DOVE: Changing How Veterans Find Kidney Donors | EP 40

Being told you need a kidney transplant is overwhelming. Being told you need to go find your own living donor while managing dialysis can feel impossible. For many veterans, that is exactly how the system works today.

In this episode, we sit down with Sharyn Kreitzer, a living kidney donor and longtime transplant professional with nearly three decades of experience in end stage organ disease. Sharyn began her career as a dialysis social worker and went on to work across transplant social work, outreach, development, and administration in both private sector programs and the VA system. In 2015, she launched the first VA transplant program on the East Coast at the Bronx VA. It was there that she saw a gap that could not be ignored, and in 2020 she founded DOVE (Donor Outreach for Veterans) to bring a different kind of support to veterans navigating the transplant process.

We talk about the real barriers veterans face when it comes to living donation. Access to transplant centers is limited. Travel can be a major burden for both recipients and donors. Criteria for donor approval can vary widely from one center to another, leaving willing donors confused and discouraged. Sharyn shares how DOVE steps in once a veteran is evaluated and listed, helping them build a clear, shareable profile that turns a vague need into something people can understand and act on.

A big part of this conversation is about how we engage potential donors. Instead of pushing people straight into long and invasive medical forms, DOVE starts with education and conversation. It is a simple shift, but one that keeps more people engaged and open to learning. We also talk about the importance of second opinions, and how a “no” from one center does not always mean the end of the road.

Throughout the episode, we come back to the idea of community directed donation. Sharyn shares how DOVE was inspired by models like Renewal and what the broader transplant community can learn from groups that have normalized living donation. When communities share the work, more people step forward and more lives are saved.

Sharyn’s work has been recognized across the transplant field, including honors from TRIO, LiveOnNY, the American Association of Kidney Patients, and an innovation award from United Network for Organ Sharing for mobile lab outreach during COVID. She is also helping lead the first ever U.S. Armed Forces Transplant Team at the 2026 Transplant Games in Denver.

If you care about veterans, kidney disease, or the future of living donation, this conversation offers a perspective that is both honest and hopeful.

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GiftWorks Website
Connect with Laurie Lee

Transcript

The Cruel Math Of Waiting;

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I find that it's cruel that we bring patients in for a transplant evaluation, and then many of them are shown a diagram that if they don't get a transplant, the mortality rate is so steep and they're eligible for this transplant, which is the preferred way for them to get treated, but yet they're gonna have to wait five years for a deceased donor, and they may not survive that wait, or they have to go out and find their own kidney donor. You have chronic disease, you're on dialysis, and you're being told you have to now do a marketing campaign to ask people to donate a kidney to you. It just seems ludicrous to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

May is National Military Appreciation Month, a time to recognize the service and sacrifice of veterans and military families. This year, to recognize those who are serving or have served, I'm joined by Sharon Kreitzer, the founder and executive director of Dove, Donor Outreach for Veterans. Sharon has spent nearly three decades working in transplant care, including helping launch a VA transplant program on the East Coast at the Bronx VA. And along the way, she saw a gap that needed to be filled, and she built something entirely new to meet the need. Dove supports veterans who need a living kidney donor and the everyday people who step forward in hopes to be a donor. Sharon is also a living kidney donor herself and is co-leading the first ever U.S. Armed Forces transplant team at the 2026 Transplant Games in Denver that we talked about in last month's episode. Let's jump in. Welcome, Sharon, and thank you for being here and for the incredible work you're doing in the transplant space. Thanks, Flori. It's so nice to be here and thanks for having me. To start off, can you tell us who you are a little bit about yourself and what led you personally to this type of work?

SPEAKER_01 2:30

I'm a social worker by training. Most of my career has been working with patients with chronic kidney disease and dialysis and then transplant settings. Became an administrator for the VA in the Bronx and helped to launch a kidney transplant program there in 2015.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

That's beautiful. And was there a specific moment or experience that made you realize veterans needed a different kind of support when it comes to kidney transplants?

