Sadly, each day, 22 men, women and children die waiting to receive a lifesaving organ transplant. Fortunately, over 650,000 lives have been saved since 1988 because of donors, many of them not biologically related to the recipient.On this episode of Family Comes First™, "Saving Lives" we meet with Cindy Somma, who decided to give the gift of life to a relative and ended up saving the life of another. Cindy shares with us her thought process when choosing to donate her kidney and how she unexpectedly ended up saving the life of a stranger.

Also joining us on this episode of Family Comes First™ is Gillian Cohen, a young woman who was given the gift of life through a liver transplant when she was just 7 years old.  She shares how this experience has inspired her to be an advocate with LiveOnNY to promote organ donation.

We also welcome Karen Cummings from LiveOnNY to share how someone can register to become a donor and how important it is to educate the community on organ donation so they too, cansave lives. Karen explains, “…one person can actually save up to 8 lives through organ donation because you can donate both kidneys, both lungs, your liver, pancreas, your heart. One person can donate up to 8 organs via transplants and enhance up to 50 lives through tissue implants.” She hopes to carry out LiveOnNY’s mission to create a culture of donation. They hope one day, it will not be unusual to discuss organ donation and there will be less of a stigma about doing so.

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Live On NY

LiveOnNY is a nonprofit, federally designated organ procurement organization (OPO) dedicated to the recovery of organs and tissue for transplant in the greater New York metropolitan area. Established in 1978, LiveOnNY is the second largest OPO in the United States, serving a culturally and ethnically diverse population of 13 million.

They work closely with 10 transplant centers and more than 90 hospitals in the region to facilitate donation. Additionally, they strive to raise awareness for organ, eye, and tissue donation and transplantation, educate the public, and encourage residents to enroll in the New York State Donate Life Registry.