National Donate Life Month

April is National Donate Life Month, an effort drive individuals, organizations and communities to increase the number of designated organ, eye and tissue donors who save and heal lives.

There are nearly 124,000 people in the United States right now in need of an organ donor. According to the National Kidney Foundation, about 100,000 of them need kidneys

For those people, the average time that will be spent waiting for a donor is between five and seven years.

And just one kidney can make huge difference, especially when it comes to paired kidney exchanges, programs that allow willing donors to give a kidney to someone other than their loved one, in exchange for another kidney for their loved one.
“You may not be a match for your spouse. But you may be a match for somebody else. And somebody else may be a match for your spouse or your loved one, your mother, your brother, your child, whoever. So that one donation could save the lives of many, many people,” says Nicole Scharf, of the National Kidney Foundation, Maryland Chapter.

The Kidney Foundation has a big walk coming up on May 3rd. It will be held at 10 a.m. at Winterplace Park in Salisbury. Check-in is at 9 a.m. 47 ABC Meteorologist Daniel Johnson will emcee the event. You can donate ahead of the event here.