AURORA, Colo. — If you happen to find a hidden heart in the next month, it’s a reminder that April is National Donate Life Month.
Currently, more than 116,000 people are on a waiting list for a lifesaving organ transplant.
The Donor Alliance hopes the hearts — hidden all around the metro area — help persuade more people to talk about organ donation and eventually sign up to be donors.
One of those hiding hearts outside a library in Aurora was four-year-old Juniper Gelrod and her grandfather, Randy Schrantz.
Schrantz was there, because of a phone call he received from his daughter, when Juniper was just two weeks old.
Gelrod received a lifesaving heart transplant when she was just seven months old.
“I can still remember getting the phone call from her that started us down a very dark tunnel,” said Scrantz.
That call informed him that little Juniper had a defective heart.
Seven months later she received the organ donation that saved her life.
“Obviously now we have a beautiful little four-year-old that’s running around and having a wonderful time,” he said.
Scrantz and his family regularly donate their time to the Donor Alliance as a way to give back to an organization that has given so much to them and get others to sign up as organ donors.
Find out more about organ donations and registering to become one at the Donor Alliance.