Local Man Creates Life-Size “Operation” Game

The first annual Donor Awareness Fair is set to take place Saturday (10/8) at the downtown post office in Idaho Falls and one local man created a unique way to encourage people to become an organ donor.

Local News 8 and Eyewitness News reporter Pheben Kassahun said she spoke with Josh Jackson; the organizer of the event, who brought in a life-size “Operations” game to bring awareness to organ donation. According to Organ Procurement and Transplant Network, twenty-two is the average number of people who die each day while waiting on a transplant and nearly 120,000 people are waiting on an organ transplant. “I’ve got a lot of friends who are doctors, so we thought it’d be fun to have a life-size operations game and to have some prominent doctors, from here in town, come down to see who’s the best surgeon; have a little competition,” Event Organizer Josh Jackson said. Jackson said this is the first annual Donor Awareness Fair and he plans to do this every year. Kids’ games and guest speakers will be in attendance. “We do have University of Utah coming up and Intermountain Donor Services from Salt Lake, a long with Idaho Kidney Center,” Jackson said. For Kreyton Anderson, this event hits close to home because his mother is actually a kidney recipient and said it was hard to see his mom endure such pain. “It broke down our family pretty hard because it was new for all of us to see that somebody that we love was in a lot of pain,” Kreyton Anderson said. One of Josh Jackson’s clients is kidney recipient T.J. Anderson. She recalls the day her friend told her she would give her her kidney, while they were at Fred Meyer’s super center. “I explained to her that I had lost both my kidneys and she looked at me and she goes ‘Don’t worry. I know I’m a match. I’ll be tested for you.’ And we sat there and cried and that’s where the journey began,” Kidney recipient T.J. Anderson said. T.J.’s friend, Laura Gray, said they both have had many different connections throughout their long-term friendship and said she knew she was a perfect match for her friend. “I just knew (I get emotional) that I was a match for her when I found out she was so sick,” Laura said. Kreyton said he is very thankful for Laura and the community for donating and wanted to help give back just like they did for his mom. “I was just wanting to share this out to the community to help people with this pain,” Kreyton said. T.J. said if it were not for Laura, she would still be waiting for a donor today. “Tons of people who were tested for me and they go through so many series and tests that if one little thing is off, they’re out,” T.J. said. “It’s a pretty awesome thing to know that part of you lives somewhere else,” Laura said. The Donor Awareness Fair will take place at the downtown Idaho Falls post office parking lot, Saturday (10/8) from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Jackson said he is expecting over two-hundred people to show up.

If you would like to become an organ donor you can visit Yes Idaho or Answers of Idaho.

The Donor Awareness Fair will take place Saturday, October 8 in the Idaho Falls Post Office parking lot at 855 North Capital Avenue.