Annual Emergency Services Blood Drive To Include Organ Donation Signup

Fort Lee’s Emergency Services Blood Drive, sponsored by the local police and fire departments, the Fort Lee Ambulance Corps. and Fort Lee PBA Local #245, is Friday from 3 to 8:30 p.m. at the .

“It’s something we do every year,” said blood and organ donor, Fort Lee policeman and president of the local PBA, Kevin Kosuda, adding that this year’s blood drive will feature something new.

“About six months ago, myself and the state delegate were at a state PBA meeting, and we happened to meet a girl by the name of Jessica Melore,” Kosuda explained. “She sat there in front of about a thousand cops and told us her story. And you’re talking about hardened cops, and she brought most of these guys to tears about what she went through.”

Melore of the NJ Sharing Network Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission it is to “increase the number of lives saved through organ and tissue donation,” was recently featured in a cover story in New Jersey Cops, the official publication of the New Jersey State PBA.

The story was about a “bright light named Jessica Melore,” according to the article, which goes on to describe how at the age of 16, Melore “received a life-saving heart donation and now works for the NJ Sharing Network to register organ and tissue donors.”

“She’s out to get all 33,000 NJ State PBA members to register and, thankfully, she won’t rest until she gets us and many, many, many more,” the PBA article says.

Kosuda said Melore would therefore be attending the blood drive in Fort Lee on Aug. 26, along with another organ recipient and a couple volunteers from the NJ Sharing Network, “to see if they can sign people up as organ donors.”

“Because I know after I spoke to her, I signed up,” Kosuda said.

The NJ Sharing Network’s website also features the story of Jason Ray, the University of North Carolina mascot who died in a tragic accident on Route 4 in Fort Lee in 2007, Kosuda pointed out.

“He was actually an organ donor also, and supposedly he saved several lives from his unfortunate death too,” Kosuda said. “I think the whole thing between Jessica and Jason unfortunately being killed in Fort Lee four years ago, maybe people will care about those stories and [sign up to] donate their organs.”

Kosuda said he thought the idea to bring Melore and the NJ Sharing Network to Fort Lee’s annual emergency services blood drive was a good one, and that he hopes people who turn up to donate blood will consider signing up as organ donors as well.

“I believe that both events are similar,” he said. “People donate blood to help those in need, and organ donors are also the same; they are donating organs to those in need. When Jessica made her presentation to the 1,000 New Jersey State PBA members at the meeting, you could see in the crowd there wasn’t a dry eye.”

For more information on the annual Fort Lee Emergency Services Blood Drive or the organ donation signup event—both on Friday from 3 to 8:30 p.m. at the Fort Lee Community Center at 1355 Inwood Terrace—call 201-585-1294.