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yeah, when I was at the VA, I learned a few things. First of all, I saw that the transplant rate for veterans in the VA system was significantly less than non-VA centers, and that the living donor rate at the VA was really low. I really wanted to figure out a way to help amplify the need of veterans and see if I could make some policy changes and educate the public and the military so we can try to improve those transplant rates. Why are those rates lower, do you think, Sharon? So there's a well-known high incidence of kidney disease, but um as far as the access for transplant, I think that some of it could be due to the structure of the transplant programs in the VA. There's a very limited amount of transplant programs that a veteran can choose from. At least when I was there, we were going to be the seventh VA transplant program in the system in the country. So that meant if you were a VA patient, you needed to go to one of the six other transplant programs across the country in order to be evaluated and to undergo the transplant. If you had a living donor, similarly, that living donor had to go to that transplant program, which was oftentimes far away from home, and they had to stay there for a bit after donation. So it was a lot to ask of veterans and their donors. So maybe that was part of the issue as well. A lot of veterans had limited support systems or psychosocial challenges that made it difficult for them to even advocate for themselves to get on the list or to find living donors. So as I learned more about the military and their dedication to showing up and helping another brother in need, another soldier in need, I thought, well, this lined up perfectly with the ask of a kidney donor. What better way to help another in need than to donate a life-saving kidney to them? So I knew something was there, and I just had to figure out how to get it off the ground.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

And are you a veteran yourself?

SPEAKER_01 5:15

I am not a veteran. By the time I got to the VA as the administrator, I had been working for 20 years in transplant and so was very devoted to transplant and living donation. And then when I got to the VA, I just felt such gratification working for veterans and saw a need, a way that I could give back from my knowledge base of transplant and donation. I thought there was a real way I could impact the quality of a veteran's life by being their champion. I only worked for the VA for about four years and then I left to create a standalone nonprofit, which is Dove. And I started the paperwork in 2019. It was operational in 2020, just in time for COVID. And that's another distinction I should I should make clear is the Dove program is not in any way affiliated with the VA. Obviously, we work with many veterans who get their care in the VA system. And it's helpful that I have that expertise of knowing the VA coverage as well as the private sector coverage. Many of them would rather go to a VA transplant program and travel to get there versus go locally because there's a sense of trust and camaraderie and belief that they're well cared for in the VA system. So I want to strengthen the VA so they have access to parrot exchange and all the VA transplant centers. So it could be equal or superior to what's offered outside of the VA. And that's really how I see Dove partnering with the VA. And I want to really emphasize that and how to coordinate that in a way that would get that veteran to the finish line, hopefully, of a transplant. I am working for the veteran. If they choose a center, I'm going to try to work with that veteran at that center to get a donor there. And only if and when we're having trouble with that center do I recommend dual listing or a second opinion or a third opinion to get that veteran at a center that may have better success with the living donors we're referring. There's a lot of disparity in the centers and their criteria for kidney donor clearances. And so oftentimes I have that bird's eye view and can give the veteran information that they need to get to a place that may suit them better.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Well, the veterans and the VA are lucky to have you in the corner. Thank you. So you're really a jack of all trades. You've got a social work background, yet I hear that you're helping advise on when people can get dual listed, when they would benefit from being dual listed. That's a lot of different skill sets for one person to have.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah, and it's that's thankfully, it's 28 years of skill at this point that I have under my belt. And this is this is my wheelhouse. This is what I know a lot about. And it feels good because I really can help in such a meaningful way. Even if I can't find a living donor for a veteran in need, I know that they don't feel alone in the process and that they have a resource to call. Transplant is really overwhelming. And it's really overwhelming when you have multiple sources of coverage and not knowing how to coordinate that. And that's where having someone like me with my background and knowledge base, I can really just cut through it and assess it really quickly and guide them.

How Dove Finds Living Donors;

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Well, you're clearly making it easier. And I recognize that Dove's working with people in need of a kidney transplant, as well as donors who step forward to help them. Can you walk us through what it looks like when a veteran works with Dove? Let's start with how do they find you?

