Irene Maslowski
National Eye Donor Month is being celebrated close to home this March, with a special message from New Jersey residents who support, eye, organ, and tissue donation.
The Lions Eye Bank of New Jersey has created a March calendar featuring 31 New Jersey residents—one for each day of the month—offering their reasons for signing up on the New Jersey Organ/Tissue Donor Registry. Ian Friend of Princeton and Julie Driesbach of West Windsor are among those featured.
The Eye Bank has also launched a new and improved web site at www.lionseyebankofnj.org, in time to feature a different person’s Donor Registry story each day during the month of March.
“The New Jersey residents we’re featuring during Eye Donor Month made the decision to give the gifts of life sight, and mobility,” says Margaret Chaplin, Director of the Lions Eye Bank of New Jersey. “We hope their stories will encourage others to join the Registry as well.”
The Eye Bank’s I Joined! Campaign (www.IJoined.org) aims to educate the public about the importance of joining the Donate Life NJ Donor Registry. During Eye Donor Month, the Eye Bank is hoping to help set new records for Donor Registry participation in New Jersey.
The poster-sized Eye Donor Month calendars will be displayed in places where communities gather, such as libraries and town halls, as well as in hospitals and schools. The calendar will also be viewable online.
Charitable contributions in honor and in memory of those who have supported eye, organ and tissue donation are also welcome. Contributions can be made online at www.lionseyebanknj.org or by mail to the Lions Eye Bank of New Jersey, 841 Mountain Ave., Springfield, N.J. 07081.
March has been recognized by Congress as National Eye Donor Month since 1983, in an effort to increase public awareness of the ongoing need for eye donors.
The Lions Eye Bank of New Jersey is a subsidiary of the Midwest Eye Banks, a charitable not-for-profit organization dedicated to the restoration of sight.
It recovers, evaluates, and distributes human eye tissue for transplantation. It also supports research into the causes and cures of blinding eye conditions, promotes donation awareness through public and professional education, and provides humanitarian aid to people in need of corneal transplantation throughout the world. Visit www.lionseyebanknj.org or call (800) 653-9379 for more information.

