A ceremony honors transplant donors and recipients during a Donate Life Month celebration at UPMC Hamot.

Dozens of transplant recipients and organ donors gathered Thursday morning, holding signs telling their own individual stories.

Several guest speakers highlighted the importance of organ donation.

One of those speakers Marty Brown, diagnosed with congestive heart failure three years ago and is still waiting on a heart transplant.

“You have three options as a human being as far as your organs,” Brown says. “They are going either in the crematorium if that’s the decision you make, they are either going in the ground if that’s the decision you make or they can be used to save somebody else’s life just like myself.”

Brown is only alive thanks to a portable, artificial pump and is waiting on a blood type o-negative heart.