Lasting legacy

Qiu Mengdan, deputy president of the Red Cross Society of China Hunan Branch, said Gaotian had popularized the significance of organ donation to villagers through vivid and accessible methods.

Hunan has 272,000 registrations for human organ donations. Those aged 35 and below account for over 76 percent of registrations, Qiu said.

Gaotian's leadership on the issues is apparent in the statistics. After 2019 — the year the village held its collective organ donation registration event — the following five years saw an almost a seven-fold increase across the province compared with the previous five years, she said.

The Hunan branch applied for a special humanitarian relief fund from the provincial finance department to provide consolation items, Qiu said.

From 2016 to September, it has disbursed 24.99 million yuan ($2.67 million) in relief funds, benefiting 1,580 families of organ donors facing financial difficulties.

Zhu Youfang contributed to this story.

Contact the writers at hechun@chinadaily.com.cn