A total of 187 names of local organ donors have been carved on a memorial stone in Yunnan Province. A memorial garden to honor these generous souls was completed in the southwestern city of Kunming last year and was opened to the public on Friday.

Since Yunnan began its local human organ donation project in 2013, the 187 donors have helped save 574 lives, and have given sight to 308 blind people.

The memorial garden was planned in 2014 to honor the Yunnan Red Cross.

“Human organ donation conveys the concept that death is not a curtain fall, but a prelude of another cycle of love and generosity. To publicly recognize the organ donors, we embed our hope to raise more awareness and understanding to organ donation, to secure and rescue more lives, and better serve our business with life quality standard upheld,” said Dong Hechun, party secretary and executive vice chairman of Yunnan Red Cross.

As the memorial garden opened, all personnel and medical staff that involve in local organ donation project, organ donors’ family, volunteers and organ recipients rallied at scene, each holding a yellow chrysanthemum to honor the donors.

“When it comes to life and death, we can’t choose, but only to be chosen, but we can make it become warm and meaningful,” said Sun on behalf of 120th organ donor’s family. “It actually proves that we’ve chosen the right thing to do, and it reassures us that the family will have more confidence and power to become a part of this relay of love.”

As of March 26, China has 229,114 citizens registered for organ donation, according to the China Organ Donation Administrative Center. The organization has witnessed 10,986 successful cases of donation. An all-sided domestic data system from research to tracking organ donation has been established, available for interested parties to look into the field.