Rose Parade: Victorville, Inland Empire organ donors, recipients to be recognized in float

Former Victorville resident and organ and tissue donor, the late Qyana Mone Porter, will be among 24 honorees on the 2024 OneLegacy Donate Life Rose Parade Float on New Year’s Day.

Porter will be honored with a Floragraph on this year’s float, sponsored by OneLegacy.

In 2014, the 21-year-old Porter, affectionately known as “Kiki,” was a student at San Bernardino Valley College when she died after experiencing a seizure.

She registered as a donor when she got her driver's license, stating, “If I can help someone, I will,” OneLegacy officials stated.

‘Kiki Girl’

Porter was described as a vibrant, cheerful young woman. She was a loving daughter, sister, auntie, granddaughter, and cousin, and her bubbliness is what bound many of her family members, the agency said.

During Porter’s pre-teen years, she began having seizures, and although the challenges were immense, her strength was phenomenal.

“She pushed on to experience what most teenagers did: she got her first job at McDonald’s, she graduated high school, attended college, bought a car, and embarked into the “grown-up world” with a job at Amtrak, OneLegacy said.

At the hospital, Porter’s mother agreed to donate organs and tissue, 93 parts total, including corneas that helped a family member to see, Los Angeles Daily News reported.

“Qyana will forever be remembered as Kiki Girl and forever 21,” her family said.

‘Woven Together: The Dance of Life’

OneLegacy announced that 24 Southern California honorees will be recognized on the Rose Parade float-themed “Woven Together: The Dance of Life.”

Representing diverse communities and the importance of donation and transplantation, OneLegacy's float has intricately embraced different cultures, backgrounds and ethnicities over the past 20 years, OneLegacy said.

The “Woven Together: The Dance of Life” float theme journeys to the Native American community.

Following Native American traditions and protocols, the Gabrielino-Shoshone Tribal Council Vice Chair, Gabrielle Crowe, opened the float unveiling ceremony on Dec. 7 with a moving invocation, accompanied by traditional Gabrielino flute melodies played by Jeremy Gonzalez from the Gabrielino-Shoshone Nation.

This invocation signaled the local Tribal Nation’s welcome to their ancestral land to the Hopi and five other Native American nations represented on the 2024 OneLegacy Donate Life float.

The float highlights the culture of the Hopi, native to the American Southwest, and will include six honorees who belong to the following Native American nations: Hopi, Pueblo de San Ildefonso, Navajo, Choctaw, Colville and Kickapoo.

The First Look ceremony included the participation of the 2024 Tournament of Roses president, Alex Aghajanian, as well as the 2024 Tournament of Roses’ Rose Court. Princess Olivia Bohanec and Aghajanian shared moving stories of their personal experiences with organ donation and transplantation. Trejo Music signed artist, Coda, performed a heartfelt rendition of the song “We Belong Together” by Ritchie Valens.

“It was an honor to host this special event at Fiesta Parade floats to showcase our inspiring float and allow local participants and special guests to see it for the first time,” said Chief External Affairs Officer of OneLegacy and float Chair Tom Mone. “We look forward to sharing our float on New Year’s Day; reminding us that all of our lives are indeed woven together… and no more meaningfully than between donors and those whose lives they save and heal… inspiring us to say ‘YES’ to organ, eye and tissue donation.”

The 2024 OneLegacy Donate Life float’s Southern California honorees include:

Living donors

• Celeste Rodriguez, who donated a kidney and is the mayor of San Fernando

• Katie Becerra of Riverside

Organ and tissue recipients

• Chloe Temtchine, double lung recipient from Los Angeles

• Jeff Newell, heart recipient from Los Angeles

• Joceline Perez Hernandez, tissue recipient from San Bernardino (co-sponsored with American Association of Tissue Banks)

• Malakai Carey, liver recipient from Los Angeles

• Raul Sansores, liver recipient from Los Angeles

• Somone Washington, kidney recipient from Los Angeles

Organ, eye and tissue donors

• Alanya Echols, tissue donor from Paramount

• Alexander Granados, organ and tissue donor from East Los Angeles

• Anthony Hidalgo, tissue donor from Lake Elsinore

• Cary Sauve-Brown, organ and tissue donor from Lake Elsinore

• Enrique Rivas, organ and tissue donor from San Fernando

• John Vargas, cornea donor from Baldwin Park

• Kali Geselowitz, organ donor from Coto de Caza

• Kerry Welsh, organ and tissue donor from Glendora

• Lance “Bo” Chavez, organ and tissue donor from Murrieta

• Mary Palmanteer, organ and tissue donor whose family lives in Torrance

• Miguel Cortes, organ and tissue donor from Moreno Valley

• Paul Eskildsen, organ and tissue donor from Coto de Caza

• Qyana Porter, organ and tissue donor from Victorville

• Rosanna Manriquez Gomez, organ and tissue donor from South Gate

• Scott Hultman, organ and tissue donor from Camarillo

• Vivian Beutel, organ and tissue donor from Santa Barbara

Additional float participants

Three additional Southern California participants will be honored on the float, including Sadi’Jae Najera, an organ donor from Bakersfield, sponsored by JJ’s Legacy, and Raymond Jones, a kidney recipient from Los Angeles, sponsored by the University of California, Los Angeles.

In addition to local donors and recipients, OneLegacy is honoring kidney recipient, national recording artist and activist, Freeway. In partnership with Gift of Life of Philadelphia, Freeway’s son, Jihad - who was an organ donor - will be honored with a floragraph.

OneLegacy is also honoring Orlan Honyumptewa, a kidney recipient from the Hopi Nation who will ride on the float. Honyumptewa will be accompanied by ten additional members of the Hopi Tribe, who will perform the Hopi Butterfly Dance in front of the float during the Rose Parade.

Celebrating 21 years of participation in the iconic Rose Parade, the OneLegacy Donate Life Rose Parade Float is the one of the most visible campaigns to inspire organ, eye and tissue donation and to deliver the message that donations save lives.

To learn more about the OneLegacy Donate Life float, visit donatelifefloat.org. For more information on the Rose Parade, visit visitpasadena.com.

Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at 760-951-6227 or RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @DP_ReneDeLaCruz.

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Victorville woman to be honored on 2024 Rose Parade float in Pasadena