Millions of Pennies Help Save Kids’ Lives.
Arizona Couple Commit to Helping Others
After Son’s Transplant
Today, Jodi Sornsin is a typical working mother living in Tempe, Arizona, with two teenagers who keep her running in many directions at the same time. But 14 years ago she was a mother who was facing a terrible reality – her baby boy was going to die unless he received a liver transplant.
And if that news wasn’t devastating enough, Jodi and her husband were being questioned almost daily by the hospital’s financial staff about how they were going to pay hospital costs not covered by their insurance.
Jodi’s son, Ben, had a normal first year of life. Big grinned and mischievous, the baby was loved by all. But literally overnight, Ben went from healthy to comatose when he developed a virus in his liver.
| “Even though Ben is a healthy teenager who is many years post transplant, he and his family continue to work to make sure other kids get a second chance at life." |
“In just two weeks’ time, our lives went from the normal everyday things to sitting at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center waiting for Ben to get a life-saving liver transplant,” said Jodi Sornsin. “As we were sitting there waiting for a liver, the financial staff started asking us how we were going to pay for the transplant.”
The price tag for Ben’s liver transplant was $450,000 and the Sornsin’s had $100,000 of insurance to cover transplant costs.
Jodi remembers, “Our first visit to the finance office was a little scary and our first thought was, ‘Are they going to make us leave?’ Ben was upstairs in very critical condition and needed a liver. We needed a way to assure the hospital that we could pay for it.”
Desperately needing a transplant miracle, friends of the family started doing research and told the Sornsin’s about the Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA). Jodi called COTA and received the paperwork, which was the first step of the fundraising program that would ultimately help them pay transplant-related expenses.
“That’s when the miracle happened … the hospital’s financial officer never called again because they had been assured by COTA that transplant expenses would be paid,” said Jodi. “That was such a relief to us. We could concentrate all of our energy on getting Ben well so we could take him home to play with his sister, Amanda, again.”
“We left the hospital knowing that we still had lots of work ahead of us, but with COTA’s guidance and support, our friends, relatives and people we didn’t even know, helped raise $135,000 in nine months’ time. If we hadn’t found COTA, we likely would have had to file for bankruptcy protection.”
Once Ben was home and recovering, and once the bills had been paid, Jodi Sornsin decided that she and her family needed to take action and give back to COTA, and to other Southwest families who were facing similar transplant crises.
Jodi’s first effort was helping with activities sponsored by COTA in the Phoenix area. Then she approached her employer, Great Impact, a promotional company. Jodi suggested producing green (the color associated with organ donor awareness) wristbands and green car magnets at a discounted price and make these items available to all COTA patient campaigns to use as a fundraising tool. Jodi’s boss wholeheartedly agreed and today, the company has produced more than 100,000 wristbands and 10,000 car magnets for COTA. According to Jodi, “It’s such a small way for me to give back after everything so many people did for us.”
Ben’s dad, Tom Sornsin, has also made a difference for other COTA families. His employer, Hunter Contracting, holds an annual golf tournament and one third of the proceeds are donated to COTA each year. Last year alone, the golf tournament raised $20,000 for COTA; with a total of $78,000 raised to help COTA kids over the past few years. According to Tom, “The owner of my company, Mrs. Marian Taddai, decided that COTA should be one of our tournament’s annual recipients after she saw how much COTA helped our family.”
Jodi and Tom Sornsin have turned their deep-seated gratitude into life-saving action. “No one would ever guess that my handsome, athletic, six plus-foot-tall son, had a life-saving transplant,” said Jodi. “Today, all these years later, Ben’s daily anti-rejection medication is our only real reminder of how his life started out.”
According to Rick Lofgren, COTA’s President, “Even though Ben is a healthy teenager who is many years post transplant, he and his family continue to work to make sure other kids get a second chance at life. I have met with the Sornsin family on numerous occasions and I am always struck by their commitment to helping others. They are the perfect example of how one person, one family actually, can raise money for other kids awaiting transplant while raising the collective consciousness about the need for organ donors.”
Millions of pennies help save kids’ lives. One transplant-needy baby + One grateful mother + 100,000 wristbands + 10,000 magnets = More than $100,000 raised to help children.