Gift of Life and the Student Nurses Association (SNA) will be hosting a Gift of Life Campus Challenge Trivia Night on Wednesday, March 1 at 6 p.m. The challenge will be held in the Science Building in room 1613/15. 

As part of the ongoing Gift of Life Campus Challenge, the SNA is working with Gift of Life to host a trivia night as an opportunity for NMU to earn points towards the challenge. The trivia night will occur the day before the challenge ends, making it one of the final opportunities for NMU to earn points. 

The Gift of Life Campus Challenge is hosted by Gift of Life, an organ and tissue recovery program in Ann Arbor, MI. Each year, Gift of Life hosts a campus challenge for colleges in Michigan that encourages students and community members to register to become organ donors. 

Every participant earns NMU points towards the challenge. If NMU has the highest number of participants in the challenge, those points will then be doubled. The trivia questions will feature questions about organ donation as well as randomized trivia that is intended to be fun. Light snacks will also be included for those who participate. 

While the trivia night does serve as a way to earn points for the campus-wide challenge, it also serves as a way for the SNA and Gift of Life to educate students about organ donation. 

There are a lot of misconceptions about organ donation, said SNA member Sarah Barnes. 

“Gift of Life is a way to get students involved on campus,” Barnes said. “[That] is then going to ultimately reach out to the community.” 

According to the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network, 103,969 people are currently on the organ transplant waitlist while 1,856 donors were recovered for transplants in January 2023. From the donors recovered, 3,636 transplants were performed in January. One individual can save up to eight lives with their organs. 

The SNA has hosted awareness sites throughout the challenge, such as a table featuring pamphlets on the Gift of Life challenge at the Wildpups. A Skillbuilder about the challenge has also been held. Various social media posts have been made for awareness as well as posters with a QR code for signing up to be an organ donor. To advertise the trivia night, SNA board members reached out to organizations and sports teams on campus in order to get more people involved. 

The challenge brings the student body together to work towards the common good, said SNA president Ally Anderson. 

“We’re all part of different groups and organizations that are focused on something we’re interested in,” Anderson said. “Something like this, like organ donation, can impact anyone.”

The end goal for each school that participates is to raise awareness for organ donation. Anyone who uses the NMU link for the Gift of Life challenge can earn school points, regardless of where they live. The last day of the challenge is Thursday, March 2, 2023.