SALT LAKE CITY – The Celebration of Life Monument honors the names of those who have been organ, eye and tissue donors, and on Saturday hundreds of new names were memorialized.
The monument, located in the Salt Lake City Library Square, gained 443 new names Saturday.
Relatives of those honored gathered around the monument during the ceremony, and they were able to find the their loved one’s name as they listened to bagpipe music, which was played by a bone marrow donor.
Alex McDonald is the director of public education at Intermountain Donor Services, and he said the monument has been around for about a decade.
“The wall has been in existence for about 10 years,” he said. “So every year we add about 400 to 500 new names. So I think it’s a real tribute to the giving nature of people here in Utah and their willingness to help others and to share.”
There are now a total of 4,963 names etched onto the monument, and they include the names of those who donated after death as well as those of living donors who have given a kidney, liver segment, bone marrow or more than 10 gallons of blood.
