National Minority Donor Awareness Week will be celebrated to increase awareness next month in Tennessee.

The organization started in 1996 to increase awareness of the need for more organ, eye and tissue donors from ethnically diverse communities.

Currently, there are over 100,000 people on the United Network for Organ Sharing list, all in need of a lifesaving organ transplant. For example, almost 35 percent of the more than 100,000 people on the national waiting list for a kidney transplant are African-American.

National Minority Donor Awareness Week is a special observance that honors minorities who have been organ, eye and tissue donors, and it encourages others to register as donors and take better care of their health in order to reduce the number needing a transplant.