With the cost of a transplant often exceeding $500,000, many transplant patients are unable to shoulder the financial burden of such a procedure. The Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) is a national charity dedicated to organizing and guiding communities in raising funds for transplant-needy patients. In Walkertown, volunteers are raising funds for transplant patients like local teen Ashley McKnight.

Born on January 25, 1995, Ashley was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, and doctors at the University of North Carolina Hospitals in Chapel Hill perfomed a life-saving double lung transplant on November 28, 2009. An estimated $30,000 is being raised by Walkertown volunteers.