Donate Life California Presents Lifetime Achievement Award to Speaker John A. Pérez

Donate Life California
SACRAMENTO, Calif., April 8, 2013 â€" Donate Life California presented its first ever Lifetime Achievement Award to Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez at a reception held in his honor this afternoon. The award recognizes Speaker Pérez for his steadfast commitment to raising awareness for organ, eye and tissue donation and for supporting legislation to benefit the Donate Life California mission.


“I am deeply grateful for Donate Life California for this award, and for the extraordinary work Donate Life California does every single day to give a new lease on life to Californians waiting for an organ to become available,” said Speaker John A. Pérez. “Thousands of Californians are waiting for that phone call that will give them a new lease on life, and I encourage every single Californian to sign up to become an organ donor, to give these Californians and their families a second chance to lead a healthy life.”

Speaker Pérez invited Donate Life California leadership to the Assembly floor today to accept a resolution designating April as Donate Life Month in California. It is just one of many resolutions and key legislation the Speaker has authored in support of organ and tissue donation. In 2012 with AB 1967, he helped Donate Life California accomplish one of its highest legislative priorities â€" providing a means for students to receive education on organ and tissue donation. Specifically, the new law ensures that California’s health and science curricula provide students with age appropriate and accurate information on organ and tissue donation so they can make an informed decision about signing up to save lives on the Donate Life Registry. Speaker Pérez also authored a bill extending Medi-Cal coverage for post-transplant medications from one year to two years.

“Speaker Pérez has demonstrated strong leadership in highlighting the importance of saving lives through organ and tissue donation. It is difficult to quantify the number of lives impacted by his legislation, but his work will be always be remembered by those of us in the transplant community,” said Lisa Stocks, Donate Life California President.

Tomorrow, Speaker Pérez will host Donate Life California, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), and the California Highway Patrol (CHP) at a news conference to make two important announcements: First, the Donate Life California Organ & Tissue Donor Registry has reached a MAJOR milestone of ten million people who have said “Yes!” to being organ and tissue donors; second, the CHP is now the official sponsor for Donate Life California’s new specialty license plate. More details will be revealed tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. in Room 317, Conference Room of Speaker John A. Pérez at the State Capitol in Sacramento.

The Donate Life California Organ & Tissue Donor Registry is the nonprofit, state-authorized organ and tissue donor registry which records the decision to donate in a secure, confidential database that is searched by authorized organ and tissue recovery personnel at the time of an actual donation opportunity. It is administered by Donate Life California and California’s four nonprofit, federally designated organ recovery organizations: California Transplant Donor Network, Sierra Donor Services, Lifesharing and OneLegacy. For more information about the Donate Life California Registry, how donation saves and improves lives, and to sign up, please visit www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org or www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org.

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