As part of National Minority Donor Awareness Week, National Minority Donor Awareness Day is celebrated on August 1. National Minority Donor Awareness Week was created to increase awareness of the need, especially among minorities, for more organ, eye and tissue donors.
I will keep it real…before it “happened to me” in the form of my mom and aunt, and now me, I was totally anti-organ donation. There was part of me which honestly believed that if I were in an accident and could go either way, I would totes be let go and my organs harvested. Since my family’s experience with transplants I realize how silly and ignorant this sounds and while I have my suspicions of the medical community <cough, cough…y’all know why cough, cough> for the most part I need to educate myself and be open to the idea that institutions CAN change.
Currently there are candidates for transplant on the U.S. national waiting list.
Nearly 2 out of every 3 people on the waiting list are over the age of 50.
Almost 2,000 children under 18 are on the waiting list.
Almost 70,000 people (58%) on the list are ethnic minorities.
Resources:
Gift of Life has an amazing page with stats and personal testimonies.
Learn the facts and what you can do to help from organdonor.gov.
Read about my story in which I learn that *I* have kidney disease.
My aunt got a kidney!
Another plea for organ donors!
Thank you for your consideration.
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