This was the week to celebrate the life and death of Jason Ray.
So much noise accompanies the news these days, locally and across the country, and most of it is bad or absurd. But lost in the great NCAA news was an airing of the ESPN special on Jason Ray, the former UNC cheerleader who was killed by a car outside his hotel during the 2007 East Regional in New Jersey.
The special celebrated the four men whose lives Ray either saved or extended by being an organ donor. He also positively affected the lives of 118 people in 26 states with his tissue donation. And then there are the thousands of people who connected with Jason’s story and elected to become organ donors — and the lives those people might save.
After Jason’s death, the Rays and Jason’s four recipients agreed to meet and share their stories with ESPN to raise awareness about organ donation. According to the non-profit Donate Life America, the E: 60 special “Ray of Hope” prompted more than 50,000 Americans to be organ donors.
Today, every high school health class in New Jersey watches the video, which originally aired in October of 2007. The same holds true in almost every driver’s education class in North Carolina.
Ray’s parents, Emmitt and Charlotte, have shipped thousands of copies of the story and have traveled the country sharing Jason’s tale. A year after their son’s death, they began the Jason Kendall Ray Foundation, the organization that has raised more than a half-million dollars to help families of those who need transplants.
In April of 2016, UNC Hospitals renamed its transplant center the Jason Ray Transplant Clinic. Inside the door of the clinic, there is a portrait of Jason and a plaque commemorating his selfless act. Before the Duke-Carolina football game in September, the university surprised the Rays by bringing them onto the field to announce that a “JR” patch would be added to the uniforms of both Rameses and Rameses Jr. for the rest of the school year.
To everyone else, it may be the Carolina mascot. But to the Rays, the young man in that suit keeps their son alive.
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