Transplant Programs at Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals Give Many Second Chances: CLE Daily

🌦️ 81°; Humid

🌽 Ear We Go: The North Ridgeville Corn Festival kicks off tonight in South Central Park with a 100-drone light show, then rolls through the weekend with a car show Saturday and a Sunday parade — plus a corn-eating contest and a cornhole tournament. Founded in 1975 to warm up for the Bicentennial, it's now north of 50 years old.

🥒 Kind of a Big Dill: The 4th annual Akron Pickle Fest takes over Lock 3 on Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with pickle art, pickle food, jar-your-own brining and the Pickle-lympics — yes, including bobbing for pickles and a greased pickle toss. Admission is free.

🪁 Go Fly a Kite: The 47th annual Cleveland Kite Festival lands at Edgewater Park on Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., free and open to all ages. Highlights: Japanese fighter kites trying to knock each other out of the sky, and a competition where fliers fly to music.

ICYMI: Two Northeast Ohio icons walk into a drive-in. Swensons has teamed with Guardian Cold Brew for an August-only menu — a Cold Brew Shake (cold brew, caramel, soft serve, whipped cream) and a Cold Brew Whip (cold brew, root beer, soft serve), available at all 21 locations through Aug. 31. 

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Trivia Question

Totaling $6.5 million in labor and $1.7 million in materials, what Cleveland freeway was the largest Works Progress Administration project in the nation?

Best Doctors: Cleveland is where hope survives — on the region's transplant powerhouse. 

By Cleveland Magazine staff 

Patients turned away everywhere else find their way to Cleveland. Our new August issue package goes inside how Northeast Ohio became a last-chance capital for heart and lung transplant patients — the surgeons, the science, the nonprofits and the survivors. Here's the package:

• The Last-Chance Capital: Cleveland Clinic performs hundreds of heart, lung and multi-organ transplants a year, drawing patients from every state and dozens of countries — and about 20% of its lung transplant patients were previously declined elsewhere. Its ex vivo lung perfusion lab (one of the two busiest in the world) can even rehab donor lungs once considered unusable. Read it.

• Lifebanc at 40: The nonprofit organ procurement organization is on call 24/7 across 80 hospitals in 20 counties. More than 1,300 Northeast Ohioans are on the waiting list; so far in 2026, Lifebanc has coordinated 114 organ donors, 326 organs transplanted and 296 lives saved — while busting myths (no age limit, an open casket is still possible). Read it.

• 11 Steps at University Hospitals: A step-by-step look at how UH turns a match into a new life — organs flown in and raced to the OR, a committee weighing every medical and psychological risk, and patients out of surgery within four to 36 hours, then monitored for rejection for the rest of their lives. Read it.

• Four Second Chances: Meet the survivors — Johanna Henz of Beachwood (two double-lung transplants), Tom Sonneborn of Parma (heart recipient No. 1,850 at Cleveland Clinic), Chelsey Kimmich of Marietta (a new heart at 33 — she keeps her old one in a jar) and Pierre Mays of Akron, who counts "three birthdays." Read it.

• What's Next: Cleveland Clinic performed the nation's first robotic lung transplant, and doctors at the Clinic and UH see AI reading scans, wearable monitors catching problems early and even drones ferrying donor organs as the near future of heart and lung care. Read it.

The Bottom Line: As Dr. Marie Budev puts it, none of it happens without one thing — the donor family. "All of this is because of the donor family."

Read the full cover story.

Talk of the Town

Cuyahoga County wants two tax hikes on Nov. 3. County Council voted Tuesday to send voters a 10-year health and human services levy plus the developmental disabilities board's first increase since 2005 — together another $166 per $100,000 of home valuation a year. Two charter amendments giving council more say over boards and commissions are also on the ballot; the proposal to make the sheriff an elected office was pulled.

The Clinic slipped in heart care. Cleveland Clinic fell to No. 8 in U.S. News & World Report's cardiology and heart surgery ranking — a striking drop for a program that spent three decades as the undisputed national leader.

Eight Cleveland school buildings are coming down. For all the praise the city has gotten for turning shuttered schools into housing, eight mostly historic buildings are slated for demolition — with permits already filed for Iowa-Maple Elementary, Paul Revere Elementary and the 1903 Willson Middle on East 55th. Meanwhile, today is the city's deadline for development teams to pitch reuses for a dozen other closed schools, including Collinwood High.

Two brothers turned a summer chore into a business. Drevian Arrington and Andre Willis started picking up trash on their block; now they hold cleanup contracts with Cleveland businesses and homeowners, and have branched into junk removal and seasonal landscaping.

Paving the interchange means building a plant first. Akron's Kenmore Construction, which holds the $329 million contract to rebuild Downtown's I-90 Central Interchange, wants to spend up to $20 million on a new Cleveland asphalt plant to supply the job.

Things To Do This Weekend

By Jeff Niesel

Asian Lantern Festival at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo | Festival | Select nights through Aug. 23

Thousands of handmade paper lanterns glow across the zoo, with an Asian craft market and food vendors, 6:30–10:30 p.m. Check the zoo site for pricing. 3900 Wildlife Way, Cleveland, clemetzoo.com

The Lion King at the State Theatre | Theater | Through Aug. 16
The six-time Tony winner — Garth Fagan's choreography, songs by Elton John and Tim Rice — plays Playhouse Square; Thursday's show is 7:30 p.m. 1519 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, playhousesquare.org

How To Train Your Dragon in Concert at Mandel Concert Hall | Music | Aug. 7 & 9
The Cleveland Orchestra performs the score live to a screening of the animated hit — 7 p.m. Friday and 3 p.m. Sunday. 11001 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, clevelandorchestra.com

Vintage Ohio Wine at Lake County Metroparks Farmpark | Food & Drink | Aug. 7-8
Two days of Ohio wines, live music, cooking demos and family activities in Kirtland, noon–9 p.m. 8800 Euclid Chardon Road, Kirtland, lakemetroparks.com

Steel Pulse at Cain Park | Music | Aug. 8
The veteran reggae act headlines Cleveland Heights' Cain Park at 7 p.m., with Carlos Jones & the P.L.U.S. Band opening. 14591 Superior Road, Cleveland Heights, cainpark.com

Read the full list of activities for this weekend.

Yesterday's Trivia Answer

Lawyer Mike McCormack founded what company, now a sports, media and modeling behemoth, in Cleveland in 1960 by representing golfer Arnold Palmer?  IMG

Check back tomorrow for the answer to today's question

From the Editor

Some stories remind you what a city can be. This month's cover package is one of them — Cleveland at its best. 

We spent time with the surgeons, nonprofits and survivors who make Northeast Ohio a last-chance capital for heart and lung transplant patients: people told no everywhere else who found yes here.

Read Johanna's, Tom's, Chelsey's and Pierre's stories, then consider becoming a donor. Behind every second chance is a family's gift. Take a look at the full package of stories here. And let us know what you think, as well.

 — Ron Ledgard, Managing Editor

Have a story idea? Tell us what we should cover at conversation@clevelandmagazine.com.

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