Luis Mayen, vice president of external affairs at Donor Network West, has spent 23 years with the organization, facilitating organ donations across Northern California and northern Nevada.
It has given him a front-row seat to the miracle that is organ donation.
“It helped me see all of these people, all these connections, all these gifts that are happening, and I wanted to be part of it myself,” Mayen said.
Mayen was so inspired by what he was seeing that 15 years ago, he considered becoming a living kidney donor, but after consulting with an organ donation center, he was advised to wait due to his age.
“The advice I got was, ‘You are really young. Why don’t you wait a little longer,'” Mayen said.
So, Mayen put the idea aside, but it never left his mind. Over the years, he continued to witness countless lives saved through transplants, and though many names were removed from the waiting lists, others were not. As a result, Mayen’s desire to donate grew ever stronger. He thought a lot about the stranger whose life he could help save.
“I could not stop thinking about this person I didn’t even know and I’d think about them every single day,” Mayen said. “I decided I had waited long enough and I had to do it.”
In January 2024, Mayen underwent surgery to donate his kidney. He allowed fate to determine who would receive it.
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“I had this memory of the first day on the job and figuring out which surgeon to call and there’s this list of thousands of people needing a kidney and that’s when I realized I don’t need to pick, I just want to give it to someone,” Mayen said.
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That “someone” turned out to be a 42-year-old mother from New York who had been waiting on the transplant list for nine months.
Though the recipient may never know her donor, Mayen has returned to his work at Donor Network West, continuing his mission of saving lives.
