When Raleigh Callaway’s kidney began failing, he had no idea how to go about finding a donor match. After his wife started a Facebook campaign and successfully identified one, he’s now doing the same for others looking for living donors.
Callaway’s story went viral in 2014 after his wife, Kristi Callaway, posted a photo of their family holding a sign that read, “Our Daddy needs a kidney.”
After a stranger, Chris Carroll, of McKinney, Tex., saw the family’s story on FoxNews.com, he got tested and found he was a match. He donated one of his kidneys to Raleigh Callaway on Sept. 24, 2014.
Kristi still wondered about the 100,000 other Americans who were still waiting for a kidney, Fox5 Atlanta reported.
"I just knew there were so many people following our page that were willing to help us,” Kristi told the news channel. “Why not give them the opportunity to help others?"
She began featuring other people on the national transplant waiting list on their Facebook page— including Debra Phillips, of Snellville, Ga. Phillips had high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes, and her kidneys shut down in 2013.
After learning of the gift that saved her son-in-law, Kristi’s mother, Kathryn Sorrell, matched to be Phillips’ donor.
"It was innate,” Sorrell told Fox5. “It was just there. It was like, ‘My kidney has got Debra's name on it.’"
Phillips and Sorrell met in September 2015 on the night of the transplant surgery.
"I just feel very grateful and very blessed,” Sorrell told Fox5. “I feel like, out of all of this, I'm the one who has been most blessed."
The Our Daddy Needs a Kidney-Team Callaway Facebook page has featured 38 people searching for a living kidney donor, 10 of who have found a stranger willing to be a donor, Fox5 reported.
Raleigh is back on the job with the Greensboro police department.
"I just hope and pray that if anyone out there can help someone else, help change someone's life,” he told Fox5, “I just hope and pray that they will.”
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