Charlotte Ottley learned last year her kidney was failing. On Sunday afternoon, she shared about her journey as one of 113,000 people nationwide waiting for a lifesaving transplant at the Urban Expo, hosted by the Urban League of St. Louis at America’s Center.  

Charlotte spoke about organ and tissue donation on the main stage during a break in the headlining gospel concert. Mid-America Transplant Community Outreach Coordinator, Rev. Anthony McPherson concluded the break with statistics, information and a call to join the organ and tissue donor registry at SayYesGiveLife.Org.

Charlotte told the crowd about what it is like waiting for a transplant. “I wear pants because my legs are scarred,” she said. “I wear sleeves because I’ve had needles in my arms because of dialysis. But through it all, God has dispatched angels to me to pray and lift me up.”

Her inspiring words concluded with a message about her never-quit attitude and her drive to ask others to make a difference. She encouraged the audience to make a difference in the lives of the 1,200 people waiting for a lifesaving transplant in St. Louis.

Mid-America Transplant proudly hosted a registry drive during the two-day Urban Expo event, reaching thousands of people with the inspiring message of organ and tissue donation.

There continues to be a critical shortage of donated organs in the United States among all races and ethnicities. However, minorities wait twice as long for transplants, and they continue to have a disproportionately higher incidence of diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease, all of which lead to organ failure, especially kidney failure.

National Minority Donor Awareness Week is an important effort to promote the positive messages that are necessary for the minority community to become organ and tissue donors as about 22 people die each day awaiting a transplant due to the donor shortage. The waiting list currently stands at more than 113,000 with more than 60% representing ethnic minorities.

In partnership with the Association for Multicultural Affairs in Transplantation, the 2019 National Minority Donor Awareness Week Toolkit is now available to everyone as we increase the visibility for this important cause. For resources and more information, click here.

For interview opportunities with Mid-America Transplant, contact:
Justin Phelps
314-735-8467

Mid-America Transplant unveiled its new Eye Bank, call center, and clinical office space on Wednesday with a ribbon cutting. The new work spaces are designed to improve the overall function in the organization's pursuit to make organs and tissues available to all in need.

“This is an exciting day,” said Diane Brockmeier, CEO and President of Mid-America Transplant. “It’s a beautiful space. More importantly, we’re confident this will continue to help us fulfill our mission to save lives through organ and tissue donation.”

Donor Services is Mid-America Transplant’s 24/7 call center, open 365 days per year. It fields 135,000 calls annually to identify potential donors and offer the gift of tissue donation to thousands of families.

Mid-America Transplant’s Eye Bank processes corneas for vision-saving transplants. In 2018, more than 1,100 corneas were made available for transplant.

The tissue recovery teams at Mid-America Transplant facilitated tissue donation with nearly 2,000 donors in 2018. The gifts of heart valves, skin, bone, veins and nerves from donors last year could help more than 99,000 people.

Celebrated July 14-27, 2019, ECHO Donate Life is an annual initiative focused on reaching multicultural communities with the Donate Life message. Currently, multicultural patients make up a majority of the patients waiting on the national transplant waiting list.

ECHO Donate Life is about community helping community to save and heal lives. Lifesaving conversations are best heard from trusted sources and communities. The goal of ECHO Donate Life is to provide multicultural communities with meaningful tools and resources to support conversations about the importance of donation and transplantation, and how to register your decision to be an organ, eye and tissue donor.

The ECHO Donate Life initiative engages trusted social media and community storytelling to talk about donation, highlights the importance of registering to be an organ, eye and tissue donor, honors the generosity of donors and donor families, and celebrates the lives saved in multicultural communities.

"Donation is the one thing that has the power to level the playing field in all communities, regardless of color, race, or religion. It's about every community helping every community through organ, eye, and tissue donation. Donation, in all its forms, in all its communities, has the opportunity to change and save lives," says Marion Shuck, President Elect of the Association of Multicultural Affairs in Transplantation (AMAT).

