By ANDREW ADAMS
Capitol News Illinois
aadams@capitolnewsillinois.com

CHICAGO – The secretary of state’s office is launching a new program to enlist Illinois high schoolers to promote organ donation.

The organ and tissue donation registry, a voluntary database administered by the secretary of state, catalogs peoples’ wishes regarding organ donation after death.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced his office was creating the Lifesaving Education and Awareness on Donation, or LEAD, program, which will designate student “ambassadors” for organ and tissue donation.

“Today you have an opportunity, without impacting your lives at all, to truly save lives,” Giannoulis told students at a news conference.

These students, under the supervision of a faculty member at their high school, will create awareness campaigns and engage in other efforts to support donor registrations, particularly among young people.

Students in the new program will be eligible for service-hour credits that can fulfill volunteering requirements at some schools and honors programs. Students who volunteer 20 hours to the program will receive a certificate from the secretary of state.

These volunteer activities might include operating registration tables at schools, passing out awareness pins, writing newsletters or articles for school papers, or speaking at community events.

Students and teachers can bring the program to their schools by going to the organ donation program’s website LifeGoesOn.com.

Teen organ donor registration has expanded since 2018, when a state law opened the donor registry to 16- and 17-year-olds.

Despite this, Illinois has experienced a 38 percent decrease in the number of new organ donor registrations among 16- to 21-year-olds over the past 10 years with 2023 seeing the lowest registrations in the decade, according to Giannoulias’ office.

“We don’t really have the data to inform us as to why it is,” Giannoulis said. “We’ve looked at it, thought about it, and there are a million contributing factors.”

EV expansion

Gov. JB Pritzker and officials from electric utility Commonwealth Edison on Tuesday presented the village of Skokie, a Chicago suburb near the city’s northwest side, with a $45,000 rebate check to help fund the village’s efforts to “electrify” its vehicle fleet.

It is one of the first municipalities to receive funding through ComEd’s beneficial electrification plan. That plan, alongside others outlining the company’s efforts to strengthen the electric grid and keep electricity bills manageable, is required by the state’s Climate and Equitable Jobs Act.

“Reaching our state’s EV goals requires more than just individual consumer choices-it means municipalities, school districts, and other organizations also commit to EVs as we fundamentally reassess the landscape of clean transportation in Illinois,” Pritzker said in a news release.

Since launching in February, the company said it has offered rebates for more than 1,600 new charging ports and 109 new fleet vehicles in northern Illinois.

Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen said Tuesday that the fleet electrification is part of the village’s efforts to encourage electric vehicle adoption.

The village was among the first group of municipalities to participate in the EV Readiness Program at the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus. That program lays out actions that cities can take, like changing zoning requirements, parking rules and permitting procedures to make it easier to switch to an electric vehicle.

ComEd’s rebate program – and the state law requiring it – is part of the state’s broader efforts at encouraging electric vehicle adoption and courting the electric vehicle industry.

Last week, the governor announced the 13th incentive package offered to a company through the Reimagining Energy and Vehicles program. Ymer Technology, a Swedish manufacturing firm specializing in cooling technology, is set to receive $2.9 million in tax incentives through the program while creating 33 jobs.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of print and broadcast outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.