a busy quarter. Our January speaker was a psychologist from Mayo clinic. He spoke about recipient's post transplant problems and the evaluation process for transplant candidates. Our March speaker was Larry Cochran assistant executive director of our OPO LifeQuest. He  He gave us an update on the OPO's performance for 2007 and the expectations for 2008. He also talked about the changing trends in organ recovery.. Our April meeting was a planning meeting and a social meeting. Our May meeting will have Drew Silverman , a doctor of Pharmacy at Tampa General Hospital who is the transplant pharmacist . Drew can relate to recipients as he is a two time kidney recipient.

 

We added a Saturday brunch meeting on the first Saturday of each month. This is for members who can't make it to our night meetings and is strictly a social meeting to get to know one another better.

 

For donor awareness month we were very busy. We answered the phones for a week during the newscast  promoting organ donor awareness, Several of our members presented medals to the riders in the Katie Ride for Life. We held our donate life day celebration at a large open mall ,signing up donors and promoting blood donations. The event had 4 newscasts on NBC/ABC news stations and 2 on local TV station. We also had story in local newspaper on organ donation. Over 30 transplant recipients were at the event.

 

We participated in the Players Tournament birdies for charity contest and will raise about $3000. We will once again have our cruise raffle which is 5 night cruise in the 2000 square foot owner's cabin. The drawing will be held in December.

 

We were a sponsor for Hadassah event on organ donation where some of our members spoke. We also had a booth on Organ Donation at the Jacksonville Jazz Festival.

 

We are planning on working with City of Jacksonville to add a rose garden in memory of donors along the Riverwalk. ( (thanks TRIO Long Island for the idea) We are planning a summer picnic for our members and their families.

 

We voted to donate $1000 to TRIO's National scholarship fund . We also gave a $1000 donation to team Florida for the U S Transplant Games.

J T Rhodes CPA
President TRIO NEFL