Organ and tissue donor heroes
Gila ridge High School takes first place in the donor network of arizona’s High School Heroes challenge.
The Donor Network of Arizona has deemed Gila Ridge High School worthy of the first place title in its High School Heroes Challenge this year. The reason? Gila Ridge High School’s nursing program registered and reaffirmed the most organ and tissue donors among “large schools” in the state.
In the program–one out of five in the district–students also take part in the HOSA Career and Technical Student Organization. Formerly known as Health Occupations Students of America, HOSA is now known as Future Health Professionals. Because they placed first in the High School Heroes Challenge, Gila Ridge’s HOSA club will be awarded a $1,000 donation for their effort and will be recognized at the Spring HOSA Conference in Tucson.
The Yuma Union High School District reports that 402 individuals were registered or reaffirmed as organ donors as part of the challenge overall. Additionally, Gila Ridge was the only school in southwest Arizona to finish in the top three of the large, medium or small school categories.
To get to this point, nursing teacher and club advisor for HOSA, Hillary Stock, explained that they had a guest speaker attend an after-school HOSA meeting and share the story of her brother’s passing and how his organs were donated. She also presented a lot of information on the donation process which enabled students to use what they learned to create posters, post on social media and use word of mouth to register friends and family.
“This challenge is an important community service because there are over 106,000 people in the U.S. waiting for an organ transplant,” Stock said. “20 of them die each day while waiting. Being an organ/tissue donor could save 75 or more lives. There are many misconceptions about organ donation so part of our goal was to learn the facts and spread the true facts.”
The HOSA club has yet to decide how they’ll use their prize money, but Stock said that they were all very excited to learn the news. “We have competed in this challenge for the past four years and each year we placed in 2nd or 3rd place,” she said. “I told them that this was our year and we finally did it!”
Stock also shared that the students behind the effort are all part of her nursing classes and go through a two-year sequence that concludes with the opportunity to take the Certified Nursing Assistant exam.
“I have fantastic students every year, but this year I have over 100 young women and men who are taking their first steps into jobs in the healthcare field,” she said.
To learn more about nursing at GRHS, check out their Instagram page: @ grhshosanursing.