Going viral to find an organ donor

KISSIMMEE, Fla. (FOX 35 WOFL) - It’s becoming a more and more common sight: open your Facebook feed to see a post asking someone to give up their kidney.

Cheryl Echevarria of Kissimmee said it was a no brainer for her to send the post.

“You get more information out there with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,” said Echevarria.

She has lived with diabetes her whole life and already underwent a transplant 14 years ago, but now her kidney is failing again and she’s rapidly approaching the time to transplant again.

So Echevarria, who runs a travel agency with her husband, made the post across all of their social media accounts asking for an O positive kidney donor. It worked for her the first time when she posted in a forum during her first search, now she hopes the next donor will see her new ad.

She’s not alone though. If you just search “Kidney Donor” on Facebook you’ll find a seemingly endless list of groups, pages, and posts by people desperate to find donors.

Ginny McBride from Translife Donation Services in Maitland said it’s a new take on an old approach to the search.

"It used to be that people would place ads in newspapers or they would notices in church bulletins,” said McBride.

However, she said it’s understandable. McBride said there are about 115,000 Americans on the national transplant waiting list, but only about 16,000 living and deceased donors each year.

Echevarria hopes even if her post doesn’t locate a donor for her, it’ll find one to match someone else in need or at least get people talking about the topic of donation and visiting sites like donatelifeflorida.org to get active in helping.