When Naomi S. DeBerry learned her father, Jarvis DeBerry, needed a kidney transplant, she was only 6 years old. At that young age, she found it difficult to understand everything going on with her dad\u2019s medical diagnosis. So after a coordinator at the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency suggested Naomi\u2019s experience might make a great topic for a children\u2019s book, Naomi decided to pursue the idea with the help of her parents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By writing My Daddy Needs a Gift, her 2024 semi-autobiographical story of a little Black girl spreading the word about organ transplantation, Naomi says she wanted to help make sure other kids whose loved ones are in the midst of similar health journeys don\u2019t feel the same fear and confusion she once did. \u201cShe was involved from front to back,\u201d Naomi\u2019s mom, Kelly Harris-DeBerry, says of Naomi\u2019s work on the book. \u201cShe wanted [book Naomi] to look like she did when it was happening. She picked the color scheme. She would work with the illustrator\u2026She was really there for the whole process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, six years later, 12-year-old Naomi, whose father received his \u201cgift of life\u201d when a cousin donated a kidney, is busy sharing her family\u2019s story and continuing to advocate for organ donation at a variety of speaking engagements, including educational conferences, bookstore signings, and an appearance on The Tamron Hall Show. Her life goal is to one day become a transplant surgeon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there’s something you feel is important and want to bring awareness to, don\u2019t be afraid to talk about it,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause you can end up really helping someone and finding a community that can help you in the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Naomi S. DeBerry learned her father, Jarvis DeBerry, needed a kidney transplant, she was only 6 years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[43604,353,49,48,75,14275,43603,3704,43605,43606],"class_list":["post-69368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-accolades","tag-books","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-franchise","tag-girls-of-the-year","tag-list","tag-special-project","tag-sponsorshipblock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}