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HEART RECIPIENT GIVES $26,000 TO TRANSPLANT PROGRAM - ENDOWMENT ESTABLISHED TO HONOR HEART DONOR

Charlottesville resident Robert Crouter wants to help educate people on the importance of organ donation because 11 years ago, he received a new heart. Crouter has given the University of Virginia Heart Center $26,000 to establish an endowment fund to support conferences for health professionals in the areas of heart failure, transplant and organ donation.

The fund is named in honor of William Jones, a U.Va. student from Locust Grove, Va., who died in 1990 and whose parents made the decision to donate his heart that saved the life of Crouter. The William Jones Memorial Fund will be dedicated on Friday, Nov. 2 at 4:15 p.m. as part of the conference on Advances in Management of Heart Failure at the Omni Hotel in Charlottesville. Jones' parents, John and Christine, will participate in the dedication along with Crouter and his wife, Alyce. The conference is supported in part by the William Jones Memorial Fund.

U.Va. has performed 256 heart transplants since the establishment of the Cardiopulmonary Transplant program in 1989. U.Va's heart transplant program is the largest in the state of Virginia.

Last year, 2064 heart transplants were performed in the United States and nearly one-third of the patients on the waiting list died before a heart became available. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the demand for organs is drastically higher than the number of donor organs.

October 30, 2001