Liver Awareness Foundation Announces Registered Canadian Charity Status

TORONTO, ON — The Liver Awareness Foundation is officially a registered Canadian charity.

In July 2026, the Canada Revenue Agency granted The Liver Awareness Foundation registered charitable status, marking a defining milestone for an organization founded from lived experience and built with leading expertise across hepatology, liver transplantation, clinical research, frontline liver care, mental health, and behavioural risk.

Since launching publicly in 2025, Liver Awareness Foundation has been working to change how liver health is understood and communicated, particularly among young adults who have historically been left out of the conversation.

Our mission is to empower young adults with liver health knowledge to break stigmas and combat the silent threats of liver disease.

Today, that mission enters its next chapter.

What began as a vision to reach people earlier has grown into a modern liver health organization bringing together lived experience, clinical leadership, original media, digital education, and accessible resources for a new generation.

From Lived Experience to a Mission

The Liver Awareness Foundation was founded by Vanessa Wojtala after surviving catastrophic liver failure miles from home in her early 30s.

Like many young adults, Vanessa knew very little about her liver before becoming critically ill. Her experience revealed a much larger gap: liver disease can progress quietly, while education and conversations about liver health often begin only after something has already gone wrong.

Liver Awareness Foundation was founded to help change that.

What began as lived experience evolved into a strategic mandate to change how liver health is understood and communicated. By pairing real-world insight with leading clinical expertise, Liver Awareness Foundation is building a modern digital platform designed to advance earlier awareness, expand access to education, challenge stigma, and engage a new generation.

At the centre of that work is a simple belief: People should not have to experience liver disease before learning about their liver.

Built on Lived Experience and Leading Clinical Expertise

Liver Awareness Foundation brings together distinct perspectives across hepatology, liver transplantation, clinical research, frontline liver care, mental health, behavioural risk, and lived experience.

Elizabeth Lee (Liz), Vice President, is a senior nurse practitioner in hepatology at the Toronto Centre for Liver Disease, Francis Family Liver Clinic at Toronto General Hospital (UHN). With more than 17 years of clinical experience spanning chronic and advanced liver disease, Liz brings extensive expertise in frontline hepatology and the realities of supporting people through diagnosis, treatment, recovery, and long-term liver care.

Liz was Vanessa’s liver specialist during her recovery from severe liver disease and liver failure. She believed in the vision early and opened doors that helped turn lived experience into something larger. Liz introduced Vanessa to Dr. Juan Pablo Arab and Dr. Jennifer Flemming, creating connections that would later become instrumental to the Foundation’s clinical leadership. Today, as Vice President, she brings more than 17 years of frontline hepatology experience and leadership to the Foundation’s strategy and educational mandate.

Dr. Juan Pablo Arab, Director, is an internationally recognized hepatologist with expertise spanning alcohol-associated liver disease, advanced liver disease, and liver transplantation. His perspective brings the realities of clinical hepatology directly into the Foundation’s leadership, including what specialists are seeing as serious liver disease increasingly affects younger adults.

Dr. Jennifer Flemming, Director, is a globally recognized hepatologist and leading clinical researcher who brings an important research and epidemiological perspective to the Foundation. Her expertise helps connect emerging evidence, population-level trends, and what is being observed in clinical practice with the need for greater awareness, prevention, and earlier detection.

Dr. G. Scott Winder, Clinical Advisor, is a leading clinical psychiatrist who brings expertise in mental health and behavioural risk as they relate to liver health. His perspective helps broaden the conversation beyond the liver itself, bringing greater understanding to the psychological and behavioural factors that can influence health, risk, treatment, and recovery.

Vanessa Wojtala, Founder and President, brings the lived experience that established the Foundation’s mandate, alongside a background in journalism, media, advertising, and strategic marketing communications that has shaped its approach to translating complex health information into accessible education for younger audiences.

Together, we bring lived experience, frontline liver care, hepatology, transplantation, clinical research, mental health, and behavioural risk into one organization, united by a shared goal: reaching young adults earlier.

That multidisciplinary perspective is central to the Liver Awareness Foundation and to the kind of liver health education we believe a new generation deserves.

Changing How a Generation Understands Liver Health

Liver disease does not have one cause, one appearance, one age, or one story.

Metabolic conditions, alcohol, viral hepatitis, genetic and inherited liver diseases, medications and supplements, autoimmune liver diseases, and other factors can all affect liver health.

For many young adults, the liver has historically been missing from everyday conversations about health and prevention.

Liver Awareness Foundation is working to change that.

Through digital education, original clinical programming, educational publications, awareness campaigns, accessible resources, and the Mind Your Liver® Podcast, the Liver Awareness Foundation is bringing credible liver health information into the spaces where younger generations are already learning, watching, asking questions, and making decisions about their health.

Our approach is not built around judgment or fear.

It is built around bringing conversations that have been overlooked in liver health for decades into the open, with credible information, lived experience, and clinical expertise.

That means talking openly about metabolic liver disease, alcohol-associated liver disease, viral hepatitis, medications and supplements, mental health and behavioural risk, cirrhosis, liver failure, prevention, and earlier detection.

It means challenging the idea that liver disease looks a certain way or happens only to certain people.

And it means having those conversations before someone reaches a crisis.

From an Idea to an Infrastructure

Since launching publicly, the Liver Awareness Foundation has grown beyond a single awareness initiative.

We have developed a growing library of liver health resources, created digital tools and publications, launched the Mind Your Liver® Podcast, and built a platform that translates clinical expertise and lived experience into accessible liver health education for younger audiences.

Behind that public-facing work is the infrastructure required to build an organization for the long term: governance, clinical leadership, educational strategy, digital development, original production, partnerships, and program development.

Becoming a registered Canadian charity marks an important stage in that growth and creates a stronger foundation for what comes next.

What Registered Charity Status Means for the Liver Awareness Foundation

Registered charity status opens new opportunities for the Liver Awareness Foundation to expand its educational reach and build new partnerships.

It strengthens our ability to pursue charitable funding, accept charitable gifts, develop new educational initiatives, and collaborate with healthcare, research, community, and corporate organizations that share our commitment to improving liver health awareness.

Most importantly, it gives us greater capacity to expand the work already underway.

More education. More clinical voices. More resources. More partnerships. More opportunities to reach people earlier.

Because liver health awareness should not begin with a diagnosis.

The Next Chapter

Registered charity status is an important milestone, but our mission remains the same.

The Liver Awareness Foundation will continue expanding its educational resource library, original programming, clinical collaborations, and Mind Your Liver® platform as we work to reach more young adults with credible and accessible liver health education.

There is much more ahead.

“I learned about my liver when I was already experiencing liver failure. I founded the Liver Awareness Foundation because I kept thinking about how different things might have been if someone had reached me earlier. Becoming a registered Canadian charity gives us the foundation to take that idea much further, and to reach people before liver disease becomes their crisis.”

Vanessa Wojtala, Founder & President

What started with lived experience has grown into a mission to make liver health easier to understand, challenge stigma, and reach young adults with credible information before something goes wrong.

Liver Awareness Foundation is entering its next chapter as a registered Canadian charity, with more work ahead and greater capacity to reach the generation it was created to serve.

A New Generation of Liver Health

Mind Your Liver. It Needs You.®