Around a dozen people gathered outside Old Lyme’s Memorial Town Hall on Tuesday morning, April 1, to acknowledge and celebrate the start of ‘National Donate Life Month’ (NDLM), which was instituted by Donate Life America and its partnering organizations in 2003. Celebrated in April each year, NDLM features an entire month of local, regional and national activities to help encourage Americans to register as organ, eye and tissue donors and to celebrate those that have saved lives through the gift of donation.
Old Lyme First Selectwoman Bonnie Reemsnyder welcomed everyone and then led a moment of silence prior to the flag being raised. Tom Kasprzak from East Lyme (left in photo above), who is a Community Relations Specialist for CL&P, lost his daughter Mary (aged 15) nine years ago. He and his wife, Joanne, donated Mary’s organs to other people, thus saving the lives of five people who received her organs.
Lymes’ Senior Center Coordinator Stephanie Lyon (pictured left in photo above) noted her mother received a new heart five years ago. The procedure changed her mother’s life and she now regularly swims for up to one and a half hours each day.
The “Donate Life” flag will fly at the town hall throughout the month of April. Kasprzak said, “By raising the flag we honor the thousands of donors who have saved the lives of countless others through their simple acts of kindness and compassion.”