Kidneys for Teachers™
If you are a teacher in need of a kidney or someone who wishes to save the life of an educator by donating a kidney, we are here to help you.
Kidneys for Teachers™
Teachers give their time, energy, and years to their students and schools. When an educator is facing kidney failure, Kidneys for Teachers™ helps connect that need to the community around them.
Educators are part of deeply connected networks that extend beyond the classroom to colleagues, students and their families, school communities, unions, faith communities, friends, and neighbors. Kidneys for Teachers™ brings Kidneys for Communities’ (K4C) Community Directed Donation™ model to these trusted networks, helping build awareness, engage potential living donors, and provide support throughout the kidney transplant journey.
By supporting an educator in need of a kidney, we also have an opportunity to create a ripple effect. Their story can help increase awareness and inspire conversations about living kidney donation throughout the communities they serve.
Kidneys for Teachers™ is open to educators and staff at public, charter, and private schools alike.
people in the U.S. are waiting for a kidney transplant
a potential wait for a deceased-donor kidney
people die each day waiting for a kidney transplant
What we know
Kidney disease affects an estimated 1 in 7 adults in the U.S., and nearly 9 in 10 people living with it don’t know they have it (CDC). It develops quietly, often for years, before it’s diagnosed.
There’s no national data that tracks how many teachers specifically are affected. That’s part of the problem. Kidney disease doesn’t show up on a school roster or a staff directory, so the people around a teacher, colleagues, students’ families, administrators, may have no idea how urgent the need is until someone speaks up.
Sometimes the person who saves a life is someone you already know: a colleague, a fellow educator, a neighbor, a parent from the school community, someone from your union or faith community, or simply someone already connected to your life. And sometimes, it may be someone you’ve never met who feels connected to the educator community and wants to help. That’s the power of community-directed donation: bringing together the many communities surrounding an educator to help find a living donor.
Donating a kidney is one of the most rewarding and fulfilling acts someone can do.
Kidneys for Communities helps donors navigate obstacles that can be prohibitive through the industry’s most complete donor benefits package:
Support from the beginning
Through K4C, our partners, and available resources.
Education about the donor journey
Through K4C, our partners, and available resources.
Personalized guidance
throughout the donation process.
Anonymity
If you want it.
Help with donation-related costs
Access to partners and resources that may help with eligible expenses.
Future kidney pledge
For donor and family. Available to non-directed donors.
No cost
Your kidney donation
will help save someone in your community.
When retired Fire Chief Charley Wescott needed a kidney, a firefighter from his own station gave him one. Kidneys for Teachers™ lets educators do the same for the teaching community, because communities take care of their own.
Join us in saving countless lives – even if that life is your own.
Educators seeking a kidney
Please complete our form and someone will be in touch shortly.
Find a Kidney
One Donation Can Save Many Lives
By leveraging the exponential power of paired kidney exchanges we help the patient receive a matching kidney while saving the lives of more people.
You can help spread the word or learn more about Kidneys for Teachers™
We have created digital materials you can share with someone you know looking for a donor, or someone who is interested in becoming a donor.
DownloadHelp connect more communities
Help spread the word about living kidney donation and Kidneys for Communities.
We even provide some tools to help.