Local group to be in Rose Parade

The board of directors of Transplant Recipients International Organization (TRIO) Ventura County West San Fernando Valley Chapter has announced that their chapter is, for the second year, a participating partner at the Rose Parade with the Southern California Donate Life Network. The latter is a nationwide group of transplant hospitals, organ donor procurement organizations, blood and tissue banks and transplant support groups. The group has entered a donor-awareness float in the 2005 Rose Parade on New Year’s Day in Pasadena.

Float riders are donor families and recipients of their loved one’s organs. The 23 riders selected, who range in age from 13 to 75 and hail from eight states, include identical twin sisters Analia and Liliana Quintanar, 19, from Southern California. Last January at UCLA Medical Center, Liliana donated one of her kidneys to Analia, who suffered from kidney disease since birth and was on dialysis treatment for many years.

TRIO Ventura County West San Fernando Valley Chapter, through the office of Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine, has been supplied with a coach to take their chapter’s members to the Rose Parade to view the Donate Life Float that they helped to decorate.

The coach will depart 6 a.m. Sat., Jan. 1 from the Jewish Federation Valley Alliance Building, 22622 Vanowen St., West Hills.

At the parade, chapter members will be seated in a 300-seat bleacher with other transplant recipients, people waiting for transplants and their families. The special bleacher was organized by One Legacy, the Southern California Organ Procurement Organization.

The chapter encourages area residents to learn more about how they may give the "Gift of Life" by visiting the website at www.trioventurala.org or calling the chapter’s president, Ronald Taubman, at (818) 701-2977.