PARADE FLOAT PULLS ATTENTION TO GIFT OF LIFE HUSBAND'S DONATIONS REMEMBERED.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

Butterflies, birds, a caterpillar and flowers cascade from the trunk of a fallen tree in the Pasadena Tournament of Roses float ``Life Transformed'' - aimed at inspiring people to donate organs, tissues and blood.

Among those who just did that was Patti Rivetti's husband, Dennis, whose heart, liver, kidneys and left cornea went to five people after his unexpected death two years ago of a brain aneurysm.

``He loved helping people. He loved life,'' Patti Rivetti said of her husband's decision, long before he was stricken at age 48, to become an organ donor.

Rivetti, program manager for the Antelope Valley Domestic Violence Council's Homeless Solutions Access Center and mother of two teenage sons, was among nearly 1,000 relatives of organ donors who volunteered last week to decorate the third annual Donate Life float.

Rivetti, who ended up blowing rice powder and gluing crushed red straw onto a sister float for Kodak, became active after her husband's death with the organization OneLegacy, the nonprofit, federally designated organ procurement agency serving Southern California.

Rivetti has become one of the organization's volunteer ambassadors, explaining how people can become brain donors. At a Bakersfield hospital, she made a presentation along with the man who got her husband's heart.

Meeting her husband's heart recipient, a lifelong heart disease sufferer, before the presentation was a beautiful experience, she said. She finds comfort ``knowing that when someone passes that a part of them is left behind here.''

The need for people to designate themselves as organ donors is great: Nearly 90,000 Americans are waiting for organs. Especially needed, Rivetti said, are registrations by African-Americans and Latinos.

Dennis Rivetti had been an aerospace worker and later a producer for Antelope Valley radio stations. His driver's license bore a pink dot designating him as an organ donor.

But Patti didn't know what he wanted to donate. She had to make that decision when she was approached by an organ-donation worker after he was declared brain dead.

``It's an overwhelming experience,'' she said. ``You're already grieving ... You're just very overwhelmed.''

Now people can register online on a Web site created by California's four organ procurement organizations. The registry is at www.donatelifecalifornia.org.

Registration takes that additional burden off the donor's family of deciding what organs to donate, Rivetti said.

``It's just phenomenal the amount of people that are waiting,'' she said.

Charles F. Bostwick, [phone]

chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

(color) Patti Rivetti holds a photo of her late husband, Dennis, whose organs were donated after he died two years ago.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer