Save someone else's life. Donate life, be an organ donor.
One organ and tissue donor can help as many as 50 people. One donor can keep a family together. One donor can give a child his first real, play-filled summer or make it possible for a man to take his grandkids fishing.

There is a serious shortage of donors. For some people this means waiting, sometime for years, and undergoing difficult and stressful treatment. For all too many it means they will die before a suitable organ becomes available.

More than half of the national transplant waiting list is made up of multicultural populations. That's because some organ diseases are best treated through transplantation are found more frequently in these populations. For example, African Americans and other minorities are three times more likely to suffer from end-stage renal disease than Caucasians.

Although it is possible for a candidate to match a donor from another racial or ethnic group, transplant success rates increase when organs are matched between members of the same ethnic background. Consequently, a lack of organs donated by multicultural populations can contribute to longer waiting periods for transplantation.

I urge you all to consider the thousands of lives that organ and tissue donors have saved and to consider committing to become a donor. You may save somebody’s life someday. You may give as many as 50 people a chance to stop waiting and start living again. What greater legacy can any of us leave behind? Think about that.

To learn more about how you can be a donor visit [link] or search about in your region.