Our Annual Organ Donor Sabbath guest speaker will be Mrs. June Raegner. She will discuss the loss of her twin brother at age 13 and her subsequent work with The Eye Bank for Sight Restoration. 

Mrs. Raegner lives in Montclair, NJ with her wonderful and supportive husband Richard Stanton. 

They have four children: Jack, 25, Catie, 23, Fiona, 20, and Bridget, 16, along with Daisy, their dog.

June grew up in Larchmont, NY with her twin brother, John, and younger brother, Edward. They had a fairly uneventful childhood until tragedy struck. When they were 13, she witnessed her twin brother John being run over by a truck on their way to middle school. In the ensuing turmoil at the hospital, when the family found out John had passed, June spoke up and shared that she and her twin John had discussed organ donation a few months prior when they had seen their Mom's organ donation card left out on a table. 

Unfortunately, the only organs that were donatable were his corneas. The medical team moved quickly and harvested his corneas and they were successfully transplanted to two young people who had been on the waiting list. Having something good come out of their family's tragedy was like a silver lining to the darkest cloud imaginable. Knowing that part of their beloved brother and son lived on, giving sight to 2 others was a solace and a gift.

June's family then got involved with The Eye Bank for Sight Restoration. They attended organ donation proclamation events with NYC Mayors Koch and Dinkins. When June was in high school and college, she interned and volunteered to help create the Eye Bank's Speaker's Bureau. Relatives of donors and recipients spoke to emergency department teams in NYC hospitals about the importance of sharing the option of organ donation when notifying the next of kin of a death. 

She also joined the Eye Bank in lobbying events culminating in the 1985 passage of The State of New York's Required Request Law.