Donor releases 'Social Media Stole My Kidney' trailer!

[Clark]

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2014/06/04/phoenix-kidney-donor-releases-movie-trailer/9961345/

Donor releases 'Social Media Stole My Kidney' trailer
Sonja Haller

When Phoenix resident Amy Donohue gave a kidney, she received a life purpose: To educate as many people as possible about kidney donation.

That purpose has Donohue, 43, in the midst of a crowdfunding social-media campaign to finish a documentary about her own kidney donation — which came after reading a tweet — and others around the United States and Canada.

"We have a huge, huge thing in common," Donohue said of the people in the film. "We are strangers who helped strangers."

The movie trailer was released last month to promote the documentary, and Donohue and filmmaker James Pietragallo hope to raise $75,000 to finish editing the movie and get it into film festivals around the country. In the last few weeks, just more than $1,000 has been raised.

Donohue was featured in The Arizona Republic in May 2013, before setting out on a 20-day trip to interview more than a dozen other kidney donors.

The trip was made possible by crowd fundraising from sites like Indiegogo and by business contributors who believed in the project. The Arizona Kidney Disease and Hypertension Center donated $9,000 toward the trip and the center's Dr. Jean Robey continues to advocate for the movie.

"The kidney is not in regular conversation like breast cancer. And that's going to take time. We're willing to take the time so when the movie comes out it capitalizes on the conversation and unity we've created," Robey said.

Every day, 18 people in the United States die while waiting for an organ transplant. In Arizona, more than 2,300 people need some type of transplant, about 80 percent kidneys, according to the Donor Network of Arizona.

http://youtu.be/YXEqZXvN8co

Donohue donated her kidney after reading a tweet in January 2011 in which the daughter of a Surprise woman appealed for a donor for her mother on Twitter. It has been just more than three years since the kidney donation to the 64-year-old mother, whose own children and family were not a match or unable to donate. Both Donohue and the recipient of her kidney, Anu Dwivedi, are healthy and say they've become like family.

Donohue has a website, "Social Media Stole My Kidney."She also hosts a chat each Monday starting at 8 p.m. on Twitter, #kidneychat.