In February, surrounding National Donor Day, HonorBridge kicked off a two month, grassroots campaign called “Share Your Beautiful Heart”. The purpose of this social media drive was to spread awareness of the critical need for organ, eye and tissue donors in North Carolina. Designed to make the topic of donation more accessible, it succeeded in starting conversations in the community about a subject many tend to avoid.
HonorBridge staff and partners teamed up to place thousands of small, heart-shaped boxes throughout the service area in public places such as grocery stores, rest stops, ATMs, picnic benches and college campuses. Each box held several lapel pins that read, “Share the love, become an organ donor”. The boxes also included a QR code linking to the HonorBridge webpage and a message encouraging the finders to share a photo with the found heart on social media and then place the heart somewhere else in their community for another person to find.
“The first Instagram post of a found heart was from a wife of a double lung transplant recipient who was overjoyed and grateful after finding the box at a car wash. That inspirational coincidence moved us all and was the perfect kickoff,” said Danielle Bumarch, President and CEO of HonorBridge.
Heart boxes were found all over with pictures posted east to west, north to south, including in Winston-Salem, Benson, Greenville, Wilmington, and many more towns. One even traveled 340 miles to Savannah, GA.
“During the Share Your Beautiful Heart Campaign, it was exciting to see the extent to which the staff across the organization had fun leaving these little surprises for the public in creative places,” says Bumarch. “It was very touching to see the comments that were posted by the excited community members who discovered the hearts. Many of those hearts had a really special impact!”
