Centegra Health System Hospital is showing its support for organ donation by raising a Donate Life flag every time a family chooses to donate their loved-one’s organs. The flag honors the memory and the generous gift made by each donor, and it signifies a second chance for each organ recipient.

Centegra staff and visitors will know when another life is saved through the gift of donation when they see the Donate Life flag flying on the hospital’s flagpole. The flag will tell the story of a life-giving gift that a donor and their family just made at the hospital.

“Flying a flag in honor of these heartfelt donations is a small way to pay tribute to the donor and their families,” said Allison Wallace, Gift of Hope hospital development coordinator at Centegra Hospital-Woodstock.

Opportunities for organ donation are rare. Less than two percent of all hospital deaths are capable of resulting in donation. Those rare opportunities are met when a health system such as Centegra partners with Gift of Hope to develop an environment that prepares hospital staff to recognize and act on every potential donation. Centegra Health System is committed to that vital partnership and provides an environment that is supportive of donation.

Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network serves as the federally designated not-for-profit organ procurement organization (OPO) that coordinates organ and tissue donation and services to families of donors in the northern three-quarters of Illinois and northwest Indiana. Since its inception in 1986, Gift of Hope has coordinated donations that have saved the lives of more than 16,000 organ transplant recipients, and improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of tissue transplant recipients.