San Francisco Giants Celebrate ‘Donate Life Day’

Photo courtesy of Donor Network West

On August 7, the San Francisco Giants held the 22nd Annual Organ Donor Awareness Day (now known as Donate Life Day). Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford has been a key part of this event since its inception in 1998, and I am a proud co-founder of the event. It’s an opportunity to celebrate lives that have been saved through organ donation.

At this event, six liver transplant patients were all treated as VIPs, receiving tickets for their families and special Giants caps. One of the highlights was having their names appear on the scoreboard at the end of the fourth inning with a “Giants Welcome.”

Jabari Vianzon Arafiles, a 3-year-old boy under the care of our pediatric hepatologists who received a liver transplant at Packard Children’s as an infant, opened the game with “Play ball!”

Lorenzo Mata, a 10-year-old boy who is also under the care of our pediatric hepatologists and received a liver transplant at Packard Children’s, served as the junior announcer.

Photo courtesy of Donor Network West

A kidney transplant recipient and a combined kidney and liver transplant recipient served as balldudes for the game.

The Giants and Donor Network West celebrated 20 years of partnership in 2017. The first Donate Life Day took place in 1998. Liver transplant recipient Lori Gardner threw out the ceremonial first pitch at that inaugural game. Lori is the late wife of former Giants pitcher and bullpen coach Mark Gardner. Gardner received the Donate Life Champion award in 2013 from Donate Life America for his support and work to promote organ and tissue donation.

Anyone can register as an organ and tissue donor at the DMV or online by visiting https://www.donornetworkwest.org/ or https://organdonor.gov/index.html.

The Giants Donate Life Day is the longest-running organ donor event in all of the professional sports.