Township Woman Honored For Organ Donation

Jefferson NJ Patch | Sue Toth

Photo: Jefferson resident Mary DiNardo, the widow of Det. MarcAnthony DiNardo of the Jersey City Police Department, who was killed in July 2009, received the “Ray of Hope” award April 12 at the NJ Sharing Network Foundation 25th anniversary dinner/auction at the Short Hills Hilton in Short Hills. Joining DiNardo at the dinner was Emmitt Ray, the father of Jason Kendall Ray, the team mascot for the University of North Carolina basketball team. Jason was in New Jersey for the NCAA tournament in 2007, when he was hit and killed by a car. Jason’s parents donated his organs and tissue. The “Ray of Hope” award is named in Jason’s honor. Credit Courtesy of NJ Sharing Network

Jefferson resident Mary DiNardo recently won an award she probably would have preferred to have never received.

DiNardo won the Ray of Hope award from the New Jersey Sharing Network. She made the decision to donate her husband MarcAnthony’s organs, tissue and bones. Three New Jersey residents are alive because of MarcAnthony DiNardo’s heart and kidneys, and according to the New Jersey Sharing Network, “countless others benefitted from the gift of tissue donation.”

MarcAnthony DiNardo was a Jersey City police officer killed after a shoot-out in July 2009.

“Three days after the shoot-out happened, he was declared brain dead,” DiNardo recalled. “While he’d never gotten around to registering as an organ donor, I know it’s what he would have wanted.”

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