Trans­plant Games kick off in San Diego, rais­ing or­gan do­na­tion aware­ness, com­mu­ni­ty and hope

Af­ter Amy Frack­owiak got her first kid­ney trans­plant in 2009, she want­ed to stay ac­tive — she played both bas­ket­ball and vol­ley­ball in high school — and won­dered if there was any­thing sim­i­lar to the Par­a­lympic Games for trans­plant pa­tients. That’s when she found the Trans­plant Games.

The bi­en­ni­al Olympic-style event, kick­ing off on Fri­day in San Diego, draws thou­sands of trans­plant re­cip­i­ents and liv­ing donors from around the coun­try in its bid to dri­ve aware­ness around or­gan do­na­tion, and cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ty for pa­tients and fam­i­lies. The six-day com­pe­ti­tion fea­tures 20 sports that are in­clud­ed in the Olympic Games — track and field, vol­ley­ball, cy­cling, swim­ming and ten­nis — but al­so in­cludes non-ath­let­ic com­pe­ti­tions such as darts, Texas Hold’em pok­er and corn­hole.

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