MHS Donate Life Club Helps Out the Community

The Marlboro High School Donate Life Club is a very successful club that benefits the community beyond Marlboro. The primary goal of the club is to raise awareness about organ donation and the lifesaving effects that it has. Through educational initiatives and student involvement, students have the opportunity to raise awareness about the donation of organs and tissue. The Donate Life Club is a chapter partnered with the New Jersey Sharing Network to run educational events.

One activity that all MHS students participate in through the Donated Life Club and the New Jersey Sharing Network is the educational day that all health classes participate in. Speakers come into all sophomore driver education health classes to promote organ donation and to explain how to become a donor while registering for one’s drivers license. Organ recipients and family members of both donors and recipients speak to the classes about the benefits of being an organ donor and how anyone has the potential to save a life.

The Donate Life Club also hosts a bubble release event every spring in honor of organ donors and their families. At this event there is always a speaker who is from a donor family, and at the end of their speech, the club gives them a plaque in honor of their loved one. The ceremony concludes with everyone blowing bubbles into the air, in memory of organ donors.

However, the largest event of the school year, for the Donate Life Club, is the Sharing Network’s 5K Walk & USATF Certified Race that helps show support for the Sharing Network’s initiatives. The MHS team for the walk/run has a huge student/family participation, with some participants actually participating in both events. Anyone at MHS, and their family and friends, are welcome to join the team for this event and having walked for this event myself, it is a great feeling to be participating in something so meaningful.

Blake Rogolsky ’16 founded this club in 2013, and through the years, the club has grown and is now very well known in the MHS community. Blake’s sister, Elexa Rogolsky ’20 is now an active member of the club.

Elexa said, “My family and I are so incredibly proud of the club and high school student’s desire to save lives and get involved in such a great cause. The first year we had about 80 club members at our walk and now we have over 150 club members, with over 100 members participating in the walk. Many members bring their family and friends too!”

Donate Life is an extremely impactful club that supports a cause that truly changes the lives of many. It will be exciting to see what else they accomplish in the years to come.