Organ recipient inspires plates

Paul Iverson/Caller-Times

Bill Farmer is the heart recipient whose statement inspired the creation of the organ donation license plate.

A single statement that a local heart transplant recipient made to a representative of a Houston organ donation center has resulted in an organ donation state license plate.
   The idea came from a conversation that Corpus Christi resident William Farmer had with Barbara Cooley, community liaison of Houston's LifeGift Organ Donation Center. During the conversation, _Farmer told her that there ought to be an organ donation state license plate.
   The idea so intrigued Cooley that she immediately began researching how to go about it.
   Last week, after many months of hard work, the first organ donation state license plate was unveiled during a ceremony at the Harris County Courthouse.
   Farmer, who attended the event, said the ceremony was especially poignant because Ivan and Jacque Bickel, the parents of his heart donor, were given the honor of unveiling the first specialized state plate. Farmer's heart donor was the Bickels' 23-year-old son Scott who died three years ago in an auto accident while on his way to a 10 a.m. class at Sam Houston State University.

Contributed photo

The state's new organ donation license plate was recently unveiled.

   "I want to do anything that raises public awareness of organ donation," said Farmer, a member of Corpus Christi's New Hearts Support Group who has worked with the Bickels to raise public awareness of organ donation.
   Farmer said he is particularly proud of the fact that his organization and other Coastal Bend groups have helped to increase organ and tissue donation by 40 percent in Nueces County in the last four years. The organ donation license plate, Farmer said, will deliver the organ donation message to an even wider audience.
   The organ donation license plate features a green ribbon, the symbol for organ donation, and the words "Give life. Be an organ donor."
   To get the specialized plate, Texas motorists must pay $25 in addition to their standard license registration fee.

Organ donation plates To get the organ donation state license plate, visit your local county tax assessor-collector's office. For information about the New Hearts Support Group, call 880-5371.

   By working in partnership with the Heart Exchange Support Group at Houston's St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, the LifeGift Organ Donation Center was able to raise the $15,000 to make the plate possible.
   "The plate is a not-for-profit plate, meaning that the purpose of its sale is not to raise money, but to raise awareness to the fact that there are more than 75,600 men, women and children in this country waiting for live-saving transplants," Cooley said.
   Farmer is already working on a few other ideas, among them getting credit card companies to emphasize organ donation on their plastic.
   "If they can issue out cards with Olympic scenes, or pictures of majestic mountains and flowers, then why not issue an organ donation card?" Farmer asked. "The public relations of it would be tremendous.
   "Think about it; people change credit cards like they do clothes.
   "But if the credit card served as their permanent organ donor card, it'd motivate them to stick with that credit card longer.
   "And for us it's all with one goal in mind - to get the organ donor message out."