Two organizations hope that NIU and DeKalb will remember the importance of organ donation this week & even if their main event will be at a place called Amnesia.

Concerts and other festivities will mark local observance of this week’s National Organ Donor and Tissue Awareness Week. The activities culminate Friday at Amnesia nightclub, 1000 W. Lincoln Highway, with the “Organ Donor Awareness Bash,” organized by the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois and NIU’s Public Relations Student Society of America.

Featured guests include three celebrities from the Chicago sports scene: former Chicago Bulls center Bill Wennington; Minnie Minoso, a former Chicago White Sox outfielder who played in six different decades; and Kurt Becker, an offensive lineman on the Super Bowl champion Chicago Bears team.

The nightclub’s doors will open at 2 p.m., with a cover charge yet to be determined. The National Kidney Foundation will receive all money raised, and four bands scheduled throughout the night are expected to draw more students to sign donor cards.

The athletes will serve as witnesses by also signing the cards.

“You’re walking around with Bill Wennington’s autograph in your wallet,” PRSSA vice president Brad Abrahams said.

Abrahams uses numbers to illustrate the effects of organ donation: If each of NIU’s 23,248 students were donors, they could save up to 185,984 lives.

“The facts speak for themselves,” he said. “One organ donor can potentially save eight lives.”

According to the National Kidney Foundation, organs that could be donated include the heart, kidneys, pancreas, liver, lungs and intestines. Tissues include the corneas, skin, bone marrow, heart valves and connective tissue.

PRSSA president Angie Zigrossi said organ donation is an all-encompassing issue, even reaching into DeKalb and Sycamore.

“So many people our age don’t even know anything about it,” she said.

Currently, only those 21 and over will be allowed into the event because of Amnesia’s entrance requirements. However, PRSSA members are working this week to allow 18-year-olds into the establishment.

For those who can’t make it to the event, Wennington will be at DuSable Hall from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, with Minoso appearing outside the Holmes Student Center from noon to 2 p.m. Each athlete will man a table featuring more information about organ donation.