This year has been rough. With COVID-19, almost all events have been shut down and so the Transplant Games of America did not happen. The Class Strength Scholarship still had money that was previously fundraised so YOLT knew it had to be put to use especially considering the current events going on in the world. So YOLT co-founder Danielle reached out to our contact at Donate Life maryland to ask what the money could be put towards. Given the pandemic, everywhere was in short supply of basic PPE, so the money would be put towards that.
We took out $3000 of the Class Strength Scholarship and put it towards supplies for the Donate Life Maryland building. This building also serves as the location for tissue and eye donation, so the masks and hand sanitizers were for sure needed by the organization.
We were disappointed that we couldn’t send anyone to games, especially given the fact that we already had a transplant recipient picked out; however, given the circumstances we were honestly just happy to put the money towards anything that would help support the organ donation community. We are hoping and praying that in the future years we will be able to continuously send an organ transplant recipient to the Transplant Games of America.