“What I saw today was passion,” Jordan said. “Your good secret here is your blood bank. So much goes on and a lot of people don’t even know it exists. It’s tremendous what they’ve been able to achieve.”
In addition to the foundation, Jordan established the Kenya Women and Children’s Wellness Centre in Nairobi, Kenya. In 2009, Jordan contacted CBC Chief Operating Officer Diane Wilson after an oil spill that left Kenyans in several villages with severe burns. CTS provided the blood and tissue to treat those individuals, as well as a doctor to train local physicians in applying the skin grafts.
Jordan came to the region Wednesday learn about the process of obtaining and maintaining allograft tissue such as skin grafts for transplant, as well as to meet donors and encourage the staff of the CTS in their work.
Based in Kettering, Community Tissue Services supplies tissues for more than 2,000 hospital and physician clients across the nation. It is the largest tissue bank in the world by volume of tissue produced.
Deloris Jordan’s famous son, Michael Jordan is known for being a six-time NBA champion and possibly the great basketball player in history. But Michael Jordan also was a strong proponent of organ and tissue donation, lending his appearance to the national campaign for blood and tissue donation in 1994.
“He probably moved organ and tissue donation farther than any single individual has ever done,” Wilson said. “Mrs. Jordan and their family is all about giving back to people.”
After expanding the foundation’s operations in Kenya to include a 194-bed medical facility to address health and training new medical professionals, Jordan has pivoted to educating those in Africa and in the United States on preventive medicine.
“I don’t want to talk about treatment,” she said. “I want to talk about prevention. If you have HIV, we can treat it but how can we prevent it? We can have all the education, we can have all the degrees, but if you don’t have good health? They both go hand in hand.”
Wilson added there is “absolutely” potential for the two organizations to partner in the future, as blood and tissue is needed.
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