By BETH PARKER/myfoxdc
WASHINGTON, D.C. - If you have a little red heart on your driver's license, it means you're an organ donor. April is National Donate Life month. Advocates for organ donation are turning to new tools to try and boost the number of donors, and if anyone can convince you, it's the people you'll meet online.
Four-year-old Kenzie Clifford never had a chance to meet her big sister. Kylie Clifford died of SIDS when she was just three months old. Her parents got the call asking if they would donate Kylie's organs.
"We didn't hesitate. We just looked at each other and we said, 'How can we not? How can we not give another family an opportunity to be with their baby? There is nothing we can do. We cannot get her back,'" said Kat Clifford.
But the decision is not as straightforward for some people.
"Over 106,000 people are waiting for an organ transplant in the United States and 18 of them die every day because of lack of organs available for transplant. The number of people-- especially in this area-- who are registered to be donors is so low," said John Ogden of the Washington Regional Transplant Community.
The percentage of people registered as organ donors in Virginia is almost twice as great as it is right across the river in D.C. But now there's a new campaign designed to change that and boost organ donation all over the country.
WRTC has launched a 30-day video campaign on YouTube . They are stories of organ donors and recipients.
Bobbie Leahey's is one of those stories. Leahey received a kidney transplant in 2006. She's still friends with her donor's husband.
"I knew that I'd been given the gift of life because I felt so good. You really have a special feeling with transplant and you appreciate things that you didn't appreciate before, that you took for granted, so I'm blessed," said Leahey.
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Over half of the 106,000 Americans on the national transplant waiting list will die before they get a transplant. Most of these deaths are needless. Americans bury or cremate about 20,000 transplantable organs every year. Over 9,000 of our neighbors suffer and die needlessly every year as a result.
There is a simple way to put a big dent in the organ shortage -- give organs first to people who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die.
Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. People who aren't willing to share the gift of life should go to the back of the waiting list as long as there is a shortage of organs.
Anyone who wants to donate their organs to others who have agreed to donate theirs can join LifeSharers. LifeSharers is a non-profit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die. Membership is free at www.lifesharers.org or by calling 1-888-ORGAN88. There is no age limit, parents can enroll their minor children, and no one is excluded due to any pre-existing medical condition.
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