Right now, there are 4.500 Canadians waiting, like Eugene did, for a life-saving organ transplant. Sadly, 260 of those people will die this year because an organ won’t come in time. They will die in a country with access to transplant surgical procedures that are proven to be highly effective, with some of the best surgeons and health care facilities in the world. Those 260 people – that’s one every 33 hours - will die because not enough organs are available for transplant. We hope to change that, and we hope you will help us.

For years, advocates have been asking Canadians to register as organ donors. Yet, deceased donor registration rates in Canada still fall below those of other countries like Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom. More importantly, the stagnant supply of organs in Canada falls well below the growing demand caused by organ failure. A significant majority of people support organ donation, yet few are registered. We need action – we need to convince Canadians to stop putting it off and register.

We are doing a few things to try to inspire people to register – now! We are strong believers in YOUTH. We believe that youth have the passion and the cultural connection to help us inspire action. If we educate youth on what it really means to be an organ donor, they are empowered to both ACT and ADVOCATE. We are thrilled to have been a part of WE Day in Ottawa in November 2017 and we look forward to extending our reach to other WE Days in 2018.

We are also thrilled to join in partnership with the University of Toronto Transplant Initiative (UTTI) and support them as they deliver their High School Outreach Program, delivering in class sessions on transplantation for youth in Toronto. Our goal is to work with UTTI and take that curriculum and make it available to youth across Canada.

Beyond youth, we are strong believers in the power of competition. Let’s find a way to appeal to that uniquely Canadian sense of generous competition and get people registered as organ donors. We appeal to large organizations and institutions to inspire their constituents to register. Inform your workforce, your student base on what it really means to leave your organs after you die, then challenge another organization to see who can get the most registrations in a month, we’d love to help you do that.

Finally, beyond working to increase the number of organs available through registration, we aim to make more organs available by helping with living donor outreach. A longer term goal for us, we know that the system can be disconnected and, at times, overwhelmed. Living donor rates in Canada are declining and that is of great concern to us. We are working to help consolidate the incredible knowledge that currently exists across Canada and share it with people in search of the tools and information necessary to make a plea for a living donor. We are a small but mighty group of individuals, all passionate about saving lives and ending the wait. We work hard not to duplicate the good work of our partners in the transplant community but we hope to disrupt the status-quo. We hope you will help us.