Dear Editor:

The Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) was founded in April 1986 when residents of Bloomington, Indiana, rallied around a toddler who needed a life-saving liver transplant. In less than eight weeks, the community raised $100,000 to place the boy on the organ waiting list. But he died before an organ was found. Those community volunteers, along with his parents, turned tragedy into triumph by using those funds to help other transplant families.

For 35 years, COTA has assisted thousands of transplant families by helping to raise funds for transplant-related expenses. COTA has built extensive volunteer networks across the nation in an attempt to ensure that no child or young adult needing an organ or tissue transplant is excluded from a transplant waiting list due to lack of funds. 

We need your help today to make sure that tragedies, like the one that was the catalyst in founding COTA 35 years ago, are not repeated. 

April is National Donate Life Month. Every day 20 people die in the United States waiting for an organ transplant. One organ donor can save eight lives. Today, 110,000 people are waiting for life-saving transplants. Please go to www.RegisterMe.org and register to be a designated organ and/or tissue donor.

Sincerely,
Rick Lofgren, President,
Children’s Organ Transplant Association