The Alex O'Loughlin Fans for Organ Donation:
Our team and our personal experience with organ donation

We are not "new" - Our fan group supporting and promoting organ donation has existed since 2009 when it was founded by Sabine Atkins and Silke Roehl who also founded the German Alex O'Loughlin Fan Club together.

When Sabine decided to leave the group to focus on her work as an author, Australian fan Claire Eyles became head of the fan group, as well as chief admin of the international Facebook page of the group. Silke speaks only little English which made it impossible for her to lead an international group and to run a fansite in English. But throughout all those years, Silke has led the fan club and has been admin of the fan club pages, as well as the German page of our fan group supporting organ donation.

A couple of years ago, I joined Claire as co-admin of the international Facebook page since Claire could use a helping hand from time to time due to health problems. Besides, I had already been promoting the group's campaigns and fundraisers for quite a while, anyway, through my fansite.

In Feb. 2017, major changes took place:
Claire Eyles, who had led our group for six years, handed over full responsibility to me as head of our international fan group and as admin of our international Facebook page.
After taking over responsibility for the group, I renamed the group into "Alex O'Loughlin Fans for Organ Donation" since the previous name had included a reference to a specific charity that had asked us to stop using their name - a step that made sense because we had run campaigns for other charities, too, and the old name of our group was a bit misleading.

Our present admin team consists of Silke, who runs the German page of our group - and myself as head of the group and admin of the international page.
Both, Silke and I, have been long-time fans of Alex and very active fansite admins for many years - which is a true benefit, as we can reach more fans through our fansites than would be possible with a website focusing on organ donation only.
In addition to running my own fansite www.alex-the-best.de, I'm also co-admin of my friend Wendie Burbridge's Five-0 Redux Facebook page about "Hawaii Five-0". Since Wendie is also a huge supporter of organ donation, I can share posts about organ donation and our group's campaigns and fundraisers on her page, too.

Silke and I have even more in common than being fansite admins and living in the same city because both of us have personal experience with organ donation. Silke's brother has been living with a donated kidney for quite a while. He got the transplant after she had already been promoting and supporting organ donation for several years.
I had an uncle who got a kidney transplant when I was a kid. After his transplantation, my uncle lived over 20 more years which were given to him as a gift by the person whose kidney he had received. He even celebrated a second birthday on the anniversary of the kidney operation. Due to the very positive personal experience with organ donation, I got an organ donor card as soon as I was old enough to.

Both Silke and I know how important it is to raise awareness of organ donation and, thus, to increase organ donor registration. Transplants help save and improve lives of patients who often spend long fatiguing hours getting dialysis three times a week - or even have to stay in hospital for months and years hooked onto machines and waiting for a life-saving organ that they might not get in time.
So when Claire suggested to close down our Facebook page and to stop our group's work since she could no longer run the page and group for personal reasons, I decided to take over as head of the group and page admin and to keep supporting this great cause that both Silke and I truly believe in.

If you are interested, you may want to read a blog I wrote back in 2014 for the Taylor's Gift charity of which Alex was a spokesperson. The blog sums up why I support and promote organ donation together with other fans - and, of course, Alex himself:
http://blog.taylorsgift.org/celebrity-impact-alex-oloughlin-sparks-interest-in-fans-to-support-organ-donation
(Update: In Nov. 2018, the Taylor's Gift Foundation became Outlive Yourself Foundation which then merged with Southwest Transplant Alliance. In late 2021, Taylor's Gift was "reactivated" with its old name and its own website).

In 2017, our Hawaiian friend Wendie Burbridge joined our main team as an official supporting member. Wendie is well-known to fans of Alex's show "Hawaii Five-0", as she's been writing the Five-0 Redux blogs for the Honolulu Star Advertiser since Season 1. Wendie and her family have been organ donors for a long time and she welcomes the opportunity to support this great cause.

Thanks for reading!
Angie Gerstner

The following pages and fansites - resp. their admins - are part of our main team:
https://www.facebook.com/AlexOLoughlinFansforOrganDonation/ (Owner: Angie)
https://www.facebook.com/DAlexOLoughlinFansFOrganspende/ (Owner: Silke)
https://www.facebook.com/AlexOLoughlinGFC (Owner: Silke) - deleted by Facebook
https://www.german-alex-oloughlin-fanclub.de/ (Owner: Silke)
https://www.facebook.com/Five0Redux (Owner: Wendie)
http://www.alex-the-best.de/ (Owner: Angie)

Please view the following pages, too, if you haven't done so yet:

Why Alex and the "Alex O'Loughlin Fans for Organ Donation" support organ donation: (English / Deutsch)
A general introduction: www.alex-the-best.de/aolorgan.htm

About "Three Rivers" - incl. interviews about the show and organ donation:
www.alex-the-best.de/aolriver.htm

Alex supporting Donate Life, Taylor's Gift & more - Interviews, video clips etc.:
www.alex-the-best.de/aoldltg.htm

Link collection about organ donation and transplantations:
www.alex-the-best.de/donalink.htm
 

Designed, created & owned by: Angela Gerstner

Last update: 2020