SANDY — A couple of years ago, when polygamist leader Rulon Jeffs and family vacated their 5-acre compound at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon for the Utah-Arizona border, they didn't take everything. Left behind were five buildings, including the midwife's cottage, about 20 bathrooms, a wine cellar, a trout pond, three massive kitchens, a grocery store-size parking lot and 40 bedrooms, give or take.
A perfect starter house . . . if you've got 30 wives.
Or if you're a service organization called Common Thread.
Common Thread is a nonprofit cause made up of, by and for people who live in the world of organ-donor transplants. Anyone who needs a heart, a kidney, a lung or other living organ to get a new start on life, and all family and friends associated with that need, fall under the watchful eye of Common Thread.
Their main goal is to provide people who are on donor waiting lists a place to stay. Preferably, a place big enough that family and friends can also stay. Also preferably, a place in a nice setting that's conducive to physical comfort amid all the physical discomfort.
The first time Jason Ivers, Kally Heslop and Dycie Allred, Common Thread's directors and fellow heart-transplant survivors, laid their eyes on the former polygamous compound they just knew: This would do.
If you're on a waiting list for a living organ, the usual problem is a combination of time, distance and financing.
Since organs for transplants become available, for the most part, only upon the death of people who have authorized the post-death donation of their organs, and since the only hospital in the Intermountain area equipped to do transplants is the University Medical Center in Salt Lake City, and since transplants need to be done immediately, if not sooner, people needing transplants must gather in the University hospital's shadow, where they wait and hope.
That necessitates living in the Salt Lake Valley — and somehow paying for it despite the horrendous medical bills that typically accompany the kinds of illnesses that precipitate the need for a transplant in the first place.
Some transplant hopefuls literally live in the hospital parking lot.
Transplant House is starting to change that.
For $15 a night, a transplant candidate and supporting cast can stay as long as it takes.
And if they can't afford the $15 a night? Not a problem. It's on the house.
Like everything else, this cause isn't easy. There's rent to pay, remodeling to do, and, down the road, there's a dream that Common Thread can purchase the entire property at the mouth of the canyon.
So far, only about a half-dozen rooms are furnished and usable. Expenses are everywhere. It's going to cost at least $6,000 just to properly hook up the sewer (it seems the former owner, the one with all the kids, tapped in illegally to the county sewer system). There's a critical need for beds, couches, chairs and shower curtains. At least half of the rooms could use a paint job.
But help is coming from all directions. Churches and service clubs and school groups are plunging in. Mickey Rooney, the famous actor, is coming in December to do a benefit. Jim Lampley, the famous sportscaster, has plans for a fund-raiser at his Lakota restaurant. In two weeks, the nearby famous LaCaille restaurant will be the site for a Transplant House fund-raising dinner (call Dycie at 942-5720).
All with an eye toward the day when the place will be full of people, all engaged in a good and common cause, and Transplant House will make the successful transition to Transplant Home.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.