Donate Life Tennessee," a new awareness campaign supported by the Tennessee Department of Safety, has registered over 1 million Tennesseans for organ and tissue donation.

The campaign combines dedicated education and public communications from a Tennessee consortium of partners with a new, state-of-the-art online donor registry website which was developed by Transplant Connect, the leader in the field of software and systems developed for the organ, tissue and eye transplant field.

"The campaign in April with the TDOS was just the beginning of our effort to promote the new registry," said Janet Jarrard, senior public education coordinator and media specialist of the Tennessee Donor Services. "The public education efforts at TDOS are now completely focused on motivating people to document their decision to donate."

The Tennessee County Clerks Organ Donation Awareness Foundation contributed funds to help create and launch the Donate Life Tennessee organ and tissue donor registry.

Jarrard said that the events during the campaign proved to be so successful that she plans to do more of them next April, including developing a brochure to distribute in driver license centers.

As of now one-third of 99,000 Americans are waiting for life saving organs transplants. Jarrard along with Tennessee Donor Services and Mid-South Transplant are determined to save lives by increasing the number of Tennessean donors.

A national goal for the Department of Health and Human Services and Donate Life America is to reach 100 million registrants by July 1, 2010.

Jarrard said she has a personal connection with donation because of her husband's kidney transplant.

"Early in our marriage, I watched with horror as he courageously endured hemodialysis while he waited patiently for a kidney," Jarrard said. "Dialysis sustains life, but it's a physically and emotionally painful process no one should have to experience."

Currently, two-thirds of the people awaiting transplants are waiting on kidneys, and many of them have been waiting for over five years.

"John was fortunate that his kidney came in time, but he passed away seven years ago," Jarrard said. "A compassionate donor gave him eleven years that he and I wouldn't have had together."

"I believe that everyone who can be saved by a transplant deserves to receive the gift of life," Jarrard said.

Jarrard said people usually decline to become a donor based on their misunderstanding of the donation process, which is displayed incorrectly in the media.

"The entertainment media create a lot of misinformation about donation, and often sensationalize it or distort it when using it as a story line," Jarrard said. "I've seen some ridiculous treatments of donation and transplantation on television shows like 'ER' and 'House'."

Jarrard also said that most people don't like to think about their own death; therefore, they forget about the preparation process.

According to a national survey in 2004, 90 percent of Americans support donation, but only 20 percent of adults have actually registered.

In addition to the survey, only two to three percent of all deaths meet the medical criteria required for organ donation.

"If you have just one organ that is working properly then it can go to someone," said Megan Price, senior business education major.

Price became a volunteer at TDS after having witnessed her friend, Ashley Tollett, suffer from a rare disease called lymphangioleimyomatosis that causes deterioration of the lungs.

Tollett received her transplant three months after seeing the Transplant Team at Vanderbilt, and has made a full recovery since the operation.

"It's really important [to donate] because it saved her life," Price said. "Without the transplant she would have died at 19 years old."

Price said on average most young people are encouraged to become donors because they have the highest risk of being killed in car accidents.

When someone chooses to become a donor, a small red heart will be placed in the upper right hand corner of the driver's license to confirm to each state ID holder that they have checked yes to donating their organs or tissues. It will also allow their secure information to be added into the registry online database.

"I would not be here today without someone's generous gift of organ donation," Tollett said. "Everyone wants to make a difference in the world and this, to me, is the utmost way to make a difference in someone's life."

Anyone interested in becoming an organ and tissue donor can register online at tndonorregistry.org or can contact the Tennessee Donor Services at               1-888-234-4440       .