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2004 Games Highlights - Recognition Awards

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Wendy Marx Award for Organ Donor Awareness

The Wendy Marx Award for Organ Donor Awareness was established by the National Kidney Foundation in loving memory of an outstanding young woman who was a two-time liver transplant recipient and longtime foundation friend who loved the U.S. Transplant Games.

The Wendy Marx Award for Organ Donor Awareness is presented to one youth and one adult transplant athlete who have taken their personal transplant experience and used it to increase public awareness of the desperate need for organ and tissue donation.

Youth Category
In the youth category, this award was presented to 15-year-old Lacey Wood of Team Northern California

This young heart recipient has done everything in her power to make sure everyone receives the same second chance at life that she received when she was only a baby. By working as a Vital Volunteer for Golden State Donor Services, she hopes to increase organ donation by speaking at schools, civic organizations, corporations, and even the legislature.

Her testimony before California lawmakers, and at various press conferences, was instrumental in making the Organ and Tissue Donor Registry a reality in California, and she remains one of California’s strongest advocates for establishing a statewide donor registry.

This young lady’s efforts have been featured in Seventeen magazine, American Girl magazine, in the National Coalition on Donation radio campaign, and in over one hundred newspaper articles, television stories and radio interviews.

She has also participated in the U.S. Transplant Games since 1998 to demonstrate the importance of organ donation and to show how grateful she is for being given a second chance. She has taken her gift of life and given it back over and over again.

Adult Category
The Wendy Marx Award for Organ and Tissue Donation the adult category was presented to Bob Swanson. Bob has been a ‘man with a mission’ to change the lives of people in need of an organ transplant through his commitment to public education and service. A heart recipient himself since in January 1998, this advocate’s achievements reflect a perseverance to reach out to very person he meets with the organ donation message.

Shortly after his transplant recovery, Bob and his friends formed a foundation dedicated to addressing the critical need for organ donation. In that capacity he has raised awareness of the organ donor shortages among thousands of community leaders. Because of his relentlessness, more than 10,000 students have signed up as organ donors in a special campaign that partners with universities across the country called the “Get Carded” program. Annual benefit events have increased the number of card-carrying donors in Florida and North Carolina and raised funds for educational programs in hospitals and schools. It has been over six years since his new lease on life, and he is still going strong.