This South Jersey father hit his goal to reach 300K students with organ donor awareness message

After more than 30 years of meticulously tracking the number of students who heard his organ donor awareness message, Tom Gano knew exactly when he hit his milestone.

On Wednesday, after six presentations to sophomore classes at Cherry Hill High School West, he reached 300,240 students, surpassing the 300,000 goal he set after his son Curtis, 16, died from injuries sustained while riding his bike in 1987. To channel their grief, he and his wife, Vivian, became volunteer ambassadors for the Gift of Life to promote organ donor awareness.

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“I saw this as the only way to keep him alive,” said Tom Gano, 80, a retired IT specialist.

After Curtis was declared brain dead, the Cherry Hill couple decided to donate his organs, which saved four lives and helped others through tissue donation. His liver was donated for research. Their son had not indicated his wishes, but his parents believed it was the best way to keep his memory alive and help other families.

Tom Gano organized a local group of other donor families, living donors, and recipients, and with his wife began visiting high schools around 1989. They gave talks to schools in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, conducting more than 170 days of school talks annually before the pandemic.

This year, as schools fully reopened and started allowing visitors inside again, Gano resumed a busy schedule. Vivian, 75, a retired teaching assistant, likes to stay closer to home and usually goes to nearby schools. She often shares an emotional story of why she wanted to donate Curtis’ organs: to spare other families awaiting a transplant the pain of losing a child.

Gano tracks his speaking engagements and prepares a monthly report to share with other volunteers. He was fairly confident the 300,000 mark would come this week and close to home. Curtis, a sophomore when he died, attended Cherry Hill East.

“I’m right down to the number,” he smiled brightly.

Richard Hasz, president and CEO of the Gift of Life, called Gano’s service to promote awareness “amazing.” Gano has been recognized as an outstanding volunteer by United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, a private, nonprofit organization that manages the U.S. organ transplantation system.

“It’s just a tremendous accomplishment,” Hasz said Thursday. “I don’t think he has ‘let up’ in his vocabulary.”

Hasz believes Gano has reached more students than any ambassador in the program. As the students share with friends and family what they learned from Gano, Hasz estimates the couple have reached more than 1 million people.

On Wednesday, Tom Gano spent seven hours at Cherry Hill West after arriving for the first period sophomore health and physical education class at 7:30 a.m. He repeated his presentation six times to about 40 students in each session.

He likes to target 10th graders because they take driver’s education and can sign up to become organ donors, although it won’t become legal until they turn 18. Students also learn more about organ donation as seniors.

“I think it’s great information for them,” said health teacher Heidi Brunswick. “A lot of them have no idea it’s a possibility.”

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Gano methodically shared information about the Gift of Life program and organ procurement, who can donate, and what organs can be donated. He explained how students could become organ donors by checking a box on their driver’s license in a few years or by signing up at www.organdonor.gov.

The students listened intently as sobering statistics flashed on a screen: More than 105,000 adults and children are on the national transplant waiting list, the majority needing kidneys. Every day, 17 people die while waiting for an organ transplant.

In the Philadelphia region, about 5,000 people are on the transplant list, some waiting for more than five years. Every nine minutes another person is added to the transplant waiting list.

Gano brought along a donor recipient Wednesday to meet students so they can see the impact. He met Elizabeth Bean, a liver transplant recipient, when she was a senior at West and he encouraged her to share her story for the first time with her classmates.

“I reluctantly said yes,” Bean, 26, recalled with a smile. “It was kind of a secret. No one really knew I had a transplant.”

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Bean, now a surgical nurse at Jefferson Health in Cherry Hill, told the students that she was diagnosed with a rare liver condition when she was 7. After her health deteriorated, she was eventually placed on a waiting list and underwent a transplant as an eighth grader, she said.

After graduating from West in 2015, Bean attended Widener University. She said she studied nursing, partly because of the nurse who tended to her after her transplant. Bean said she enjoys an active life with a few restrictions, including taking immunosuppressants drugs to prevent organ rejection.

“All of this because of my donor,” she said. “Most people don’t know what it means to check that box.”

The students peppered Gano and Bean with questions. They wanted to know if Bean had met the family of her donor — only known as “Bobby.” She has exchanged letters with them. Bean candidly described her transplant operation and a painful recovery period. Gano told them that an open casket funeral could be held for organ donors.

“What’s the downside of this? You’re dead,” Gano said.

Gano and his wife could add 300 more students to the list with talks scheduled this week at Millville High School in Cumberland County and Camden County Technical School in Gloucester Township. They have already set up 10 visits in January.