Torch procession for organ donation arriving in R.I.

Published Feb. 15, 2010 at 4:37 p.m.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The torch is coming.

Not the Olympic torch, but a torch carried in the spirit of giving those in need a chance at life. The Step By Step charity is promoting awareness of organ and tissue donation, with a two-year trek through more than 250 cities in North and South America.

The torch procession began on Oct. 23 in Wasilla, Alaska, and will end in the city of Ushuaia, Argentina, on Oct. 24, 2011. At each stop, the "truck of life" is met by students, who carry it throughout their city -- to remind people to sign up to become organ donors.

"You don't have to raise millions of dollars," said Step By Step CEO George Marcello. "The cure is inside us."

At noon on Monday, students are meeting the torch at the Bank of America Skating Center in downtown and carrying it to the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. On Wednesday, the truck will stop at Rocky Hill School in East Greenwich, where students will carry the torch to Warwick City Hall.

Marcello founded the charity after he received a liver transplant in 1995. At the time, he was a 40-year-old fitness trainer living in Toronto when he was diagnosed with thrombosis.

As he lay in a hospital, slowly succumbing to the illness that was shutting down his liver, Marcello realized that three floors below, people being brought into the emergency room with fatal injuries. Their organs could have saved lives, but were destroyed instead because the people were not organ donors.

Marcello said he was within hours of death when a matching liver became available -- and saved his life.

"When I was fortunate enough to receive that gift, I thought, 'I better do something,'" Marcello said.

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