JENNIFER SPURGEON OF WINAMAC INDIANA SELECTED AS FLORAGRAPH HONOREE ON DONATE LIFE FLOAT IN ROSE BOWL PARADE
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana – December 1, 2015 – Jennifer Spurgeon will be honored on the 2016 Donate Life Rose Parade Float with other organ, eye and tissue donors who saved, healed and gave hope to thousands of people in need. Jennifer’s mother, Rhonda Berger, will travel to Pasadena, California to see Jennifer’s image transformed into one of 60 floragraphs that will adorn the float in the 2016 Rose Parade.
Jennifer Louise “Biffer†Spurgeon loved life. With her love for companion animals, she headed to college to pursue her dream of becoming a veterinary technician. She was enjoying life and moving closer to her dream when it all came to a halt with a devastating fire that took the life of Jennifer and her two roommates. Jennifer’s decision to be an organ and tissue donor provided hope and healing for others.
The 2016 Donate Life Rose Parade Float, Treasure Life’s Journey, features a colorful caravan with donor medal-inspired floragraphs honoring the invaluable treasure of a deceased donor’s life-saving gift. Twenty-four transplant recipients ride the float while sixteen living donors walk alongside the float. Dedicated roses are also placed on the float in honor of people touched by donation and transplantation.
As the world’s most visible campaign to inspire organ, eye and tissue donation, the float inspires viewers to Treasure Life’s Journey by helping the over one million people in need of life-saving or enhancing transplants each year. One person can save up to eight lives through organ donation and touch up to 50 more through tissue donation.
Indiana Donor Network and Donate Life Indiana are sponsoring Rhonda Berger to attend the Rose Bowl Parade. For more information about the Donate Life Rose Parade Float, visit the official float website at www.donatelifefloat.org.
More than 123,000 people in the U.S. are waiting for a life-saving organ transplant and nearly 1,500 of those people are Indiana residents. Many more benefit from donated tissue. To learn more about organ and tissue donation, please visit www.IndianaDonorNetwork.org
