Meet Kidney Donor Athlete, Hunter!

My father has suffered from Cystinuria his entire adult life. He had his first kidney stone at the age of 22 and growing up, he would go on to pass or have surgically removed, dozens of stones. Watching the pain he would endure honestly scared me as a child.

My dad is a hero. He has worked for the same non-profit that helps mentally handicapped adults for 35 years now and has become the CEO. He constantly has sacrificed his free time, money, and even time with his family to ensure that his staff and consumers are well taken care of.

Last year, my older brother, Pierce, and I were signed up for the Berlin Marathon 2024. It was our goal for a few years to run a sub-3 hour marathon and we had failed a few times prior.

That summer though, our training was on point. We were really locked in. We flew to Berlin and ran the race lockstep for the first ten miles. I remember Pierce shouting to me at the 5k and 10k marks, “Dad’s watching us from home right now! He sees that we’re together and how fast we are! Let’s go, we got this!”

Pierce got ahead of me after the 11th mile but we both ran the race of our lives and both finished the race in 2:55 and 2:57 respectively (he loves that he beat me). I remember right before I crossed the finish line that there was a blonde man in sunglasses screaming my name to finish. I wear my first name on my running shirt so I figured that was an enthusiastic spectator.

Right as my Berlin marathon medal was placed around my neck, my phone started to ring. My dad: “where are you?” I said “I just finished the race, what do you mean where am I?” He says, “I’ll meet you at the bag pickup.” Right then I start to tear up, “You’re here?!”

Our dad flew last minute overnight to make it to the race to watch us both run our first ever sub-3 marathon. I found Pierce and I found my dad and we all hugged and took a selfie.

That’s the kind of generous man my father is. So a few months later when it came time to find out if I was a match to donate my kidney to him, I did not hesitate.

Pierce was involved in a car accident a few years ago and spent days in the hospital. He was hit while on a late night run. My younger brother, Conor, has struggled with alcoholism for over ten years and is finally almost 3 years sober. I already knew that donating my kidney to our dad would be my sacrifice, my honor, since my brothers have already endured so much. This gift of life, and my forever connection to my dad, is just so amazingly special to me and I am so glad I lived a healthy life to this point so that he got a great kidney and can hopefully soon retire and enjoy his later years seeing the world with our mom.

In March 2025 when I was all but set on telling NYU that I wanted to go through with testing to see if I could be my Dad’s donor, I took my two dogs down to my local brewery, Rockaway Brewing in Long Island City, Queens, NY. After a few minutes, this guy walked in with his wife, and we started chatting, and it turned out he was a multi-marathoner, and then he admitted he was a kidney donor. Meeting him helped solidify my decision to donate, which I had been heavily considering that very day. 

But! Because I found KDA, YOU all helped me find this person again. Stephen Liegghio. He popped up on one of your stories, and I started following him. I reached out in October, and he told me he remembered me, of course. He told me he would be in town for the NYC marathon, and we made sure to get together the Thursday before the race. We spent hours catching up, and then he invited me for a run with other donor athletes the next morning. I felt so so lucky to be introduced to a community I never knew existed. I’m really looking forward to everything else the KDA and larger donor athlete community have to offer. Please see some photos below!