To Save One Life Gathering
A Ready-to-Host Event for Faith Communities
When Ron Wolfson set out to donate a kidney to his wife, Susie, he wasn’t a match. Through kidney paired donation, he gave anyway – his kidney went to a Christian recipient he’d never met, and Susie received the kidney she needed. That is the hopeful truth at the heart of this campaign: a willing living donor who isn’t a match can still save a life. Nearly 95,000 people are waiting for a kidney today. Your congregation can help.
The To Save One Life Gathering is a complete, ready-to-host program – films, talking points, discussion guides, sermon outlines, everything down to the sign-up cards. You don’t need any medical background to lead it. Kidney donation is a big ask; our ask of you is doable. Your time commitment is small. The impact is not.
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Mobilizing for Everyone
For congregations ready to learn and act before anyone is in crisis. A 90-minute program of story, learning, and conversation – for ten people in a fellowship room or 150 in the sanctuary, on a weeknight or alongside worship. And start close to home: someone in your congregation may already be a living kidney donor or recipient. Find them – they may be your best storyteller and your natural point person.
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Mobilizing for a Member of Your Community
For the congregation whose moment has come: someone your community loves needs a kidney. This Gathering brings the community together for that person – their story told with their full consent, questions answered honestly and privately, and an invitation toward living-donor screening without pressure of any kind. No one is ever asked to raise a hand, and choosing not to step forward is a faithful choice too. Because this Gathering is built around one person, it begins with a conversation – reach out and we’ll shape it with you, from the first sermon to the follow-up.
One campaign, across every boundary
Ron’s kidney went to a Christian. Co-founder Bart Pachino’s came from a Palestinian Muslim woman.
“The goal of the TSOL campaign – to help end the kidney shortage and save thousands of lives one at a time – transcends the boundaries of religion, race, politics, and geography. Whatever our beliefs, saving one life not only saves the recipient’s life but ours as well. Let us use this campaign to bridge these divides and come together to make our world a better place.”
– Ron Wolfson, co-founder, and living kidney donor
LOCAL DIALOGUE – MODERATOR QUESTIONS
18 minutes
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Use this as an opportunity to draw out a story, rather than cover information. Listen, follow the emotion, and let silences sit – the best moments usually come right after a pause. You won’t get through every question; pick based on who’s on the panel and what’s landing. The goal is for the room to connect to one real human experience, not to hear a complete medical account. Consider this a starting point and adapt to the needs of your community.
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These work whether you’re talking with a living donor, a recipient, or a family member or friend speaking on someone’s behalf. Adaptation notes are in italics. The living donor or recipient you find for this dialogue is often also your natural campaign liaison – the person who has lived this story usually wants to carry it forward.
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When did kidney disease first come into the picture for you?
Recipient: their own diagnosis. Family/friend: when their loved one got sick. Living donor: when they learned someone needed help.
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What did daily life actually look like during that time?
For recipients or their families: the reality of waiting, dialysis, uncertainty. For a living donor: what they saw the person they cared about going through.
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(For living donors) When did you first think, “Maybe I could do this”? What went through your mind – and what did the people around you say?
(For recipients/families) What was it like when the possibility of a transplant became real? What did that offer mean?
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How did your faith sustain you during your journey as a living donor/recipient?
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You and your living donor/recipient weren’t a direct match. Can you walk us through how the paired donation worked – and what it meant that a stranger you’d never met was part of making it happen?
This is the KPD heart of the program. If a panelist has a paired-donation or donation-chain story, give it room – it’s the single idea most of the room has never heard.
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What surprised you about going through it – the surgery, the recovery, any of it?
Useful for living donors, especially: honest, reassuring details about recovery quietly answer the fear most people in the room are carrying. If your speaker is years past donation, let that long view shine – a donor thriving years later does more to dissolve fear than any statistic.
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When you think about it today, what does the experience mean to you?
What’s the one thing you most want the people in this room to understand?
Family/friend speaking on behalf: “What would [name] want people here to know?” / “How did this change your family?”
DISCUSSION GUIDE – FACILITATED DISCUSSION
30 minutes
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This is where the program turns from listening into doing. Your job is to move the room toward action – not to hold an open-ended reflection. You won’t use every question; choose one or two per section, and set aside time for the closing question, which serves as the bridge to the ask. Don’t skip it.
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Each group works from the same guide. Ask each group to choose someone to share one or two takeaways in the report-back at the close.
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What stayed with you from the story we just heard?
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When you hear that a healthy living person can donate a kidney and go on to live a full life, what’s your honest first reaction – curiosity, hesitation, something else?
What would you want to know before considering being a living donor yourself, or before encouraging someone you love to look into it?
