Griff’s Grateful Gang raises funds for Lifebanc

by Natalie Revesz

April is National Donate Life month, and Hudson resident Griff Hill poses one simple question: “Why wouldn’t you want your last act to be an act of heroism?”

Hill challenges everyone he meets to consider organ donation and, over the last five years, has raised more than $60,000 for Lifebanc, an organ recovery agency in Cleveland.

To him, raising awareness of the dire need for organ donors is not only a passion, it’s personal.

Hill’s story began in the fall of 2013, when he started noticing that ordinary activity was causing him to feel out of breath. He soon realized there was a problem with his lungs and was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis a few months later.  

In January 2014, Hill went to the Cleveland Clinic to get a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis. His lungs quickly inflamed from the procedure (a rare occurrence that only happens 2-3% of the time, he said,) and within days Hill was on a life-supporting heart-lung machine to oxygenate his blood.

“At that point, the situation is sort of dire,” he explained.

Hill was immediately placed on the wait list for a pair of lungs and fell into a coma for several days. On March 5, just as the doctors were about take him off the wait list, a match was found,and Griff went into surgery. He remained sedated for five days after the procedure.  

“I was lucky because I was pretty sick, but also pretty healthy,” Hill said of his recovery.

By March 17, he could walk again, and by late summer, he and his wife participated in Lifebanc’s annual Gift of Life Walk and Run (GOLWR) for the first time. The Hills jumped on a team with Cleveland Clinic for the event. Afterwards, they decided it was a cause they could get behind.

Hill then gathered a group of friends to brainstorm what they could do to support Lifebanc further. They formed Griff’s Grateful Gang, which in its first year, 2015, had 100 team members. The team was the largest team Lifebanc had ever had up to that point for the GOLWR. They raised $15,000, which was also the most money raised by one group at the time.

“It’s now my main vehicle for charity,” he said. “It’s a way for me to give back … to the community, to my donor specifically, and to my donor family.”

Griff’s Grateful Gang has continued to bring a team to the GOLWR and even kept it going virtually during the pandemic when Lifebanc had to cancel its in-person event. Instead, Hill took his team of 40 to Hudson Springs Park to fundraise with their own walk, and they collected over $10,000 just last year.

This year, however, the GOLWR is back on at Blossom Music Center Aug. 7. Lifebanc will also hold its Over the Edge fundraising event Sept. 2. During Over the Edge, participants who raise funds get to rappel down the 23-story Oswald Centre building in Cleveland.

Last September, Hudsonite Melissa Jones took the rappelling challenge. Jones told Hudson Life that when she and her husband lost an infant daughter 13 year ago and donated the baby’s heart valve through Lifebanc, the nonprofit offered grief support and a range of other services that helped the couple though that difficult time. 

According to Colleen Gerber, a two-time kidney recipient and Lifebanc’s longtime marketing communication specialist, all the money raised in Lifebanc’s fundraising opportunities goes towards educating the public and serving the families of organ donors.

Beyond organ recovery, Lifebanc’s other services include free educational outreach events at schools, churches and community groups, and a yearly memorial for donors is held to honor them for their sacrifice.

Lifebanc’s service area reaches 20 counties in Northeast Ohio, working with two transplant centers and 80 donor hospitals. It saw record-breaking numbers of both organ donations and successful transplants in 2021, Gerber said.

The need for organ donors, however, is still immense. There are about 103,000 people on waiting lists in the U.S., enough to fill FirstEnergy Stadium and Progressive Field together, she said. About 1,700 of these are in Northeast Ohio.

Gerber also said that people are six times more likely to need an organ transplant than to be an organ donor. Further, less than 2% of the American population dies in a way that makes organ donation possible. And about half of those whose death is compatible to donation don’t do so because of their family’s decision to decline. This creates what Gerber called a “great disparity” between the number of viable donors and the number of people on the wait list.

The pandemic added more complexity as many donors tested positive at the time of their death.

“It just made things a little more difficult, and our staff really rose to the occasion to make sure that organ donation continued through the pandemic,” said Gerber.

“For as much as we work, sadly 20 people still die every day on the waiting list,” she continued. “So we encourage everybody to make their donation decision and become a registered organ, eye and tissue donor. It’s the best one human being can do for another.”

Register to be an organ donor at an Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles office, via their online services, bmv.ohio.gov/more-services or through Lifebanc’s website, lifebanc.org. ∞