To the editor:

The Children’s Organ Transplant Association was founded in April 1986 when Bloomington, Indiana, residents rallied around a toddler who needed a liver transplant. In less than eight weeks, the community raised more than $100,000 to place the boy on the organ waiting list. But he died before an organ was found. Those community volunteers and his parents turned tragedy into triumph by using the funds to help others.

For more than 35 years, COTA has assisted thousands of families by helping to raise funds for a lifetime of transplant-related expenses. We have built extensive volunteer networks across the nation in an attempt to ensure no child or young adult needing an organ or tissue transplant is excluded from a transplant waiting list due to lack of funds.

We need your help today to make sure that tragedies, like the one that was the catalyst in our founding, are not repeated.

April is National Donate Life Month. The U.S. achieved a historic milestone in 2022 with 1 million transplants performed; however, every day, 17 people die in this country waiting for an organ transplant. Another person is added to the nation’s organ transplant waiting list every 9 minutes. One organ donor can save eight lives. Please go to registerme.org and register to be a designated organ and/or tissue donor.

Rick Lofgren, president of the Children’s Organ Transplant Association, Bloomington