Donor Search Success Stories

After months of driving around the city with an advertisement for a kidney donor on her bright red car, Debbie Onishenko will soon be able to rip off the decals as her search has ended.

When Linda Griggs needed a kidney transplant, an artist friend helped get the word out with a 5-foot hand-painted sign including the URL to Griggs’ National Kidney Registry microsite. The sign got 137 potential donors to register with the NKR. One was a match.

A Flagstaff man has received the gift of life, undergoing successful transplant surgery after his wife spent months trying to find him a living donor. Their miracle was finally answered when a woman contacted them through Facebook and ended up being a match.

Back in 1966, when kidney transplants were new and dangerous, Butch Newman was days from death. Then his younger sister stepped up. She was a perfect match.

Daniella Neve is one of the top softball players in the country for her age and has 84,000 followers on TikTok, so when her dad needed a kidney, she used TikTok to try to find a living donor. Her ask went viral, and a donor was found.

Michael Saylor got a mulligan—a second chance at life after experiencing kidney failure at age 44—thanks to a living kidney donor who responded to a Facebook plea for a donor from Michael’s wife, LeighAnn. Now the Saylors want to pay it forward by helping give a mulligan to others.

Lt. Derek Foss of Southern Manatee Fire Rescue in Florida was honored by state leaders for donating a kidney and saving the life of 33-year-old Brianne Baker. Foss was a perfect six-out-of-six antigen match with Baker.

Donnie Pickeral, a pastor at Aycock Fellowship Ministries in Greensboro, N.C., lived with a rare kidney disease called IgA nephropathy for 31 years. He’d often chat with his pharmacist, Kathleen Kirkland, when he was picking up his prescriptions, and he finally mentioned his condition. Kathleen’s reaction was immediate: she wanted to give him a kidney.

For a majority of his career, Dr. Arjang “Aji” Djamali has wanted to donate a kidney to a person in need of a transplant, and he finally got the chance. On June 29, Dr. Djamali donated a kidney to one of his former patients.

Twins Jacob and Cameron Meadows, 18, spent most of their life in and out of hospitals and in search of kidney donors. After sharing their plea on a billboard more than four years ago, the boys are now young men in good health who encourage others to become kidney donors.