Caring Causes - National Multiethnic Donor Awareness Month

August is National Multiethnic Donor Awareness Month. This national observance was initiated in 1998 as a single day to increase our nation’s consciousness of the need for more organ and tissue donors from multicultural backgrounds. In 2020, this nationwide effort was expanded to encompass the entire month of August.

National Multiethnic Donor Awareness Month honors communities of color who have been organ and tissue donors and encourages others to register as donors. It is about empowering multicultural communities to save and heal lives. Although organs are not matched according to ethnicity, and people of different races frequently match one another, individuals waiting for a transplant have a better chance of receiving an organ if there are large numbers of donors from their ethnic background. This is because compatible blood types and tissue markers (critical qualities for donor/recipient matching) are more likely to be found among members of the same ethnicity.

COTA’s Anselmo family of Miramar, Florida, knows these facts all too well. Their daughter, Savannah, was born in December 2006. Five months later, she was diagnosed with biliary atresia – a deadly liver disease with only one known cure … a liver transplant. Three days after hearing this devastating news, her father called the Children’s Organ Transplant Association to see how they might be able to help this young family whose world had literally been turned upside down.

The Children’s Organ Transplant Association is a national nonprofit with an unwavering commitment to be The Trusted Leader Supporting Families … For a Lifetime. COTA was founded in April 1986 when an Indiana family could not afford the liver transplant their toddler son needed to survive. Their family members and friends canvassed neighborhoods and county fairs to collect cash and coins to help. That first group of volunteers formed the foundation of what would grow to become COTA. Today, 40 years later, COTA is committed to helping transplant families avoid financial devastation.

COTA’s unwavering commitment … a Lifetime of Support … continues to be important to the Anselmos who have been part of the COTA family since 2007. A transplant journey is undoubtedly filled with countless ups and downs. It is indeed much like riding a roller coaster as their transplant surgeon told the Anselmos at the outset of their journey.

“COTA has been with our child her entire life. COTA has been a major constant in our family’s up and down transplant journey,” Ana and Robert said. “Being able to ride it with Savannah has been the biggest privilege for us. Deciding to take this ride with COTA many years ago was one of the best decisions we ever made.

Throughout 2026, the Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) is celebrating 40 years of its commitment to being “The Trusted Leader Supporting Families … For a Lifetime.” COTA is also celebrating four Decades of Donors -- those who make the selfless decision to become organ and tissue donors and financial contributors who have helped raised more than $160 million for transplant-related expenses. COTA was founded by one Indiana family in 1986. Today, thousands of transplant families, like the Anselmos, rely on COTA’s guidance and support, which is provided at no cost.