The fight to increase the number of organ donors in New York just got $5,000 stronger.
On Thursday, Westbury’s Rallye BMW dealership presented Donate Life, a non-profit that works to raise awareness of the importance of organ donation, with a check to further fund their efforts to raise the state’s number of registered donors through the month of April, which is recognized as a national organ donation month.
“Our mission is to make sure that the thousands of New Yorkers who are waiting for a transplant receive one,” said Aisha Tator, the president and executive director of the state’s chapter of Donate Life, who emphasized that the funds would go directly to increasing outreach and organ donation registration.
According to Donate Life, there are currently 7,917 patients in the state awaiting a transplant. Roughly 10% of the National Organ Transplant Waiting List is made up of New Yorkers and almost 500 New Yorkers die a year waiting for a transplant, according to the state Department of Health.
Despite having one of the country’s highest needs for transplants, only 51.2% of eligible New Yorkers – and 47% of eligible Nassau residents – are registered to donate organs, making the state 50th out of the country’s 52 states and territories for registered donors
Tator said her organization was using car dealerships across Long Island to promote April organ donation registration because of their reputation as pillars in their local community, constant interaction with the public, and the fact that people can register to become donors when registering a vehicle.
“These types of partnerships are building inertia to help us raise awareness,” Tator said. “I believe New Yorkers are more than willing to do this. They just don’t know that we have a public health crisis. They don’t know that people are dying, that we’re losing more than 400 New Yorkers every year because the transplants didn’t come in soon enough. This type of thing helps them know that, and that there’s something they can do about it.”
Read more: North Hempstead raises awareness for organ donation
Juliana Terian, president and CEO of Rallye Motor Company, said she decided to partner with Donate Life after learning that some of her employees were organ donor recipients.
“I immediately partnered with them to try to get the message out,” Terian said, who added that customers can register to become organ donors at all four of her dealerships, which include the Rallye Mercedes, BMW, Lexus and Acura locations. “We have to do what we can to raise awareness.”
Elected officials, including North Hempstead Town Supervisor Jennifer DeSena and Oyster Bay Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino, also came out to support the cause on Thursday at Rallye, encouraging their constituents to become organ donors this April.
Each organ donor can save up to eight lives and every tissue donor can save dozens more. Any New Yorker over 16 years old can register to be a donor online at no cost at https://donatelife.ny.gov/register, at the Department of Motor Vehicles, while registering to vote or at Rallye’s Nassau BMW, Lexus, Mercedes and Acura dealerships.
