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While serving in the U.S. Army in 2021, retired Lt. Col. Matt Cavanaugh donated a kidney to a stranger. “My life’s no different than it was before donating,” Cavanaugh said. Now Cavanaugh and a partner, Hilary Baude, are running 12 marathons across the U.S. to raise awareness about living kidney donation.

If you are looking for inspiration, sit for a moment with Wilson Du and listen to his story. It was 2016 and he was just 34-years old, working hard, and playing harder when his kidneys failed. This weekend, he will run the San Francisco Marathon 5K. 

Matt Cavanaugh and Hilary Baude are running 12 marathons in a single year to raise awareness for living kidney donation. Both are donors. Both went through extraordinary experiences that led them to living donation. Read their stories.

This weekend, the Salt Lake City Marathon will form a 26.2-mile human wave of health, running right past thousands in the Salt Lake City area who are homebound in kidney failure. Several runners will demonstrate how those with the good fortune of good health can help others. I am one of those runners.

Steve Wilson may have only one kidney, but that hasn’t slowed him down. After donating one of his kidneys a little over two years ago, he was determined to prove that the procedure didn’t change his lifestyle—so he climbed to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Lt. Col. Jason Elmore is a very fit and dedicated Air Force Reservist. When his mother-in-law was diagnosed with kidney failure and needed a kidney to survive, the family went through the usual practices in organ donations.

In 2013, Shawna Sampson donated a kidney to her cousin Sammi Olinger. Now, nearly a decade later, Sampson is climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with fellow kidney donors this week, while Olinger continues to enjoy a second chance at life.

When Milwaukee’s Kathryn Kamm hopefully summits Mount Kilimanjaro on March 10, she’ll be doing it with people from across the country who share one thing in common: They all only have one kidney.  

Kidney donor Shannon Catalano plans to scale Mount Kilimanjaro to raise awareness for patients in need, bring attention to the importance of kidney donation, and show that a one-kidney life is far from limiting.