As Sam Marshall was losing his battle with pancreatic cancer in 2024, his sister, Nekida, left a hospital visit feeling angry and a little empty.
She felt something more needed to happen for her brother. That was when she got a call from Eversight, letting her know that Sam had the potential to be an eye donor.
“When I got that phone call, I was like, ‘This is amazing.’ There was no doubt about it, that this is what needed to be done, and not just for our benefit, but for somebody else's benefit as well,” Nekida said. “I was like, ‘Let's go, let's do it.’ So that's what we did.”
Sam was laid-back, quiet and peaceful. He spent his career in engineering technology, but his passion was for driving and working on cars.
Sam registered as an eye, organ and tissue donor long before he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It was his wish to be a donor when he received his driver’s license.
“I believe if he could have donated more organs, he would have, but the cancer was just very aggressive, and it spread to a lot of his major organs,” Nekida said. “But knowing that he agreed to be an organ donor, I wanted to be able to fulfill that part of his wish as his sister.”
When Eversight called Nekida, both she and their mother consented to the donation.
“His eyes were electrifying,” Nekida said. “Even when we transitioned him to hospice, for some reason, he just wouldn't close his eyes. He just kept his eyes open. He wanted to see everything. And then when Eversight called about it, I was like, that would be awesome for him to be a donor in that manner.”
Their mom received two letters from Sam’s cornea recipients, a man in Arizona and a woman in Pennsylvania.
“When she received the letters, she was so excited about that,” Nekida said. “It just brought her a lot of comfort and joy knowing that he was able to do something to that magnitude as far as giving.”
The importance of donation in diverse communities
To save and improve the quality of life of diverse communities, Donate Life America, in collaboration with the National Multicultural Action Group (NMAG), observes National Minority Donor Awareness Month (NMDAM) every year in August.
NMDAM aims to bring heightened awareness to donation and transplantation in multicultural communities with a primary focus on African American, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander and Native American communities through education and awareness of donation in these communities.
Nekida was a school nurse for seven years and in those years, was educated about vision care, but lacked awareness about cornea donation and transplantation.
“I've learned so much about the different types of deficiencies that people have with their vision,” she said. "I never was educated on being able to tell my students that some of the issues that people may have with their sight, there may be donors available to correct it.”
People of African American/Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Alaska Native and multiracial descent currently make up nearly 60% of people on the national organ transplant waiting list.
These communities need more multiethnic, registered donors to improve the likelihood of recipient organ and tissue matching. Donated eye tissue fortunately does not require matching in the same way because corneal tissue is avascular—it doesn’t have blood supply.
Nekida is a registered nurse and believes advocating for donation and transplantation and bringing awareness to younger communities would increase registered donors and transform more lives.
With the passing of her older brother, Nekida believes cornea donation has made his legacy that much more meaningful.
“He was married, but then he got a divorce and so he was a single man and didn't have any children,” she said. “At one point he did want to have another family and children, but that just didn't happen during his time.”
"I felt like there was something that we could do to really make his legacy more meaningful—, just something else beyond the life he lived.”
Nekida’s slogan for eye, organ and tissue donation is “just do it.”
“It's just important overall because there are so many ways that we can find joy and happiness in knowing that when our loved one passes away, there’s still a part of them that can be shared with someone outside of us losing them,” she said.
Sam was a giver until the end. His legacy was one of giving. Read Nekida’s tribute to her brother and learn more about NMDAM and what you can do to make a difference.
