The Organ Trail passed through Stanley Sunday, June 23 while enroute on a 70 mile segment from Menomonie to Thorp. This marked the 20th day of the fifth iteration of The Organ Trail, a 1200 bike ride throughout the Midwest to raise awareness for organ donation.
The first Organ Trail rolled from Wisconsin to Louisiana in 2021 and followed the kidney donation story of Mark Scotch from Plover, Wisconsin. Mark used the National Kidney Registry (NKR) Voucher Program which matches a donor with their best recipient, then gives the donor a voucher. That voucher can be given to anyone of their choosing and that person will receive higher priority on the transplant wait list. The NKR found the best match for Mark’s kidney in their 103 Transplant Center network pool resulting in a donation to Hugh Smith of Natchitoches, Louisiana.
The fifth iteration of The Organ Trail started in Plover, Wisconsin on June 4 and traveled the route and story of Mark’s wife Lynn’s kidney donation journey. The NKP voucher program allowed two year old Cooper Thompson of Minneapolis to receive a kidney donation in 2023 as a result from Lynn donating a kidney. Cooper was born with end-stage renal failure and had been on dialysis since he was only 8-months old.
The segment from Menomonie to Thorp passed through the Stanley with riders from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Riders on this segment included organ donors and organ donation recipients as well as friends and supporters of The Organ Trail. One cycler celebrated by riding the day to celebrate his 42nd anniversary, to date, of receiving his kidney donation.
As living kidney donors, Mark and Lynn have proven that kidney donors can return to their previous level of activity and good health, functioning only on a single kidney, even if that includes vigorously sustained activities including three week, 1200 mile bike rides.
The goal of The Organ Trail is to raise awareness of living kidney donation. There are 3,000 new patients added every month to the kidney waiting list and if 10-15 out of 10,000 people became a living donor, the waiting list would be eradicated immediately.
There are various ways one can help reduce the 13 deaths that occur in this country every day due to the lack of kidney transplants. More information can be found at www.nkdo.org or www.markscotch.com.