Burlington transplant recipient rallies support for games, organ donation through pickleball fundraiser

Burlington transplant recipient Mark Slade will help anchor a pickleball fundraiser at Burlington City Park on April 25, using his own recovery story to push more support toward North Carolina Transplant Athletes and Team North Carolina. The event, listed as Serve For Second Chance / Paddles for Life, will open at 9 a.m. at the city’s pickleball complex and is meant to raise money for athletes headed to the Transplant Games of America in Denver this June.

Slade, now 64, received a donated heart in the fall of 2010 and has turned that milestone into a long-running effort to keep transplant recipients active and visible. He said the Transplant Games showed him that “there’s life after a transplant that can be fun,” and he has built that belief into a routine that includes competition and advocacy. This year, he said, he will take part in shot put, discus, table tennis, pickleball, basketball and volleyball at the 2026 Games, which will run June 18-23 in Denver and feature 20 athletic and recreational competitions with more than 40 state teams.

The Burlington fundraiser is meant to help send Team North Carolina, whose roster Slade said includes about 25 members. He said he is the only transplant recipient from Alamance County involved in the games, giving the event a local face in a county where organ donation and transplant support can feel abstract until a neighbor’s name is attached to the cause. Slade’s first Transplant Games were in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2012, and he has competed in every edition since.

The numbers behind that need are stark. North Carolina officials said that as of Dec. 10, 2025, 120,313 Americans were waiting for a lifesaving transplant, while 4,024 people died on the waiting list in 2025, including 101 North Carolinians. Federal donor education materials put the national waiting list at 103,223 people and say 13 people die each day waiting for an organ transplant.

North Carolina Transplant Athletes, founded in 2010, says its mission is to advocate for organ donation, support transplant recipients and send Team North Carolina to the Transplant Games of America. The Burlington event is open to everyone, with entry set at $25 for singles and $50 for doubles, and more than a dozen players had already signed up in early April. Burlington City Park’s pickleball complex, a 17-court facility with lighting, shade structures, parking and restrooms, gives the fundraiser a prominent local stage and a practical one: a place where a transplant recipient’s story can turn into support for the next patient waiting for a match.