This year, ECHO Donate Life resources and outreach include:

• Walgreens ECHO Donate Life In-Store Events: On Saturday, July 20, 9am-3pm, Walgreens will be hosting donor registration drives at more than 170 stores across the country. Walgreens has been an incredible national partner in ECHO Donate Life. Walgreens support has helped to bring resources and information about the cause of donation into hundreds of communities. In St. Louis, six stores are participating in this national event, including locations at:
  • 4140 South Broadway
  • 12098 Lusher Road
  • 2202 Chambers Road
  • 7199 Natural Bridge Road
  • 3720 North Kingshighway Boulevard
  • 1400 North Grand Boulevard

• Resources: ECHO Donate Life resources and information (flyers, takeaway cards, web banners, social media graphics, videos) are available to the public for download at DonateLife.net/echo. Resources are available in English, Spanish and additional languages. Use the power of your voice to help build community by sharing your decision to register with family, friends, neighbors and coworkers. Encourage them to ECHO you and Donate Life.

• Boomerang #ECHODonateLife Challenge: DLA and AMAT are excited to host the second year of the Instagram Boomerang #ECHODonateLife Challenge. Individuals and communities share a Boomerang video on Instagram about why donation is important to them and/or what transplantation has made possible for them. Tag @donatelifeamerica, use the hashtag #ECHODonateLife Challenge and encourage people to ECHO you and register their decision to be a donor.

You can register your decision to be an organ, eye and tissue donor in the National Donate Life Registry at SayYesGiveLife.Org or in your iPhone Health App.

Data from Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) as of April 2019.

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About Mid-America Transplant
For 45 years, Mid-America Transplant has facilitated and coordinated organ and tissue donation, and now serves 84 counties covering eastern Missouri, southern Illinois and northeast Arkansas that together are home to 4.7 million people. It saves lives by providing expert and compassionate care for organ donors, donor families, and recipients, and transforms the clinical processes required to recover and transplant organs and tissues. Mid-America Transplant is federally designated as one of 58 such organizations in the U.S. and is the first organ and tissue procurement organization to be recognized as a recipient of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence. For more information, visit www.midamericatransplant.org. 

About the Association of Multicultural Affairs in Transplantation (AMAT)
AMAT was established in 1992 to address the increasing need for organ, eye and tissue donors in the multicultural communities, while simultaneously offering support, shared expertise and professional development opportunities for its members as they save and heal lives. AMAT is a self-sustaining, self-governed organization operating solely on voluntary contributions from individuals, corporations, and other affiliated organizations.

About Donate Life America (DLA)
Donate Life America is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization leading its national partners and Donate Life State Teams to increase the number of donated organs, eyes and tissues available to save and heal lives through transplantation while developing a culture where donation is embraced as a fundamental human responsibility. DLA manages and promotes Donate Life℠, the national brand for the cause of donation; motivates the public to register as organ, eye and tissue donors; provides education about living donation; manages the National Donate Life Registry at RegisterMe.org; and develops and executes effective multi-media campaigns to promote donation. For more information, please visit, DonateLife.net.

More than 4,500 people participated in an on-field parade around the warning track at Busch Stadium on Sunday for Transplant Awareness Day with the St. Louis Cardinals. Donor families, transplant recipients and patients waiting honored donors with the trek around the track, holding signs and banners. Representatives with the St. Louis Cardinals said this is the largest attendance for an on-field parade.

Fans with a theme ticket to the game sponsored by Barnes-Jewish Hospital received a special Donate Life-themed St. Louis Cardinals hat. The black hat incorporated the Donate Life shades of blue and green into the Cardinal bird logo.

An unexpected meeting between a donor family and recipient has also made national news. Watch the inspiring video here.

For more photos, visit our Facebook page album from the event.

“The new website will help us continue our mission to save lives through excellence in organ and tissue donation,” says Diane Brockmeier, Mid-America Transplant President and CEO. “We are always looking for ways to enhance our support for donor families, improve our resources for transplant patients and our partners, and further educate the community on the importance of joining the donor registry. This website empowers us to do all of those things in an accessible, inspiring way.”

Below, we’ve highlighted a few of the site’s exciting new features.

Explore What We Do

As an organization, we are committed to building trust and transparency in our community. We invite you to take an inside look at what we do each day to further our lifesaving mission, from the state-of-the-art ICU and tissue area where we facilitate donation to the resources and support we provide for families across our region who are coping with the loss of a loved one.
Learn More

Gage Coble always looked to help others as a classmate, coach, friend. As a musician, he grew out his hair, not to look like a rock star, but to donate to cancer patients through Locks of Love. As a friend, he would sometimes ask for extra lunch money for classmates who didn’t have lunch.

