Family raises a flag to honor late son and his contributions

A Mattapoisett family hopes a flag raised in memory of their loved one will also raise awareness of the importance of organ donation.

A banner with a bolded message that reads “Donate Life’’ is flying with the American flag at Mattapoisett Town Hall as a tribute to Sam Ellis, a former Mattapoisett resident who passed away in August 2020.

The flag will be raised throughout April, which is National Donate Life Month. Sam Ellis, who was 20, suffered a severe head injury in a car accident, leaving his family to make the difficult choice to take him off life support.

He could not survive the devastating head injury, but he was able to live on through the donation of his organs.

Sam was a registered donor. His mother, Cheryl Ellis, can still remember the day that he got his license.

“He came out and said, ‘Look, I’m an organ donor,’” she recalled.

The two of them had no idea how much that decision would mean someday.

Sam has donated his liver, both kidneys, heart valves, and skin. One of those donations was close to home, as a family friend was on the waitlist for a kidney, and was a match for Sam’s.

Sam was “incredibly outgoing,” Ellis said. She described him as “the life of the party.”

“We used to always say, put him in a room with 50 people, he would leave the room with 50 new friends,” Ellis said. “He had the most amazing dimples. He was loved by a lot of people.”

Sam grew up in Mattapoisett and graduated from Old Rochester Regional High School in 2018. He took a year off to figure out what he wanted to do, but he didn’t sit still.

He worked a full-time and part-time job until he enrolled in the HVAC technician program at the MotoRing Technical Training Institute in Seekonk.

“He was at the top of his class and doing very well,” said Ellis.

The Ellis family raised the flag promoting organ donation last year as well. “His sister, April, is a volunteer with the New England Donor Service,” said Ellis, who explained that April had reached out to the town about flying it.

“We did it rather quietly last year. It had only been eight months since he passed,” said Ellis. “But this year, we want to do more to raise awareness about organ and tissue donation.”

Ellis and her daughter April both work in the medical field, and see firsthand how much need there is, but Ellis learned so much more through Sam’s experience.

“I’m a nurse and didn’t realize the number of things that could be donated. I was totally amazed,” she said.

The Ellis family gets periodical updates from the New England Donor Service about his impact.

“They are absolutely wonderful, I can’t say enough about that organization,” said Ellis, who hopes that people who hear Sam’s story will be encouraged to register as donors.

“It’s why we’re making this more public,” she said. “There’s still a way to help people after you’re gone.”