Gala dinner for children’s transplants in Armenia

· August 20, 2026

Glendale — The World Children’s Transplant Fund (WCTF) will hold a gala dinner to raise funds for the Arabkir Medical Center – Institute of Child and Adolescent Health to continue and expand its various transplant operations for the children in Armenia.

The banquet will be held at the THE RESERVE, 1411 Railroad St., Glendale, CA, in September 30, at 6 pm.

The first kidney transplant to a child with chronic renal failure was performed at ARABKIR Medical Center in May 1991, after the devastating earthquake in Armenia (December 1988), by performing hemodialysis on patients with renal failure.

In recent years, a pediatric liver transplantation program has been established, further strengthening our capacity to provide complex transplant care to children.

At present, the transplantation programs rely exclusively on living donors. It is now essential to take the next step in the development of transplantation in Armenia by establishing and advancing a deceased-donor

(cadaveric) transplantation program. This will require coordinated efforts to strengthen clinical expertise, organ donation and procurement systems, and the relevant legal and regulatory mechanisms.

Expanding pediatric transplant services in Armenia will save children’s lives, reduce catastrophic costs for families, and build sustainable local surgical and postoperative capacity while establishing the foundation for a national organ‑donation system.

The planned training, technological modernization, and family support will produce lasting, system‑wide improvements in child health and will catalyze the revival of Armenia’s entire transplant sector—enhancing

surgical standards, diagnostic capacity, donor systems, and postoperative care—which is urgently needed given the current fragile state of national services.

Mark A. Kroeker is the Founder and Chairman of the WCTF.

Individual tickets for the gala are $250 per person. Sponsorships range from $1,000 to $50,000. Contact Louise Gill for further details: louise77119@gmail.com.