Caroline’s Shiny Penny this week is a topic that recently touched me deeply. Someone I work with lost her 18 month old niece, which was incredibly sad. However, the little girl’s organs were used to save four lives. My Shiny Penny this week is organ donation..

According to the National Foundation for Transplants, over 100,000 people in the U.S. are waiting for an organ donation. Unfortunately, many may never get the call saying that a suitable donor organ — and a second chance at life — has been found. Eighteen people die every day while waiting for a transplant.

My friend’s niece was born with difficulty and died expectedly at 18 months. Once she was officially pronounced brain dead, the doctors and family made the decision to keep their baby girl’s body alive on life support to plan and successfully transplant her vital organs to others in desperate need. Both her kidneys went to a 66-year-old man, which blows my mind because I would never think an 18-month-old’s kidneys could work like that. Her heart, her intestines, and pancreas went to different four-year-old children.

Minorities are especially needed. Certain blood types are more prevalent in ethnic minority populations. Since matching blood type is usually necessary for transplants, the need for minority donor organs is high. According to the Mayo Clinic and the National Foundation for Transplants, African-Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, and Hispanics are more likely than whites to have certain chronic conditions that affect the kidney, heart, lung, pancreas and liver.

Every state has its own registry. The Donate Life Georgia Organ, Tissue and Eye Donor Registry was created in 2008 to allow Georgians an easy and user-friendly means of joining the state’s donor registry. Georgians can join the registry:

• through the website,
• when renewing their driver license online, or
• when obtaining/renewing their license at a local driver license office.

You can also join the Donor Registry by calling Donate Life Georgia directly at 1-866-57-SHARE (1-866-577-4273) to request a donor registry form. If you already have “organ donor” on your driver license, you still are encouraged to join the new registry to ensure your previous designation is documented. That is what I did. Click here to register now

Personally, I cannot think of a reason why someone would not be an organ donor. We work hard all our lives to leave a legacy through our work, philanthropy, and children. Being an organ donor is a powerful way to continue your legacy. The loss of a child is something unimaginable. My friend’s niece barely got started living but has left an incredibly inspiring legacy by her story and the four lives she has saved. I hope that you will just go ahead and click right here so that part of your legacy is to save a life.

Thank you to my daughter, Julia, who gave a talk about organ donation for her public speaking class at the Art Institute in Charleston and shared her research with me for this post.

Visit www.donateLIFEgeorgia.org for more information.