Man whose life’s work is helping kids donates kidney to one
David Simpson and Madeline Hernandez, 20, share a high five during the weekly dinner that Simpson and his wife organize for the young men and women they help through their nonprofit organization, AOK. Simpson donated a kidney to Hernandez three days ago, and both reportedly are doing fine.
WASHINGTON — David Simpson donated a kidney to a young woman Thursday in Washington, D.C., because his tissue is a perfect match, and her kidneys are failing and slowly poisoning her.
Simpson didn’t have to do it; he had an out.
“They told me they’d write me a letter saying they rejected me if I wanted,” Simpson said of his doctor.
But Simpson, 57, and his wife, Kathy Fletcher, 56, never take the easy way out. Their life’s work has become pushing the boundaries of what it means to give to young people, many with dire life stories, who are just entering adulthood and are hungry or don’t have a place to live or enough money for college or countless other needs.
It started about 2010 when they began helping friends of Fletcher’s son, Santiago, while he was in middle and high school. Years later they had become so involved in Hernandez, center, lives with Simpson, right, and his wife. She is one of four young people in their 20s who have joined the family. Ryan Harvey, left, has dinner with them.
helping young people that Simpson quit his job working for a nonprofit that advocates for campaign-finance reform to dedicate himself to it full time.
“We said yes — step by step by step — until we had eight kids living in our house,” said Simpson, referring to last year, when all their beds were full. They
persuaded neighbors to take in another few young people they didn’t have room to house.