Author: Katie Slaughter
May 4, 2026
During National Donate Life Month and throughout the year, Organ Recovery Systems (ORS) supports our transplant partners with sponsorships of events, fun runs, galas and more. This year, one of the events ORS sponsored was the Mississippi Organ Recovery Agency’s (MORA) Racing for Donation 5K/8K in Jackson, MS. MORA is the OPO serving most of Mississippi and actively engages with communities across the state speaking at conferences, schools, health fairs, and more.
One of ORS’ Strategic Account Managers, Katie Slaughter, participated in the MORA event, and reflected on her experience meeting a donation recipient while on the trail:
“A few weeks ago, I was invited by Charles Taylor, Manager of Organ Placement and Preservation Services at MORA, to join the Racing for Donation 5K, and I’ll be honest, it had been a solid ten years since I’d laced up for anything like that. I showed up anyway because I love a challenge!
I decided early on this was going to be a walk, not a race. And somewhere on that last stretch, I caught pace with a gentleman who was on Facebook Live, moving with the kind of easy confidence that tells you he’s done this before…Mr. Wesley Taylor. We got to talking the way strangers do when they’re both a little winded, and it didn’t take long to figure out we weren’t strangers at all. We had mutual connections back at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, part of that close-knit community of transplant and hepatology folks that threads itself quietly across the South.
Katie & Wesley during the MORA 5K
And then he told me his story. He was a liver transplant recipient, transplanted at University of Mississippi Medical Center. There we were, side by side on a trail, and something about that touched my heart in a way I wasn’t expecting on a Saturday morning at a 5K. Most of the last 20 years of my career have been spent in solid organ transplant, as a nurse, a nurse practitioner, an educator, an OPO coordinator, an industry partner and here was a living reminder of everything that work is for. He kept the pace with me the rest of the way in. Wouldn’t let me slow down.
He came in first for his age group. I came in seventh for walkers in mine. We grabbed a picture at the finish line and sent it to our mutual friend back in Birmingham, who was happy to see the image come through!
Katie & Wesley at the finish line of the MORA 5K
The South is a small place, especially in transplant. Patients are often listed at multiple centers, cared for by overlapping teams, connected across institutions in ways that never fully untangle. You run into each other at galas, in grocery stores, and apparently on 5K trails when you need a boost on that last mile! It was one of those moments that puts everything in perspective.
The work we do in transplant, the devices, the technology, the science, it all exists to support outcomes like this one. A person who received a life-saving organ and is out there on a Saturday morning, winning a 5k and motivating other people with his story! That’s the honor of this work.
Getting to be part of what happens in the background so that someone else gets to live their life fully. That’s worth everything.”
ORS is proud to be part of transplant journeys for patients like Wesley Taylor. Honoring organ donation is at the heart of our mission, and we deliver innovative technologies and solutions that support transplant professionals and improve long-term outcomes for patients, protecting each donor’s gift every step of the way. Stories like Mr. Taylor’s, and countless others they represent, remind us why supporting the organizations behind these life-changing moments matters.