Hundreds of transplant patients and their families reunite with AdventHealth Transplant Institute caregivers

In recognition of National Donate Life Month, nearly 300 transplant patients and their families enjoyed AdventHealth’s 2025 transplant reunion.

“For me, AdventHealth is the place that saved my life, restored family, friends, and me as a whole,” said Edward Jardine, a kidney transplant recipient. “This event is a wonderful platform to interact with the AdventHealth staff, who were at all levels, able to save my life and as well as [the lives of] everyone else that are here at this picnic.”

"It's just celebrating everything about life that makes it wonderful."

The picnic brings together organ donors and recipients, and the doctors, nurses and other caregivers who helped them during their transplant journey. “Transplantation is really about returning somebody to their normal life,” said Dr. Bobby Nibhanupudy, a transplant surgeon and a medical director at AdventHealth Transplant Institute and OurLegacy, the federally designated organ procurement organization for 10 counties in east Central Florida.

“To do the normal things that we do every day is something that we all take for granted, whether it's getting up in the morning and taking out the trash or going to a picnic like this and just celebrating with your family. And that's what it's about. It's just celebrating everything about life that makes it wonderful.”

“[AdventHealth Transplant Institute is] a special place. I love it! It’s my family. It's my transplant family,” added Jardine.

More than 104,000 people are waiting for a lifesaving transplant in the U.S., according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. Of those, almost 600 are being cared for by teams at the AdventHealth Transplant Institute.

The Transplant Institute team works closely with OurLegacy. The OPO works with hospitals and donor families to coordinate the organ donation process. Florida residents can sign up to be an organ donor at www.donatelifeflorida.org.

Many of the innovations and programs at the AdventHealth Transplant Institute are funded through philanthropy. Among them is the Bartch Transplant House — a home-away-from-home that provides housing, support and amenities at an affordable cost for patients and families. Those amenities are funded through donations to the Patient Assistance Fund.