When Gage died in 2017 at 15-years-old, his giving nature made organ and tissue donation a natural decision for his family. On Tuesday night in front of 5,000 people, Gage’s father, Dave, threw out the first pitch before Missouri State’s baseball game in the second year of Mid-America Transplant's Green Up Game series. 

“When a family goes through what we went through, sometimes it’s dark; sometimes it’s lonely,” Dave said. “To have the opportunity to come out for an event like this really reminds us of how important the impact is from the decisions we made.”

With about 50 people – representing donor families and transplant recipients – standing in a semicircle between first and third bases behind the mound, Dave tossed a strike. “I think he would have been proud I threw a strike,” Dave said of Gage. “I think he would have been overwhelmed by the number of families and the numbers of people helped through this program.”

Gage's gifts are inspiring. He saved six lives through organ donation, gave the gift of sight to two people, and helped countless more through tissue donation.

#liveforbraeden

Braeden Sconce’s family and friends were among the crowd surrounding Dave for the first pitch. Braeden’s family attended to honor the 19-year-old who helped 24 people in 23 locations in the United States and South America as an organ and tissue donor.  

“He was a passionate organ donor,” said Shelly Sconce, Braeden’s mother. “He signed up, without question, when he got his license. And always advocating for it, so it was very natural for us to donate.”

Braeden was in a car accident on Highway 5 near Lebanon, Mo. in 2018. He was in the hospital for 23 days after the accident.

The family wore green shirts Tuesday, inscribed with #liveforbraeden and the Bible verse he lived by: Galatians 6:9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

“For 23 days, we thought his harvest was going to be recovering from the injury and preserving,” Shelly said. “But he had a different story. God had different plans, and his perseverance and his harvest is in the lives of 24 other people and everyone that he came into contact with.”

The twinkle of light from hundreds of candles filled Kirkwood Baptist Church Thursday night.  Lifted in honor of organ and tissue donors, the candles represented the shared light of hope given through the selfless and heroic act of organ and tissue donation.

A pause gave a moment to remember each of the 73 donors represented by family and friends attending the St. Louis Candlelight Memorial Ceremony, honoring donors who gave the Gift of Life in 2018.

Donors like Marnell Williams, who gave the Gift of Life in October 2018. His wife of 47 years, Arlena Williams, attend with family to honor his memory. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” she said. “He cared about everybody. It’s just touching.”

Marnell enjoyed fixing cars, TVs and other things. He was a supervisor for the St. Louis City Parks Department. “He was a beautiful person, inside and out,” Arlena said. “A comical guy, clever, witty. Always kept you laughing. A good father, a good husband. Everybody loved him.”

Tanya Wilkerson attended in memory of her brother, Tony, who was a donor in February of 2019 after a battle with muscular dystrophy. “He was so full of life, and always a fighter,” Tanya said. “He was always so giving in nature. I loved him. He was amazing and resilient and so strong. This is one more way we can continue to share his legacy, one more way to honor him.”

In the front corner of the church sanctuary, five brightly lit Trees of Life adorned with leaves inscribed with the names of each donor – like Marnell and Tony – represented at the event. In addition, hundreds of small candles, shined bright at the front of the church in honor of those who have given new life and hope to others.

The 337 people in attendance heard from Nikki Love-McIntyre, a kidney-pancreas recipient from SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital. “I’m sure I speak for all recipients of organs and tissue when I say that your loved ones have saved lives, they have enhanced people’s lives, they have given them their lives back,” she said. “I honor them tonight, for making that decision, because it is the most selfless decision that a person can make, to save a life of another. God bless you.”

Nikki received a lifesaving transplant in October of 2015. “I was able to get my health back, my life back,” she said. “Transplant literally saved my life.” 

Nikki told the audience of an important life moment she was able to experience because a hero like their loved one gave her a second chance. “Four months after transplant, I met my soulmate, Ryan. We were married in July of 2017. I strongly believe that would not have happened if I had not had a transplant.”

For Nikki, she was grateful for the opportunity to say thank you. “To just be able to show honor to not only my donor, but to other donors,” she said. “It’s just an unselfish act, and they’ve saved lives. They deserved this time.”

Kristie Grote, mother of 13-year-old, three-time liver recipient Megan, spoke of her daughter’s transplant journey with St. Louis Children’s Hospital. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t thank each of Megan’s donors,” Kristie told the audience. “She’s accepted three livers that were not her own, and to look at her now, she doesn’t look like she’s gone through anything medical. That’s the gift we received. We’re thankful and grateful to be given the memories, and to be able to take her places and make more memories.”

