Eye-Catching Ideas UI Students, Lions Eye Bank Hope To Increase Number Of Organ Donors
University of Idaho advertising students are hoping they can open the eyes of potential organ donors in Washington and Idaho.
A print media class of 30 UI students pitched advertising campaign ideas Thursday to representatives of the Lions Sight Conservation Foundation.
The Seattle-based eye bank hopes an ad campaign will reverse a trend of declining organ donations.
“This year, we’ve had less than 20 (eye transplants) done in Spokane, which is a big reason why I’m here,” said Monty Montoya, the eye bank’s director. “For a population the size of Spokane, that is really low.”
Montoya flew to Moscow to hear the student presentations and said he will take the ideas back to Seattle for final review.
Like most nonprofit organizations, the eye bank can’t afford professional advertising help. So when newly appointed regional coordinator Kimberly Miltonberger met UI student Jason Reichold in a nonprofit marketing strategy class, they hatched a plan.
Reichold and other advertising students agreed to provide fresh ideas if eye bank officials would write letters of recommendations to prospective employers should any of the work be used.
“We are trying to learn and they need help, so why not share that process?” said UI communications professor Mark Secrist, who teaches the class.
“It’s good for the students because they get a real client with a real problem, and it helps out a local organization at the same time. The students take this far more seriously because it’s real.”
The student designs varied from emotional testimonials of organ recipients to more straightforward approaches - a billboard featuring an Idaho driver’s license stamped with the words “Not Enough.”
The public mistakenly believes that checking “organ donor” on a driver’s license guarantees posthumous organ donation, eye bank officials said. But despite donor wishes, doctors and nurses still refer organ-donation decisions to next of kin, making family discussion of such choices critical.
“It’s only about every five years that most of us think about it … when we are in line at the DMV,” UI junior Mark McEnaney said in making his billboard presentation. “So I think it’s absolutely tragic that having it on your driver’s license isn’t enough.”
Three common myths prohibit most organ donations, Montoya told students. Some families fear a delayed funeral or that disfigurement may disrupt viewing. Others worry they’ll be charged for the procedure.
In fact, there’s no cost to families, and technicians now use prosthetics to shape the eyelids after tissue removal, Montoya said.
Surgeons in Lewiston, Idaho, and Spokane perform eye transplant procedures, utilizing donated tissue up to 14 hours after the donor’s death.
There were 46,000 corneal transplants nationwide last year, but only 700 in the Northwest. More than 5,000 patients are on waiting lists for donated eye tissue, Montoya said.
, DataTimes