National Minority Donor Awareness Week – August 1-7, 2025

History of National Minority Donor Awareness Week

Organ donation is a scientific process involving the surgical removal of an organ or tissue from one person — the donor — and transplanting it into another person — the recipient. The individual who gives away their organ is known as an organ donor. All the process requires then is a matching blood type, organ size, and tissue type. As a consequence of increased disease across the world, the number of people requiring transplants has also increased. In turn, this has resulted in a long waiting list for several transplants, and many people die before they find a donor. Tragically, in the U.S, the amount of people on the waiting list comprises more minority communities. National Minority Donor Awareness Week was initiated to encourage multicultural individuals to become donors and to save the lives of people regardless of race.

While organ donation is commonplace in modern times, it took doctors centuries of experimentation to reach the stage we are at today. For example, there are myths and stories hailing from ancient Greek, Roman, and Chinese times that tell of animal transplants that were performed by gods and healers. In fact, in 800 B.C., Indian doctors began replacing skin from one part of the body to another to repair wounds and burns. In the 16th century, research went a step further and Italian surgeon Gasparo Tagliacozzi became known as the father of plastic surgery. He would reconstruct noses and ears using skin from the arms of patients. He also discovered that skin from different donors could be rejected by the recipient, causing the procedure to fail. By the 20th century, scientists began experimentation on organ transplants such as kidneys, livers, hearts, pancreas, intestines, and lungs.