By Mike Templeton
On Friday, April 4, from 6:30 -8:30 pm, the Originary Arts Initiative and the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition, in partnership with Off the List and Network for Hope will be hosting an event called Community Acts: A Creative Storytelling Event to Raise Kidney Donation Awareness at the Carnegie Center of Columbia Tusculum. This event is meant to bring community together around the issues which attend organ donation and organ transplant. The purpose of this event is to blend storytelling, personal and artistic testimony, and practical information for anyone facing the complex issues of organ transplant. The idea of Community Acts is to build an intentionally festive blend of creativity and shared testimony toward a heightened awareness of organ transplant and toward meaningful assistance for people facing organ transplant.
Organ donation and organ transplant is something that has become quite close us at UACC. As readers may remember, we profiled Anna Curvin some weeks ago as our new volunteer librarian at the Frank Foster Memorial Library. Anna has been on the waiting list for a liver transplant for more than three years. Much of the rationale behind Community Acts is to help Anna Curvin and many others in our area who are in a similar situation. Anna told me she has recently completed her annual testing to remain on the transplant list. She says of the process: “I am diligent to remain healthy enough to be a transplant candidate. The Christ Hospital Transplant Team has particular criteria for accepting someone as a transplant candidate; and even stricter about who they allow to be living organ donor.” The complexities of this process will form some of the basis of discussion for this event.
One of our key partners for Community Acts is Off the List. Darci Gibson, its founder and President, explains that the nonprofit “equips and empowers individuals on the kidney transplant list and their families with the tools and resources needed to find living donors.” Gibson also said that Anna Curvin and her family are “one of the families we are helping.” Off the List has had tremendous success in securing living donors for people in need of kidney transplants. In fact, as Darci Gibson points out, “Nationally, 23% of kidney transplants come from living donors. This number rises to 55% for patients in our program.” Off the List will explain in detail much of what goes into the process and some of the most important things people nned to know as they begin what can be a difficult and daunting course of action.
Anna Curvin’s life partner, Dale Farmer, is familiar to everyone within the orbit of UACC. We know him as half of the duo, The Farmer and The Crow, with Ma Crow, and as a talented musician and film maker on his own. Dale can speak to how daunting this can be for family members. “I used to have a very limited understanding of the complexities of life for someone on dialysis and awaiting a transplant, like most people. Until you’ve experienced or witnessed home dialysis firsthand, it’s impossible to imagine the impact on daily life, the pain, and the limitations it causes patients and their families.” As Dale shows us, the situation impacts the entire family. These are the kinds of issues in which the love and support of family, friends, and community are essential, and this is precisely why UACC is involved in Community Acts. To further encourage and foster community support is one of the main ideas bend the event. Dale said that his hope for the event “is that we can use it as a springboard to further spread awareness. I believe that somewhere out there, the right person is willing to donate their kidney to save a life. We just have to reach them. We all dream of being a hero and saving a life, and living organ donation offers that opportunity to anyone.” There will be information on hand for people who may want to take on such a role.
Even though 90 percent of Americans express support for organ donation, only about half of these people sign up as potential donors. The reasons for this are many, but chief among them is a simple lack of information about organ donation. Organ donation is one of those things that seem to only exist in theory to most of us, and Community Acts hopes to make al of these issues very real to people, but to also make people aware that they can help. People do not have enough information about the need for organ donors, the processes of organ donation, and probably even less about the daily and real struggles of people who are waiting. This event hopes to provide information and to open a discussion on the issues that attend organ donation.
Just a few brief facts about organ donation are eye opening. Currently, there are more than 100,000 people on the transplant waiting list. Every person who commits to being an organ donor can save up to eight lives. That same person can enhance as many as 75 lives. More than 48,000 transplants were performed n 2024. Every eight minutes another person is added to the transplant list. The basic statistics say a lot, but the stories of those who are living with the issues of organ transplant and organ donation say even more. The idea of providing a venue for people to talk about their experiences, for those involved in the process to discuss the very real issues that attend the processes, and for everyone to provide some kind of creative discussion are all at the heart of Community Acts.
Community Acts: A Creative Storytelling Event to Raise Kidney Donation Awareness will take place at the Carnegie Center of Columbia Tusculum on Friday, April 4, from 6:30 -8:30 pm. This event is a coordinated with the Originary Arts Inititiative, the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition, Off the List, and Network for Hope. In addition to poetry and discussion, there will be music provided by Jolly Old Hawk, featuring Justine Cefalu and Mike Oberst of the Tillers. Admission is free, and light refreshments will be provided.
Michael Templeton is a writer, and independent scholar. He is the author of The Chief of Birds: A Memoir published with Erratum Press and Impossible to Believe, published by Iff Books. He is also the author of Collected Apoems, forthcoming from LJMcD Communications and the awaiting of awaiting: a novella, with Nut Hole Publishing. Check out his profile in UACC’s Cultural Directory. He has published numerous articles and essays on contemporary culture and works of creative non-fiction as well as experimental works and poetry. He lives in West Milton, Ohio with his wife who is an artist.