ILLINOIS STATE NEWS BRIEF (09/04/2024)

(SPRINGFIELD) The Illinois Secretary of State’s Office has announced the new Lifesaving Education & Awareness on Donation program, called LEAD, which will enable high school students to serve as ambassadors for the Illinois Organ and Tissue Donor Program. It’s over the past ten (10) years that Illinois has experienced a 38% drop in the number of new organ donor registrants from age 16 to 21. The LEAD program will allow statewide high schools students the opportunity to gain community service hours by participating.

(SPRINGFIELD) Providers actively enrolled in the Illinois Medicaid program will need to revalidate their enrollment status to continue providing services to Medicaid customers and bill Medicaid. This federal requirement was temporarily discontinued during the COVID-19 federal public health emergency. The Illinois Department of Healthcare & Family Services, which administers the Illinois Medicaid program resumed the practice yesterday.

(SPRINGFIELD) The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum in Springfield will celebrate the work of renowned sculptor Richard Hunt with a special exhibition that showcases his art and explores the history that inspired him. The “Freedom in Form : Richard Hunt” exhibit opens October 25th and runs through April 2025. Hunt, who made more public sculptures than any other artist in American history, has work located in plazas and parks from Champaign and Peoria to Washington, D.C. and New York.

(SPRINGFIELD) Illinois will be home to the 2024 U.S. Boomerang Championship & Expo this weekend, running Friday through Sunday. The University of Illinois soccer complex in Springfield will host the United States Booomerang Association’s annual championship and other competitions with hundreds of competitors and spectators expected. Formed in 1982, the USBA notes that throwing boomerangs began as an organized sport in the 1960s.