Because of transplant, Megan was able to go to school, dance, celebrate birthdays, play softball and make friends. “The beautiful part about transplants is that it brings so many people together,” Kristie said. “It really shows the comradery of knowing that we’re all there for each other.  We’ve met recipient families and many donor families over the years, and it’s amazing how we’ve become this group that loves and supports each other.”

Several other recipients attended in honor of their heroic donor. Doug Jones is a lung recipient, who was able to walk both of his daughters down the aisle at their wedding. Anthony Wiggins, a kidney recipient, is thankful for the opportunity to meet his first grandchild, born in January 2019. Bill Wiese is a bone recipient, thankful for walks through the zoo with his grandchildren. And Zachary Broeker is a 3-year-old heart recipient, thankful for playtime with his big brothers.

“We are beyond thankful,” Zachary’s mother, Amanda said. “I could never thank his donor’s family enough.”

Shortly after Amber Kaufmann saved three lives through organ and tissue donation as a 16-year-old, her high school bowling team hosted an event for a scholarship in her honor. They asked Amber’s mom, Teri Slusher, to throw the ceremonial first ball.

“I went out to throw the ceremonial first bowling ball, and they gave me this little bowling ball,” Teri said. “I threw it out and it went right into the gutter. She would have thought that was hilarious and given me all kinds of trouble about it. She would have teased me forever.”

Amber would have been proud of her mom on Saturday. Teri opened the 2019 Green Up Games with the ceremonial first pitch – over the plate -- at Southern Illinois University’s softball game at Charlotte West Stadium in Carbondale. With her husband by her side, patting her back, Teri honored Amber’s life and legacy.  “She would be thrilled to be getting all of this attention,” Teri said. “She would be smiling from ear to ear, loving every bit of it.”

Amber was an honor student at Scott City High School. She played softball and volleyball, bowled, and was a student helper for the girls’ basketball team. She also was on the track team, participating in discus and shotput. She enjoyed music and played in band. She talked about joining the military like her sister Erika and brother Todd. In 2008, Amber saved three lives as an organ donor. She gave the gift of sight to two people and helped countless more through tissue donation.

Teri only hoped her mother could have been in the pitcher’s circle too. “My mom passed in 2014, and for her to be a part of this would have been really cool. She was an avid sports fan,” Teri said.

Before the first pitch, 30 people – representing donor families and transplant recipients – stepped onto the field for a moment of silence in honor of those who have given the Gift of Life and in support of the 114,000 people waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant today.

With nearly 114,000 people waiting for a lifesaving transplant, we at Mid-America Transplant are inspired by those who give hope to transplant patients. We’re inspired by every day moments. We’re inspired by moments that matter. We are inspired by life.

For those 114,000 people waiting, you can provide hope, and you can inspire others to provide hope. Here are five ways you can inspire.

1. Register to Be A Donor. This simple act – this heroic decision – lets those waiting for a lifesaving transplant know that people are willing to help them. And registration takes less than one minute. That’s one minute to give hope to 114,000 people today. Click here to join the organ and tissue donor registry.
2. Talk to Your Family. After you’ve joined the registry, be sure to tell your family. Let them know of your wishes so they know how important this decision is to you.
3. Join Our Social Media Community. Ninety-five percent of Americans support organ donation, but only 58 percent are registered. By joining our social media, you’ll have the latest inspiring pictures, videos, and stories to share with your family and friends. Get involved by spreading the word! We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn!
4. Take Your Decision On The Road. More than 95 percent of people on the registry joined at a license office. In Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas – the three states in Mid-America Transplant’s service area – residents can include a special symbol on their driver’s license designating their decision. You can also order Donate Life specialty plates in those three states! You may inspire someone to be a donor in the parking lot at the grocery store!
5. Share Your Story. Whether you’re a patient waiting for a transplant, a transplant recipient, a donor family, a living donor, or family and friends of transplant patients, you can share how organ and tissue donation and transplantation have touched your life. Click here to share your story on our website, and we may select your story to be featured on our social media channels!

There it is! Five ways you can inspire others and provide hope to nearly 114,000 transplant patients waiting for a lifesaving gift.