Introduction

Donate Life’s Every Community Has Opportunity (ECHO) is a national observance that encourages social media and community storytelling centered around donation education in multicultural communities throughout the U.S. Donate Life America (DLA) and the Association for Multicultural Affairs in Transplantation (AMAT) created Donate Life ECHO to focus on the importance of donation and transplantation in multicultural communities. Multicultural communities nationwide are disproportionately in need of lifesaving organ transplants, especially kidneys. Currently 58% of the U.S. transplant waiting list is comprised of multicultural patients. ECHO . . .

Currently, there are 116,000+ men, women and children waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant in the U.S.  Every day 22 people die waiting with someone new added to the organ donor list every 10 minutes. One of those is Courtney, and this is her story. My name is Courtney Thompson, I’m 23 years old and on the waiting list for a double lung transplant. I have Cystic Fibrosis, a progressive genetic lung disease, and to beat it I’ll need a . . .

I’m going to die… One day, hopefully not anytime soon. When I do, I hope I have the opportunity to be an organ, eye and tissue donor. This is exactly what I’ve been telling people when they ask me about my job. Now that I’ve gotten you to read this far, let me introduce myself. My name is Crysta and I work for Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA) as a Community Educator. The past 6 months have been nothing short . . .