During the month of April, pass the Wexner Medical Center plaza in front of University Hospital and the Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital and you can’t miss the sea of bright spinning pinwheels representing the more than 12,000 transplants performed at Ohio State since the first kidney transplantation in 1967. With eight spokes supported by one stem, the pinwheel symbolizes the power of one person to save up to eight lives through the gift of organ donation.
Your philanthropic support enables breakthroughs in transplant science and our ability to bring those discoveries to patients. Transplant medicine has wide-ranging implications from a patient receiving a new kidney to a bone marrow transplant as a part of cancer care. Finding the just-right match for someone in need of an organ transplant is a life-changing job and we couldn’t do that work without our community’s generosity.
Join us during National Donate Life Month in advancing this lifesaving work and add more pinwheels to the plaza lawn.
Celebrating organ transplants as ‘Buckeyes for Life’
The Buckeye Pinwheel Planting and Transplant Reunion brings together organ transplant recipients, living organ donors, donor families, medical teams and volunteers to plant more than 12,000 pinwheels representing transplants performed at the Wexner Medical Center.
A brother’s life-saving decision
Steve Robison was in and out of the hospital waiting for a kidney when his brother Mike began kidney donation testing.
Lungs for Sarah Whitley
Sarah Whitley had been on the lung transplant waiting list for about 16 months when her doctor promised her some Reese’s peanut butter cups, her favorite candy, to cheer her up. But the next day Stephen Kirkby, MD, called with something much better.The spinning of the pinwheels on our lawn symbolize the continual “paying it forward” of organ and bone marrow donation, perpetually driving the circle of life. Join us during National Donate Life Month in helping advance this vital, lifesaving work.
Each year, approximately 600 people receive the gift of life through an organ transplant at the Ohio State Comprehensive Transplant Center.
Support our Greatest Need Fund
On the leading-edge of cancer treatment, bone marrow transplants are important in treating patients with life-threatening blood cancers.
How you can help
Donate Online
Donate by Mail
The Wexner Medical Center Development Officec/o The OSU Foundation
PO Box 710811
Columbus, OH 43271-0811