Brooke Dawkins was a 19-yearold University of Central Florida sophomore, middle child of three and a former cheerleader. In 2014, when she died due to a brain aneurysm and injuries from a traffic accident, her parents Chris and Laura followed Brooke’s wish to authorize life-saving organ donations, including a kidney, her heart, pancreas and eyes.
“That gives us joy,” says Brooke’s dad Chris. “We don’t want to see anybody go through this. And knowing we played a small part in four families’ lives, so they didn’t have to go through this, that means a lot.”
Brooke’s organs were recovered by OurLegacy, East Central Florida’s organ procurement organization (OPO). It’s one of 56 in the United States and four in Florida designated by the federal government to work with local hospitals to identify donors as well as recover and distribute organs for transplant patients. The job requires intensive medical care and specialized testing during an emotional time for family members. But most OPOs don’t have a dedicated space for the task. Instead, it is often performed at busy emergency rooms or hospitals that may be underequipped to handle it.
That changed for OurLegacy in September when the new OurLegacy Center, a specialized organ donor unit, opened at AdventHealth hospital in Orlando. AdventHealth and OurLegacy say they partnered to build the new space for their donor heroes and their families, made possible in part by a $1-million donation from local philanthropist Alan Ginsberg and the Ginsberg Family.
OurLegacy Center is the only organ donor unit in Florida and among 20 in the U.S. designed to make the process kinder and more efficient. All 56 OPOs in the U.S. are overseen by the nonprofit United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), with more than 100,000 potential recipients on a wait list.
OPOs with dedicated donor units have been shown to increase the number of organs available by 20%, says Dr. Bobby Nibhanupudy, medical director for OurLegacy and the AdventHealth Transplant Institute abdominal transplant program. “There is increased efficiency and a higher level of satisfaction and better closure for families with their loved ones.”
A staff of 50 utilize three intensivecare beds, an operating room, and space to meet the needs of families, caregivers and their supporters.
“This is a place they can go where the environment is serene, it’s quiet, we are attending to their comfort, we are giving them the opportunity to spend time with their loved ones in a really beautiful space,” says Ginny McBride, OurLegacy executive director. “I think at that point the best gift we can give them is time to be with their loved one.”
By the Numbers
Between 2019 and 2023, OurLegacy recovered an average of 615 organs per year from donors in East Central Florida that were used for transplants, UNOS data shows; or 3,074 in total during those five years from Brevard, Flagler, Indian River, Lake, Okeechobee, Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Sumter and Volusia counties. That includes 261 lungs, 319 hearts, 726 livers and 1,658 kidneys.
Source: UNOS