Annual Buckeye pinwheel planting celebrates, brings awareness to organ donations
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- In honor of Donate Life Month, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center Comprehensive Transplant Center hosted its 17th annual Buckeye Pinwheel Planting and Transplant Reunion on Sunday morning.
“Sometimes it’s a celebration of life that has been experienced as a second chance and sometimes it’s a celebration of life that has been lived then paid forward through organ donation,” said Dr. Ken Washburn, Executive Director of the Comprehensive Transplant Center.
He said more than 100,000 Americans are on the waitlist for an organ donation. The event aimed to raise awareness for this critical need but also honor former transplant patients and donors.
“We'd like to do more because we have people on the waiting list, but it’s really inspiring to me having done this for many many years to see what we can do together as an organization and how many people we can help,” Washburn said.
13,200 red and silver pinwheels were planted in the Medical Center Plaza. Each one represents an organ transplant that has been performed at the Wexner Medical Center since the first in 1967.
“For the physicians, it’s just so inspiring to see the patients and how well they do,” Washburn said.
The pinwheel has eight spokes supported by one stem, symbolizing the power one person has to save up to eight lives through donation. One of these pinwheels was placed for Stacy Kelley.
She’s a nurse practitioner at the medical center so she said she’s known the need for donors. After seeing a social media post about a friend of a friend needing a kidney, she took the leap.
“Being a healthcare provider, I see my patients with end-stage renal disease and how dialysis is really taxing on them and just really causes a lot of fatigue and poor quality of life," Kelley said. "It's not very often you get the opportunity to save somebody's life or at least radically transform it. So I knew I wanted to be part of that."
It took a few months but in December of 2024, she was a part of a 20-person kidney transplant chain.
“You don't get the opportunity to literally save somebody's life very often in your lifetime and I just set out to help one person. In exchange, these 10 people got a life-saving transplant, which kind of snowballed into helping other people too,” she said.
Kelley said now 10 other people moved up on the waitlist. She said she’s hoping when people read her story or pass by the thousands of pinwheels, they may be inspired to take the leap as well.
“It does feel overwhelming the amount of things that are required for the evaluation but you can be a living donor and go on to live a normal life. Like I feel 100% normal. I don't have any pain. I don't feel any different than I did pre-surgery,” Kelley said.
Becoming an organ donor is easy. Just check a box next time you renew your license at the DMV or sign up online. You also have the option to be a living donor.