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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 . . .

Last month, one of our beloved Ambassadors, Alyssa LaRosa, passed away. She was stylish, thoughtful and had a social media presence that was unparalleled. Every chance she could, she was promoting the mission of organ donation and encouraging/educating others to become registered donors. She was a registered donor, then became a tissue and cornea donor at her passing. She thought of it as a way to pay it forward. Alyssa’s brother, Tré, wanted to share his thoughts on his sister and . . .

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 . . .

August 2, 2014 – Our journey began! While on reserve duty at Ft Knox, KY I had an unstoppable coughing event, so I went to Ireland Army Hospital where I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. I went through several procedures to try and avoid a transplant, but none were effective enough. June 19, 2015- The decision was made to try to keep me healthy enough to get a heart transplant. I entered the hospital on September 4, 2015 (Friday . . .

August 2, 2014 – Our journey began! While on reserve duty at Ft Knox, KY I had an unstoppable coughing event, so I went to Ireland Army Hospital where I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. I went through several procedures to try and avoid a transplant, but none were effective enough. June 19, 2015- The decision was made to try to keep me healthy enough to get a heart transplant. I entered the hospital on September 4, 2015 (Friday . . .

It’s been awhile since we’ve posted, but this letter from one of our wonderful Donate Life Ambassadors celebrating their donor is too good not to share on this holiday celebrating love. Dear Valentine in Heaven, I look at this picture and see silly handshakes, goofy dance moves, a shared love of Rocky and cheese curls, and inside jokes that I will never understand. But, I also see a side to each of them that wouldn’t exist without the other. I . . .

Sorry for the reminder, but it’s almost holiday season in my world. I can’t even fathom how that’s happened so quickly! 61 days until Halloween (if you needed another reminder of how quick the year is going) We had a wonderful picnic in Lexington at Jacobson Park last week where Ambassadors experienced a whole lot of love and friendship. Here’s a Facebook post from a recipient family on how special it was. Tonight we attended a picnic surrounded by fellow . . .

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 . . .

Hello readers and welcome aboard. We are very excited to launch our new Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA) website to the public. This new website will be used to help educate the public about KODA and our very important mission. KODA’s mission which is to provide organ and tissues to those in need and to maintain a profound respect for those who gave.  KODA is dedicated to saving lives through organ and tissue donation and transplantation. KODA was formed to establish a statewide educational . . .