Is there someone in your life right now that this matters to?
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Most people have never heard that a willing but incompatible living donor can still save a life through paired donation. Who in your circles needs to hear that?
How does word actually travel in this community – how do people here find out about things that matter?
What’s one concrete way you could help this reach more people, in this congregation or beyond it?
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Where does your own faith or tradition speak to caring for another person’s life this way? Is there a teaching, a story, or a value that comes to mind?
What would it mean for a community like ours – not just individuals – to take this on together?
If the room is quiet, you might offer the teaching that to save a single life is to save an entire world, and ask how it lands for them. Phrase this as an invitation rather than asserting it as every tradition’s teaching – let people bring their own.
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Before we close: what’s one thing – small or large – you’re willing to do?
TELLING THE MEMBER’S STORY – CONSENT-FIRST GUIDE
~10 minutes
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This story belongs to the member. Every choice about how it’s told is theirs, and their dignity is the measure of every decision. A community moved by love responds more generously than a community moved by guilt – the story never has to perform suffering to earn help.
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These notes work whether the member tells their own story, a family member speaks for them, or clergy carries it on their behalf. Adaptation notes are in italics.
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Sit down with the member well before the event. Nothing is assumed; every choice below is theirs, and theirs to change – up to and including the day of the event.
Named, or spoken of as “one of our own”?
Present in the room, or not?
Who tells it: the member, a family member, or clergy on their behalf?
What’s shared and what’s off-limits – diagnosis details, time waiting, what daily life looks like. Agree on the boundaries explicitly.
Photos or video, or neither?
How do they want to be treated in the room – greeted normally? Not approached about it afterward?
How will they hear what came of the evening?
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Begin with the person, before any of this – who they are in this community: the choir seat, the coffee after services, the years of showing up.
A portrait, not a case history. They are not their diagnosis.
What changed – the diagnosis, plainly and briefly.
No medical detail beyond what the member approved.
What waiting is like – one or two honest specifics.
This is where the room understands the stakes.
What hope looks like – the handoff to kidney paired donation.
A living donor doesn’t have to be a match to save them – land this clearly; it’s the door most of the room doesn’t know exists.
What the member wants this community to know.
In their words, if at all possible, even read aloud by someone else.
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If the member tells it: rehearse once, gently; agree on a signal if they want to stop; seat a companion beside them.
Stopping mid-story is fine – the room will understand more from that than from any polished telling.
If family tells it: speak with the member’s voice, not just about them.
“She asked me to tell you...” keeps the member of the author even in their absence.
If clergy tells it: name the consent aloud.
“With [name]’s blessing, I want to tell you about...” – the room should hear that the member chose this.
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Dramatize the prognosis or assign the room a rescue mission (“we must save her”).
Look at anyone, single anyone out, or address any individual.
Surprise the member with anything they didn’t approve.
QUESTIONS, ASKED SAFELY – Q&A GUIDE
~15 minutes
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This segment exists so that anyone can ask anything. Questions come in on cards, never at microphones – and you should say why aloud: “Nobody in this room should have to stand up to ask about recovery time.” The room will hear what that protects.
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Cards matter even more among ten people than among 150 – anonymity is hardest in an intimate room. Everyone passes in a card, written or blank, the same way everyone will submit a response card later. When everyone hands in something, no one is visible.
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Cards and pens on every seat before the event; announce at the welcome that questions can be written at any time.
Collect after the living donor’s voice.
That testimony is what surfaces the real questions.
Two or three people – host, liaison, clergy – sort quickly while the room takes a breath.
This is why Q&A sits before the invitation; a hymn, a reflection, or a stretch covers the sorting time.
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Group questions into themes: medical and safety, the process, cost and work, faith, and family. Answer themes, not a stack of one-offs.
Answer the fear behind the question.
“Can a 60-year-old donate?” is usually “Am I too old to matter here?” – answer both.
Hold anything with identifying details or personal medical circumstances for private follow-up; never read identifying details aloud.
Give “what if I’m not a match for them?” room when it appears – and it will.
This is the question the whole campaign exists to answer.
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Medical answers come from the transplant professional or the campaign’s medical FAQ – never improvised.
If no professional is present, clergy reads the question and the FAQ’s answer aloud. That is enough.
“I don’t know, and we’ll find out” is a fully acceptable answer.
Unanswered questions go to the liaison, who follows up with the congregation within the week – a second touch that keeps the evening alive.
Spiritual questions belong to clergy, in the community’s own tradition.
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Name the follow-up path: “Every question tonight gets answered – the ones we couldn’t reach will come to you through [liaison].”
Hand cleanly to the invitation.