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Regional nonprofit supports Hume-Lee living donor

Tennessee-based Meredith Haga Foundation has unique connection to VCU Health

Pictured, from left, are: Caitlin Gase, Meredith Haga Foundation; Carolyn Witherspoon, kidney transplant recipient; Milton Fleming, living kidney donor; and Bruce Blessing, Meredith Haga Foundation.

Milton Fleming had only been out of prison for four months before he donated a kidney to his mother.

Despite the challenges of re-entering society while living paycheck to paycheck, he didn’t let being out of work for a few weeks stand in the way of changing his mother’s life.

"It is my due diligence as her son — she’s taken care of me all my life, so I felt like if I could do anything to help or preserve her life, then I would," he says.

Hume-Lee believes in second chances. Part of that mission includes working one-on-one with prospective living donors to identify organizations and resources that may help. Fleming’s donor journey was unique, but thankfully so is a regional Tenn.-based nonprofit willing to lend a hand.

The 34-year-old Fleming received support from The Meredith Haga Foundation. It’s an organization that provides living organ donors like him with financial support for living expenses. With the financial support, he was able to pay a month’s rent while he prepared and recovered from surgery.

Located in Blountville, Tenn., the Meredith Haga Foundation was formed after the death of its namesake. Meredith’s stepfather, Bruce Blessing, has made it his mission to help others who need to pay everyday expenses as part of the living donor process.

"So many people struggle with basic needs," says Blessing. "We were fortunate, but others are not, and that’s why we came up with the foundation."

The Meredith Haga Foundation also provides awareness and education around organ donation and stresses the importance of signing up to become a living donor, or checking the organ donor box on your driver’s license.

"Transplantation is a process that sticks with you in your heart," says Blessing, who operates a cattle ranch in Virginia. "Transplantation," he says, "is an event that impacts people’s lives forever."

It’s a message that resonates with Dr. Marlon Levy, director of the Hume-Lee Transplant Center. "Bruce, through his daughter’s foundation, has reinforced for our team just how much a transplant changes people’s lives for the better,” Levy says. “We are so appreciative of their mission to support living donation through funding and education to help others become living donors and save more lives."

Blessing said his vision for the foundation is to provide support to living donors at transplant centers across the East Coast. "We’re going to perfect it regionally before we take it further," he says. "But my heart's always going to be in Richmond, because, like I say, I let them do something to me that I've never let anybody else on this Earth do."

"Something to me" wasn’t just transplanting his daughter’s kidney. Indeed, Bruce was her living donor. But he doesn’t like to tell that part of the story, to keep the focus on Meredith, who passed away 6 years following her transplant of an unrelated illness. Still, Blessing knows sharing his living donor journey is important, to show others the power of living donation.

"When he shared his story with me, it opened my eyes as someone who gave an organ just like he did," says Fleming, the first funding recipient of the Foundation. "I wish things turned out for the better and I had the chance to meet Meredith. But it’s been a blessing. Mr. Bruce Blessing… he truly is a blessing."

Become a living donor and save lives. Learn more about how you can gain the power to save someone’s life.

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