Millions of people will be watching the Rose Parade on New Years Day.
Some from the streets of the parade route, others in the warmth of their home.
To most of them it's a tradition, a celebration of another year passed.
But to the Riepl family, it will be a culmination of all they have triumphantly overcome the past two years.
At just 38 years old, Kevin Riepl is a heart transplant recipient. He will be joining about 30 other organ donor recipients, family members of organ donors and living donors on the Donate Life float as his wife and twin sons watch from the sideline.
"I was selected by Cedars-Sinai," Riepl says of how he landed the opportunity to be in the parade.
"They mentioned that we were a very inspiring family to them, to the nurses and everything, so when it came time to nominate somebody, they nominated me for it. I was honored, I couldn't believe it."
Just two years ago Riepl was a normal 36-year-old working as a music composer for film and video games. He lived a healthy life in Winnetka as a vegetarian and worked out multiple times a week.
Then in October 2010 he suddenly suffered heart failure.
Unbeknownst to his doctors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, he had a rare tumor above his adrenal gland causing his heart to fail.
They put him on a left ventricular assist device (an LVAD) to help pump blood through his body. But by the end of May 2011 they decided he would need
a heart transplant.Within 30 days of being put on the list, he received the gift of a new heart.
Riepl's participation in the Rose Parade is his first time speaking out publicly for organ donation.
"I'm honored to do that because I'm extremely thankful for the whole organ donor association and the process - Donate Life and One Legacy," Riepl says. "I'm happy to go represent that."
Donate Life is an organization committed to promoting organ, eye and tissue donation while One Legacy is a local organ and tissue recovery organization.
Both, along with dozens of similar organizations across the nation, join together to create the Donate Life float every year.
"We take great pride in being the most inspiring float entry in the parade year after year," says Bryan Stewart, One Legacy's Vice President of Communications and chairman of Donate Life's Rose Parade Float Committee.
"That has a lot to do with our purpose in the parade which is to honor donors and to celebrate what the gift of life makes possible and to motivate people around the country to register as donors."
The theme of the parade is "Oh, the Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss.
The float committee took that theme and applied it to people who have been touched by organ and tissue donation.
"These are people who have lost loved ones. These are people who yesterday they might have died and now they are alive and now they can breath," Stewart says.
"So basically our whole story is about how we experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows and everywhere in-between, kind of like a roller coaster. So we wanted to apply that to what we're all about which is a place of loving each other and caring for each other."
The result is a gorgeous float design of multiple hearts linked together like a roller coaster with 72 memorial portraits of deceased donors from all over the country pictured on the base of the float.
Joining Riepl as a rider is former Anaheim Angels infielder David Eckstein and his brother Rick Eckstein - their family has been ravaged by kidney disease and the latter donated his kidney to another brother.
Leilah Dowsari, the first female newborn to ever receive a heart transplant, will also be riding the float. Dowsari is now 26 years old living in Loma Linda and expecting her second child.
All of the riders are sponsored by an organization affiliated with Donate Life, like Cedars-Sinai.
The hospital nominated Riepl for a number of reasons, says Dr. Jaime Moriguchi, one of Riepl's doctors.
"He's just an amazing guy, and he had a remarkable will to live," Moriguchi says. "He's very inspirational to his kids, to us. He epitomizes what a heart transplant can do for someone - to bring them back to their life."
Though Cedars-Sinai has one of the largest heart transplant programs in the U.S. - Moriguchi says they will probably hit about 100 transplants this year - they still have about 60 to 80 people waiting for a heart, he says.
That's why Donate Life's campaign to raise awareness of donation is so important.
"We don't have enough donors," Moriguchi says. "Without the donors, we cannot do what we do."
Riepl doesn't know much about the man who's heart he received, only that he was a 34-year-old male.
But both he and his wife Tracy are grateful that the donor family agreed to the donation, giving Riepl the gift of life to spend another year with his family.
"I got really emotional when our boys started kindergarten this year, and I took a picture of him with them at the drop-off line at school," Tracy says.
"Had our donor family not said yes... it's like, we don't know who they are, but my feeling is whoever you are, where ever you are, thank you because he's here to share this milestone with me. Organ donation not only saved him, it saved my family."
Rose Parade
What: Kevin Riepl will be riding on the Donate Life float at the Rose Parade along with about 30 other organ donor recipients, living donors and organ donor families.
When: 8 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013
Where: The 5 1/2 mile parade route begins at the corner of Green Street and Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena. The parade travels north on Orange Grove then turns east onto Colorado Boulevard. At the end of the route, the parade turns north onto Sierra Madre Boulevard and ends at Sierra Madre and Villa Street.
Information: Call 877-793-911, or go to www.tournamentofroses.com. The parade can also be seen on TV; check your local listings.
Stephanie Cary 310-540-5511, Ext. 6630 stephanie.cary@dailybreeze.com
Follow Stephanie Cary on Twitter at http://twitter.com/stephiecary
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