Warwick Honors Organ Donors For Donate Life Month

WARWICK, RI — April, National Donate Life Month, honors organ donors’ life-saving power, as Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi and Warwick’s Scott Nerney, whose mother and wife, respectively, were organ donors, attested at City Hall Tuesday.

 New England Donor Services (NEDS) hosted the City Hall press conference to raise awareness of the importance of organ and tissue donation. Warwick Mayor Frank Picozzi joined NEDS staff, Shekarchi, Nerney, also a NEDS volunteer, Paul Grimaldi, Department of Revenue chief of information and public relations, Robin Allgood, Living Kidney Donor and NEDS volunteer, and Matthew Boger, Senior Director of Government Relations, NEDS during the press conference.

NEDS is a leading nonprofit organization that coordinates organ and tissue donation in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, the eastern counties of Vermont, and Bermuda. The organization’s staff medically screen referrals for potential donations from more than 200 hospitals across the region and leads all donor authorization discussions with families. NEDS also allocates organs according to the national transplant waiting list and coordinates their transport to ensure the right organs get to the right patients at the right time.

Organ Donors, Family, Share Life-Saving Stories

Shekarchi and Picozzi each presented the NEDS members with city and state proclamation in honor of National Donate Life Month, and he also spoke of his mother’s decision to be an organ donor and of organ donors life-saving kindness.

“We did this to bring attention to this, this wonderful decision, to give life,’ Shekarchi said, ‘And it’s not easy, because a family member has passed,  and sometimes you are able to harvest an organ that gives someone else life. Seventeen years ago, my mother passed away, and it’s not easy, but she was an organ donor,” Shekarchi said, and her decision allowed a burn victim in Massachusetts to recover thanks to a skin transplant. “I knew that that’s what she would’ve wanted, and because that’s what her wishes were, but it also gave me comfort, that my mother’s essence, if you will, lives on in somebody else.”

Shekarchi said that while its difficult to lose a person who’s close to you, and then make that decision, a person can make that decision for themselves and have it marked on their driver’s license, under the RI Transportation Department’s organ donor program, when your license is issued or renewed. Which is something Shekarchi has done himself.

“I’ve made that decision already. So nobody in my family has to make that decision. I made that decision, that if any of my organs can help somebody else, then I want them to be used for that purpose.”

“It’s something that touches everyone’s life, all the time. You just don’t realize it,” said Paul Grimaldi, Chief of Information and Public Relations for the Department of Revenue. The DOR oversees the DMV, so Grimaldi spoke on behalf of both departments, with an emphasis on the role the DMV plays in registering organ donors when they renew their license.

“Take the time to check off the box to become an organ donor,” he said.

Scott’s wife, Karen, suffered a stroke the day before Valentine’s Day 2025, passing Feb. 28. Karen, 64, retired from a 20-year corporate job, and was a volunteer at Roger Williams Park Zoo, charming crying kids with her intent to take a Cheetah home to snuggle. She was a baker and loved making Armenian and English dishes, and had been married to Scott for 33 years in their Warwick home, with three cats.

Scott’s eyes teared as he spoke about his wife’s kindness and talents and what her organ donation accomplished for many people.

“Her birthday continues to be on  Oct. 27, I say CONTINUES because a man in his sixties will celebrate with her kidney, a woman in her Sixties named Ali in NY is finally getting to leave her home for the 1st time in years and see her family and friends again thanks to Karen’s kidney.

And from our home state of RI a 35-year-old firefighter named Andrew received her liver. As he and his wife wrote me telling me Andrew had a hereditary liver disease that should have had him on Disability for years and would have ended his life very soon.

He kept fighting through it all  and one night after a 10-hour shift saving lives as a fire fighter he received a call about his own savior, Karen Nerney.”

Robin spoke about her decision to join the ranks of organ donors and donate a kidney for her husband’s cousin, John, with whom they’d grown close in August 2024.

“I didn’t even hesitate. Organ donor on the card, I work in healthcare. Sign me up,” she said. Testing to make sure she was a fit required a lot of blood work and a lot of urine samples. The doctors recommended transplanting her right kidney, which was a little more challenging to transplant for John. “I was up for the challenge, and so was John,” Robin said.

Before the operation, they had a cookout and named Robin’s kidneys Lucy and Evelyn. “Lucy went to live with John, and Evelyn stayed with me,” she said, “He never went one day on dialysis.”

Now, the family celebrates the transplant every year. “You know, and every year I stand there, in that room and now there are grandchildren and children around and you know what I see? It’s a miracle. I see more time. I see more birthdays, I see more laughter. I see more hamburger cookouts. More memories that John gets to have. More memories that I get to have because I’m able to help him. That’s what donation means. It’s not a medical procedure. It’s time. It’s hope. It’s love passed from one person to another in a profound way,” she said.