To the editor:

The Children’s Organ Transplant Association was founded in April 1986, when residents of Bloomington, Ind., 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 the funds they raised to help other transplant families.

For more than three decades, COTA has assisted thousands of patients 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 a lack of funds.

Today we need your help to make sure that tragedies, like the one that was the catalyst in founding COTA, are not repeated.

April is National Donate Life Month. Every day, 22 people die waiting for an organ transplant here in the United States. One organ donor can save eight lives. While 95 percent of U.S. adults support organ donation, only 54 percent actually register as donors.

Please register today to become an organ donor by going to donatelife.net and registering to be an organ donor in your state.

You can do more. Learn how you can support a COTA family living nearby that needs your help by visiting COTA.org and clicking on the “Find a COTA Family” box at the top of the page.

Rick Lofgren

President, COTA