Durban memorial garden to honour organ donors

The garden with stunning features to honour organ donors will be officially unveiled on Saturday, August 21.

A DECADE ago, under the direction of since-deceased organ transplant co-ordinator, Vanessa Wentink, a fuschia tree was planted at Durban’s Botanic Gardens and a plaque honouring organ donors was unveiled.

But when Janet Legemaate, mother of heart and double lung transplant recipient, Matthew, and trustee and Project Co-ordinator for Hero777 – a non-profit organisation that raises awareness for organ donation – recently went in search of the plaque, it had been concealed in a bed of Dietes plants and was sorely in need of some attention.

Having uncovered the plaque’s whereabouts, Legemaate said she felt compelled to take action, and has been cracking the whip to get the troops at Hero777 and transplant co-ordinators, Tracey Gibbs, Cindy Goldie and Carol Tonnessen – to help source funding and experts willing to donate their services to entirely revamping and upgrading the memorial.
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Saturday, August 21, will be the official unveil of the Circle of Life Memorial Garden. The garden with stunning features to honour organ donors as well as a newly erected plaque and the timing couldn’t be more perfect as August is Organ Donor Month.

Even though it is a private event, the public is invited to attend at midday after the official proceeding. “People can come with their picnic baskets, take turns to see the garden and there will be an exciting activity of hunting for rocks,” said Legemaate.

Exciting hunt for butterfly stones
“As part of a larger project, around 150 stones have been painted by volunteers for Bryn rocks Durban, a Facebook site that honours a special young Durban donor. The stones will be hidden in the Botanic Gardens on the day and the hunt is on from midday.

She said Hero777 is proud to be associated with this rock hunt and, as will be revealed on our page, the idea ties in beautifully with our chief awareness project for 2021,” said, Legemaate, the brain behind Hero777. “Organ and tissue donation have taken a massive knock thanks to Covid, so we have been working hard to find memorable ways to create awareness.”

 

Some of the beautiful stones which will be hidden at the Botanic Gardens for the hunt.

“We hope our efforts to create uplifting awareness events and spaces also leads to conversations around organ and tissue donation. After all, a registration rate of 0.2 percent of the population is dismal,” she said.

“We really have to change the status quo.”

Legemaate said, “We at Hero777, are immensely grateful to the Durban Botanic Gardens Trust and its partners for allowing us to bring our vision to life, but also, for suggesting we expand the area we had initially commandeered, and for their incredible know-how.

“The principal idea of the memorial is to create an uplifting place of reflection which acknowledges that whilst donors may have died, their selflessness and altruism in donating their organs has restored recipients to health and markedly improved their lives.

“In effect, donors live on in the minds of others because their organs help the living to create new memories.”

She added that painted rocks will be hidden all over the 15 hectares of the botanic gardens, and at a ratio of 10 rocks per hectare, “people have a good chance of going home with one of these beauties.

“Record your rock discoveries by posting photos on Facebook at Bryn rocks Durban. Keep one stone and if you find more, rehide them, so that others can also enjoy the excitement of the hunt,” said an excited Legemaate.

To find out more about how you can offer up to eight people a second chance at life, or improve lives through tissue donation, go to: www.hero777.co.za.

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