[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] (inspiring music) (inspiring music continues) - We're here with the leader of the New Jersey Sharing Network, Carolyn Welsh, President and CEO of the Sharing Network.

How you doing, my friend?

- Awesome.

- All right, so you were just saying, 15th year, 15th anniversary of the Sharing Network.

Celebration of Life, the weather, the sun is coming out, that's not usually the case when we're here.

What's it usually like?

- Cold, wet, and dewy in the morning.

So this year, 15 years, sun is here, it's beautiful.

- You don't think it's an accident, do you?

- Not an accident... (Steve laughs) No coincidences in organ donation.

- Yeah, speak about where we are today and let me disclose that Carolyn is a trustee of our production company, the Caucus Educational Corporation.

And we have a long history of working to advocate for organ and tissue donation and create greater public awareness.

Where are we today in 2025?

- 15 Years, 5K Celebration of Life.

Amazing.

More people here than ever before, and 15 years for the Sharing Network.

We are transplanting and saving more people's lives than ever before.

- 2024 was a record year when it comes to what?

- Organ donation and organs transplanted, so lives saved.

And right now, we're tracking more than any other year that we did before.

So we will save more lives in 2025 than ever before.

- Why do you think that is?

- People.

Our staff is just topnotch, making sure that we really hire people that believe in organ and tissue donation and want to save people's lives.

And they get up every day to do something that's pretty hard.

- You know, for those who haven't seen our past interviews with Carolyn.

PS check out our website, SteveAdubato.org.

It's on there right now.

We've had so many conversations over the years.

If you haven't heard the story of how Carolyn got connected to the Sharing Network.

Share it.

- (chuckles) Back in the day, I answered an ad in the Asbury Park Press, a newspaper.

I just wanted to save people's lives or help people.

I didn't know much about organ and tissue donation and 26 years later never looked back.

- What's it done for you in your life?

Not just professionally, but personally?

- Purpose, wake up every day, still wanna come here.

It's not a day that I don't want to come and do this work.

Has made my family stronger.

No coincidences, so everything happens for a reason.

It's just amazing.

Be able to do something to help other people.

- And you know, the message about the celebration of life, the gift, if you will, for people who, and I asked Dr. Buddle this, who you know, and that's an interesting connection, but check out our interview with Dr. Buddle.

For people who don't really understand how it works, how does it work?

If you want to do it?

- Sure, you can proactively, you know, say, "Yes", on your driver's license.

You can go to our website and check "Yes".

And you can also tell your family that this is something that you would wanna do.

It all starts with the "Yes".

The generosity of someone saying, "When I pass away, I would like to give life to someone else."

- And your team, when it comes to it, and we've talked about this before, there are a lot of misconceptions.

I mean, for every year we talk about misconceptions, people, how they don't really understand it, which is understandable why they don't understand it.

Describe for folks how empathetic, caring, and compassionate your team is at the most vulnerable, critical, and sometimes painful time in people's lives.

- Yeah, one of our core values to even hiring people and people to stay working here is compassionate.

You have to be compassionate to each other.

You know, coworkers, you have to take care of each other, really knowing when they have a hard case or something that's happening that they really need to talk through.

And then compassion for the people that we serve, which is everyone in New Jersey.

When we walk into those doors, we have to let everything that happened in our life be at the door.

Because everything we do is about that person we're about to talk to.

- Carolyn, where does New Jersey, I don't wanna say rank because we're talking about people's lives, it's not about numbers, but where is New Jersey compared to the rest of the country when it comes to organ and tissue donation?

- Yeah, New Jersey Sharing Network is a high-performing organ procurement organization in the United States.

Always in top tier rankings of what our CMS data says.

- CMS are the feds who check this stuff out.

- Yes, yes, to make sure that we're doing what we need to do and what we're supposed to be doing.

More importantly, the barometer is, is that we're continuing to save more people than any year prior.

- So, and then in the time we have, describe what this day is like for you.

15 years in, it's the 15th anniversary of the 5K here at the Sharing Network in beautiful new Providence, New Jersey.

What's it like?

You have this big smile on, but you have it every year, even when the weather's not great.

(Carolyn chuckles) What's it like for you today?

- Yeah, I mean, wake up 5:00 AM quick, jump outta bed, and know that it's gonna be the most inspiring day, giving hope to so many people.

There are many people still waiting for this lifesaving gift, so our work's not done, as well as we're doing.

It's just amazing to be able to see donor families, recipients, advocates, hospital partners come together all for one common cause and something that really means the world to those that are waiting.

- So when people see the name, everyone's T-shirt has a name, they're all different names for all different reasons, for all kinds of people.

What does that mean to those folks on those teams?

- So for a lot of new people that work at the Sharing Network, and we start, I talk a lot about how we see the best of the world and the worst of the world, but we serve everyone.

So there's just no barriers here, right?

It's just getting to know every human on a human level of what we do.

It doesn't matter where you come from, what you have, or what you don't have.

Any one of us could be faced with the decision of donation or the need for a transplant.

- 1 to 10, I ask you this all the time.

The level of, not just satisfaction, that's not the right word, the level of gratitude that you feel to be able to do what you do for the people you do it for, as painful as it is in so many ways, 1 to 10?

- Still 10 plus, - 10 plus?

- 10 plus.

- Because?

- It's just, I wouldn't wanna be doing anything else.

- Thank you my friend.

- Thank you.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Hackensack Meridian Health.

Kean University.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

New Jersey’s Clean Energy program.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

EJI, Excellence in Medicine Awards.

A New Jersey health foundation program.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

And by PSE&G.

Promotional support provided by NJBIA.

And by BestofNJ.com.

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