athlete

COMMUNITY /// HEALTH /// EDUCATION

LIFE CHANGING STORIES

Our Mission ///

Kidney Donor Athletes promotes the gift of life through living kidney donation among active individuals and athletes by building a community that inspires, supports, and educates people about the experience of kidney donation.

GET INVOLVED ///

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One Kidney Climb: Kilimanjaro 2022

One Kidney
Kili Climb

To promote the gift of life through living donation, 13 kidney donors and one transplant surgeon will represent Kidney Donor Athletes (KDA) and summit Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania! KDA is using this climb to bring awareness to living donation, demonstrate what is possible post-donation, and to launch initiatives which inspire, support and educate people about the experience of living donation. We envision a world where there are enough living donors to meet the needs of all who require a life saving kidney transplant.

Considering Kidney Donation?

MEET OUR KIDNEY DONOR ATHLETES

Meet Kidney Donor Athlete, Helen!

Meet Kidney Donor Athlete, Helen!

I had never known anyone who had donated an organ and probably had never considered doing this until a friend let it be known that he needed a kidney and was about to start dialysis. I thought, "I can do that!". We had moved out of state many years ago but had kept up...

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Meet Kidney Donor Athlete, Sibley!

Meet Kidney Donor Athlete, Sibley!

My kidney donation story starts with my grandmother. By the nature of polycystic kidney disease, it must have started with my great-grandfather before that, but he died when she was still a small child, so we don't know how it might have affected him. My grandmother...

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Meet Kidney Donor Athlete, Tom!

Meet Kidney Donor Athlete, Tom!

My name is Tom O’Driscoll and I am a double organ donor (kidney/liver). On February 18, 2022, I donated a piece of my liver to a dying young man in a surgery performed at USC – Keck Medical Center in Los Angeles. How did I come to do this?   To answer this,...

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Meet Kidney Donor Athlete, Jesse!

Meet Kidney Donor Athlete, Jesse!

Saving Mom My name is Jesse Soto and I am from Midland Texas, a small town out in West Texas. Home of not much more than a large oil and gas industry. Growing up as a young man I would often see my mother spend many painful days and nights in the hospital for what...

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Meet Double Donor, Jody!

Meet Double Donor, Jody!

My name is Jody Becker Wilkey, I am a 58-year-old native of Central Illinois, and I’d like to share my organ donation stories. My first story begins in June 1983, when I was a 20-year-old college student majoring in the Teaching of Spanish at the University of...

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Meet Kidney Donor Athlete, Jon!

Meet Kidney Donor Athlete, Jon!

The kidney donor part  A few years ago, I heard a story on NPR about kidney donation. It was the first time I heard about “the list”: The enormous list of people, tens of thousands, in desperate need of a kidney, the dozen or so people who die waiting every day, and...

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KDA MERCHANDISE

Want to celebrate kidney donation by sporting some unique merchandise? You’ve come to the right place! Wearing a KDA shirt, drinking out of a KDA mug, or walking through the airport with a KDA backpack is a sure way to spark a conversation about living kidney donation.

Discover Kidney Donor Athletes

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Tell Your story

Are you a donor athlete that wants to share your story? Great!