What does "gift of life" mean to you? For some, it's the chance to celebrate another birthday. For others, it's a loved one’s final act of generosity. For the Live On Nebraska staff, it's the privilege of honoring someone’s decision to bring hope and healing to others.

Live On Nebraska proudly facilitates organ and tissue donation for the state of Nebraska. In 2019, the organization completed construction of a new headquarters, which included space for a future outdoor seating area. The goal was to create a place where staff, donor family members and organ recipients could sit and reflect on the donor heroes and recipients in their life.

Live On Nebraska collaborated with local artist Les Bruning to develop the concept for the bench. The design incorporates the graphic kaleidoscope mark from Live On Nebraska’s logo that represents life, humanity and the ripple affect created by organ and tissue donation. Rather than cutting out and removing the diamond patterns from the mark, the metal was strategically maneuvered to bend and reflect sunlight, much in the way a traditional kaleidoscope does.

When selecting a coating system for the steel bench, there were multiple requests to keep in mind. Situated outside, the bench would need to withstand the changing seasons of Nebraska and visually, they wanted to incorporate color. Finally, longevity was an important consideration since the bench represents organ donation & elongating people’s lives. Paint or power coating would not provide the longevity desired while a hot-dip galvanized coating would not provide the color customization desired. Ultimately, they decided to combine the benefits of both systems by using a duplex coating. Galvanizing provides durability, abrasion resistant and long lasting corrosion protection. The top coat allowed for painting the bench green to reflect one of the traditional colors associated with organ donation. The two systems combined will provide an expected lifespan of 1.5 to 2.3 times the sum of either system if used on its own. As the finishing touch, the words “the gift of life” were incorporated on the back of the bench design, tying back to Live On Nebraska’s lifesaving mission.

For Megan Dannelly, the bench provided a peaceful location to visit on her birthday to remember her late son, Cooper. “My one birthday wish was to honor Cooper on his generous donation to Live On. Recently they installed a gift of life bench that donors, recipients and staff can sit and reflect on. It was a beautiful heart wrenching moment. I was surrounded by my most cherished loved ones as we honored Coop on my first birthday without him.”

For a project that may have been small in scale, it is huge in terms of the role it will play in remembrance of the lifesaving heroes we have lost.