MORGANTOWN – Staff and leaders of Vandalia Health Mon Medical Center gathered around the flagpoles Monday afternoon to celebrate Donate Life Month. They watched as two staff members raised the blue, green and white Donate Life flag.
April is Donate Life month and this was one of seven such ceremonies held across the Vandalia Health Regional Hospital Division this month – including a Tuesday flag raising at Preston Memorial – in partnership with CORE: the Center for Organ Recovery & Education.
Before the flag raising, Krystal Atkinson, senior vice president for Vandalia Health and chief nurse executive, said Mon Medical Center is proud to partner with CORE “to help grow a stronger culture of donation in our community.”
The Donate Life flag, she said, honors donors and celebrates recipients whose lives have been saved or healed. CORE introduced the flag in 2006 and more than 50,000 flags have since been raised across the country.
This year’s Donate Life logo features a green forest against a blue sky and centers on growth.
“Like a tree that begins with a single seed,” Atkinson said, “the decision to become an organ, tissue or cornea donor can take root and grow into something extraordinary.” Every donor leaves a lasting legacy. “It’s the difference between waiting and living.”
According to CORE, about 100,000 people nationwide are awaiting an organ transplant; in West Virginia, it’s about 500.
Brian Bricker, CORE’s director of organ donor management, said on Monday that “donation is not separate from patient care. It is part of the way care, compassion and respect can continue even after a life has ended.”
He thanked Mon Medical and Vandalia leadership for setting the tone promoting organ donation. “We are grateful for your partnership and for the example that you set.”
Donation makes room for life to continue, he said, and gives comfort and meaning in moments of loss. “It offers hope and possibility for people that the donor and their loved ones likely will never know.”
Bricker offered some more numbers to illustrate the impact of donation. 2025, he said, marked the seventh consecutive year of increasing the number of lives saved and healed.
Across western Pennsylvania and West Virginia, he said, 484 organ donors provided 1,191 organs – a 23% increase over 2024. And 985 cornea donors gave 990 people the gift of sight, while 1,885 tissue donors helped more than 140,000 people through skin grafts, bone grafts, heart valve replacements and more.
At Mon Medical, he said, last year two donors helped save four people and 14 tissue and cornea donors helped 685 tissue and cornea recipients.
Steven Sherer, a West Virginia native, briefly told his story. He was born with congenital heat disease and underwent treatment his entire life at WVU Medicine. He received a heart transplant at UPMC in June 2024.
“If you’re not an organ donor,” he said, “it’s important that you become one. Because I recognized how important it has been to me and my family and where it has gotten me to this point. … With every fiber of my being, I plan on being an advocate.”
Jared Bedekovich, a CORE communications specialist, noted several ways West Virginians can register to donate: when they obtain or renew their driver’s license, when they obtain a hunting or fishing license, and online at core.org/register.
