February 24, 2025
Logan Boulet’s parents, Toby and Bernadine, speak at the Green Shirt kick-off event at the Kaye Edmonton Clinic. Photo by Su-Ling Goh.
Geoffery Kehrig designed the winning logo for Green Shirt Day 2025. Photo by Su-Ling Goh.
Logan Boulet of Lethbridge died in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash in 2018. His organ and tissue donations have inspired thousands to register to be donors, which is today known as the Logan Boulet Effect. Supplied.
Story & photos by Su-Ling Goh | Video by Evan Isbister
EDMONTON — Seven years ago, one selfless move by an Alberta family sparked a nationwide movement. Now Logan Boulet’s parents are unveiling a new logo and encouraging Canadians to plan organ and tissue donation awareness events for this year’s Green Shirt Day (April 7).
Logan died in the 2018 Humboldt Broncos bus crash. The 21-year-old defenseman, who had previously shared his wishes to donate, saved six people with his organ and tissue donations on April 7, 2018. Over the following weeks, he also inspired nearly 150,000 Canadians to register their own donation decision — today known as the Logan Boulet Effect.
“Green Shirt Day is the day of recognition of the day that Logan passed,” says Logan’s mother, Bernadine Boulet.
“And it’s a day where we have conversations about organ donation.… Even if you haven’t registered as a donor, but your family knows that’s something you think is important and you want to do, they can choose that for you (at the end of your life).
“(The donation discussion) is like the last wishes. It helps you as a family make that decision,” adds Toby Boulet, Logan’s father.
Logan told his parents he was registering as a donor in 2017, inspired by his fitness coach and mentor Ric Suggitt, who died that year. Suggitt’s donations also saved six lives.
Green Shirt sales help support Green Shirt Day activities, the Canadian Transplant Association and the Logan Boulet Endowment Fund. The 2025 logo, an image of Logan taking a slap shot, is the winning entry of a national competition. The artist (and registered organ and tissue donor) Geoffery Kehrig grew up in Humboldt, Saskatchewan.
“I’m inspired by Logan’s unselfish choices and his reverence and compassion for others,” says Kehrig.
The Boulets continue to encounter people who experienced the Logan Boulet Effect.
“Just to hear from people coming up to us and saying ‘I registered to be an organ donor because of Logan’s story’… We know there are so many people on the (transplant) waiting list that every time someone registers, it just gives a little bit of hope,” says Bernadine.
The family has also received anonymous letters from two of Logan’s organ recipients. Both are doing well.
“There’s a level of healing in (donation),” says Toby.
Bernadine adds: “I think that helps a little bit to know that Logan is still out there, somewhere across Canada and he’s helped people — and he’s helped their families — and it will be for generations that he’ll make a difference, because these people have been able to carry on.”
In Alberta alone, about 300 people are waiting for a life-saving transplant. In 2023, nearly 50 people on the wait-list died.
For more information and ideas for planning your Green Shirt Day events, visit GreenShirtDay.ca
To register your donation decision, visit GiveLifeAlberta.ca.
