Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers, Along with Former Players Mike Quick and Dwayne Woodruff, Join Launch of Statewide Minority Organ Donor Awareness Campaign.

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Organ Donor Recipients and Families "Barnstorm" to August 15 Pre-Season Football Game

While rivals on the field, the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers are unified in their support of the new Pennsylvania Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Program's outreach initiative aimed at recruiting African Americans to sign up as organ donors. Both teams, as well as former Eagles wide receiver and five-time Pro Bowler, Mike Quick (who played 1982-1990), and former Steelers Super Bowl Cornerback, Dwayne Woodruff (who played 1979-1990), will celebrate the culmination of the state's first-ever "Organ Donor Barnstorming Bus Tour" prior to the Steelers v. Eagles pre-season game at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh on Monday, Aug. 15.

The bus tour will celebrate the barnstorming tradition dating back to the days of Negro Baseball Leagues, when players traveled by bus from town-to-town playing local teams and attracting attention from the town's residents. The initiative kicks off special outreach efforts in the African American community and is sponsored by the Pennsylvania Departments of Health and Transportation along with the state's two organ procurement organizations - Western Pennsylvania's Center for Organ Recovery and Education (CORE) and Eastern Pennsylvania's Gift of Life Donor Program.

The Barnstorming Bus Tour will begin in Philadelphia, where African American donor families, recipients and people awaiting transplants will board a bus at Sharon Baptist Church and travel to the Governor's mansion in Harrisburg and Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Altoona, picking up additional members of the organ donor community and hosting support rallies in each city. The bus tour will culminate at Heinz Field for the nationally televised Monday Night Football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers. Bus travelers will be greeted by Pennsylvania Department of Health Secretary, Calvin B. Johnson, M.D., M.P.H. and more than 15 African American donor recipients and families including Karen Henderson, mother of Thomas Henderson, who is featured in the statewide organ and tissue donor awareness campaign, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Power.

"Uniting African American organ donor recipients and families is a tremendous way for us to rally together and spread the message that being an organ donor is extremely important for our community," said Henderson.

Barnstorming participants will appear in Jumbotron messages during the game and an organ donor information booth will be set up at Heinz Field. Visitors to the booth will be invited to sign a reminder card to be notified next year when they will have the opportunity to go online to add the donor designation to their driver's license or state identification card. A similar booth will also be set up in the Wachovia Complex parking lot during the Sept. 18 Eagles game.

"We're reviving the great tradition of barnstorming to get more African Americans on board with organ and tissue donation," said the Rev. Paul Johnson, pastor of 18th Street Community Church, in Altoona, a kidney recipient and a member of the state's Organ Donation Advisory Committee which oversees the Governor Robert P. Casey Memorial Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Trust Fund that is sponsoring the minority outreach campaign. "We hope to bring attention to this critical need within the African American community and increase the number of people who sign up to be organ donors," he added.

The need to encourage more African American Pennsylvanians to consent to be organ donors is urgent. Of the nearly 6,500 people waiting for life-saving organ transplants in Pennsylvania, 25 percent, or more than 1,600 are African American. In addition, the number of African Americans on the organ transplant waiting list is 166 percent higher today than just 10 years ago. However, only 12 percent of all donors to date have been African American. This creates a challenge because transplant success rates increase when organs are matched between members of the same ethnic and racial group.

Nationally, organ donation among African Americans continues to lag behind the mainstream. According to the Fourth International Society for Organ Donation Congress report focusing on "African American Perspectives on Organ Donation," African Americans refuse organ donation two to three times more often than their white counterparts. What's more, the need for donated organs is most acute among African Americans who suffer disproportionately from diseases in which transplants represent a viable medical option.

"We're thrilled to have the support of Pennsylvania's two great NFL teams who recognize the importance of increasing organ donation," said Dr. Johnson, health secretary.

The Barnstorming Bus Tour is part of a statewide organ and tissue donor awareness campaign, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Power, that reaches out to all communities in the Commonwealth to raise awareness and organ donor designations. For more information, call 877-DONOR-PA or log on to www.donatelife-pa.org to find the closest driver's license center where you can add the donor designation to your driver's license or state identification card.