How You Can Help

Lynn and I feel the best way to get started if you feel living donation is something that interests you or has piqued your interest is to get evaluated. Nothing can happen until you find out if you’re physically able to donate one of your kidneys.

You can follow this QR code link to the National Kidney Registry to start the initial screening on-line that will ask a few basic health related questions and then you can go from there. At anytime you can stop the process.

The 3 sites listed below have a lot of information about kidney donation, as well.

My Donation Experience

One of the things that grabbed my attention, once I started looking into the details of donating my kidney after I told Hugh “you can have one of mine”, was the living kidney donor benefits that the National Kidney Registry has developed very recently to help living kidney donors with the process. Along with probably one of the most comprehensive evaluations/physicals one may ever receive, these benefits combine to immensely help living donors. Although these items, like lost wages supplement, travel and lodging reimbursement and prioritization for living kidney donors, will never be the reason to donate, they really help the donor once the decision is made to help set ones mind at ease. This is the very latest info on these donor benefits from the National Kidney Registry founder Garet Hil.

Is donating a kidney dangerous and scary? What is common among people that donate kidneys? Do you have these characteristics? Watch this interesting new video to help answer these questions and more as it explores the science of altruism as it pertains to kidney donors.

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Many people have signed up to be a deceased donor to possibly save your life, please consider doing the same for others through Donate Life America if you’re not already registered through your DMV. Thank You.

Donate Life of America

The main thrust of Lynn’s and my intent has been and will continue to be trying to create a curiosity about living kidney donations with the people we meet. Sharing what we’ve learned is our main goal, but it’s just a fact of life that donations will help us on our rides.

Donations to The Organ Trail help cover the costs of lodging on the rides (although we try to stay with people who volunteer to host us), gas and wear and tear for our support vehicle and bicycle repairs/parts. In addition funds will be used for our website design and maintenance and to put on events like KidneyShare. We are also working on a documentary film of TOT 4.5, Lubbock, TX to Baton Rouge, LA, and some funds will go towards that as well.

Any funds The Organ Trail does not use will help the non-profits that we’re partnering with to educate about the safety of living kidney donation, to advocate about the protections available to donors, and to empower those in renal failure with effective strategies of getting their message out to the world.

We partner with The National Kidney Donation Organization, www.nkdo.org and The National Kidney Registry, www.nkr.org.

Our goal, as is theirs, is to save lives, one person at a time.

You can donate to directly to THE ORGAN TRAIL through my personal account, Mark Scotch, using PayPal or Venmo (use mkscotch@gmail.com to connect). PayPal and Venmo also accept credit cards. Be aware, this is a direct donation to The Organ Trail and you will not be able to claim a taxable deduction.

Or contact me by email mkscotch@gmail.com, or text/phone (678) 488-1996 if you prefer regular mail and I can provide a mailing address.

Feel free to share the link with your friends and family to see if they might want to contribute to promote our mission of reducing the 13 deaths that occur every day in our country due to the lack of kidney transplants.

THANK YOU!

Another Way to Give

Restoring Hope Transplant House RHTH, in Middleton, WI offers affordable housing to transplant recipient and donor families while their loved one is a patient at UW-Hospital. The generosity of people like you help keep its doors open. Many recipient families have used up all their savings by the time a live saving transplant can be performed.

Give to Restoring Hope

Not everyone can become a living donor. For those that can’t, or the timing isn’t right, developing a curiosity about the kidney transplant process, from the perspective of the recipient and the donor, then sharing that information can go a long way to helping find living donors and saving lives.