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Sometimes they're referred to us through their transplant center. We've earned their trust. And so they will ask who are veterans at their center at the intake, and then they'll send them home with a brochure or we're even in the presentation when somebody comes in for an evaluation at many centers. Sometimes a veteran has seen us on social media because we share, you know, part of our model is we ask all the veterans who work with us to create a profile and share a campaign on the website. So we have like this organic exposure just from sharing their own profiles about Dove. And part of each profile educates the reader that this is a veteran that's also working with the community-directed veteran-centric organization, Dove. And then we're lucky because we get a lot of media coverage. We have Fox News every Memorial Day to show a piece about Dove. Each time I get 500 at least inquiries to Dove. We told them there were 28 donors directly connected to them. So that's 28 people that actually donate it because they saw Fox News on TV or they hear it on Sirius radio and they've called Dove. At least 10 donors have donated from that Memorial Day piece. So it's really powerful to be able to take that information back to a media source and say, because of you, 10 people's lives have been saved. Even more because most of those donors participate in exchanging. So veterans, so not only donors will come forward, but obviously we get a lot of veterans who come forward as a result of that as well. And we ask that they're actively listed at a center. So we don't work with veterans until they've actually been evaluated and cleared.

Making The Ask Feel Possible;

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yeah. So you start working with them once they're approved. Then what exactly do you do for a veteran that you're helping?

Screening Donors Without Losing Them;

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Dove requires their participation and partnership. That's the most important thing we can emphasize is that we're going to walk alongside you, but not for you. What we ask of you is to be vulnerable, to create a profile that is going to put your name on it, gonna put a little bit of your military history. You're gonna put that out there and you're gonna share it with your community. And your, or if you don't want to do it, you're gonna ask someone else to share it on your behalf. We need you to participate in this. We know it's not comfortable, particularly for veterans who are used to just serving everybody else and saving others' lives. They're not comfortable at all asking for help in return. I can see how that would be harder for a veteran than maybe somebody else. We do that too. And I say communally, you're doing this because your campaign may not just help you. It very well will help another veteran because you're sharing awareness about this communal initiative. So it's not just about you. The camaraderie and the shared experience of this is what really gets them over the finish line of saying, okay, I'll put my ask out there because I think it not only may help me, but it will help others as well, other veterans. And that really helps them psychologically with our ask. And so we put up a very simple profile on our website that does two things. It shows anyone who visits our website, it will show one of the 400 veterans we're working with to find a kidney donor for. And it makes it very real for people. People will say how impactful that landing page is to see all of the veterans and kind of peruse through their stories and realize all the lives that are really affected by kidney failure. Second of all, it's a very simple tool that can be used to raise awareness that you have a need to find a donor. And not only does it raise awareness, it also gives people in your life something concrete to do to help you by sharing it. And then once they share it, there's a really clear action plan because on the bottom of the one page profile is a call to action to just learn about donation. And they click a link and it comes directly to me. And they have at that moment an opportunity to have a phone call or a Zoom call to learn about kidney donation. Potential donors who just wants to learn doesn't have to fill out a whole half hour intake about their medical history, their psychosocial history, their drug and sexual history, which is oftentimes what happens. You think, well, let me have an opportunity to just engage with the potential donor, tell them about it. And if they want to move forward after knowing a little bit more, then I link them to the transplant center to fill out that questionnaire. And I prepare them for filling out a very detailed questionnaire. And while it may be one more step in the link of things to do, it's an important one because the people that I usually forward for that next step are already educated, engaged, and I think more likely to move forward with the full evaluation. So also, since they're coming to Dove versus a transplant center, we don't lose the donors. So sometimes a donor goes to a certain center and they may get declined because they're on a blood pressure medication and that center doesn't accept any blood pressure medications. I can now redirect that donor for a second opinion at another center. Whereas if that donor just went straight to that one transplant center, you know, we would just kind of lose them. And I'm sorry to say that I would say at least 30% of the donors in Dove were declined at the first center they went to.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Yes. And I think a common place where we see that in play is with weight. Some centers won't even evaluate donors with a BMI over 30, but then others will evaluate a donor with a BMI of 37. That could be a difference between losing 50 pounds or not having to lose 50 pounds. I love hearing about the work you're doing with donors, but I have one more question about your work with veterans. What do you do, if anything, to ensure their participation? Because in my experience, some people feel like getting their story on the website is the finish line when you and I know that's just a needed tool to get started.

Renewal Mentorship And Community Donation;

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Yeah, well, the most I can do is ask for their participation and ask for their profile to be up. We expect them to keep in touch with us as well. So if they fall out of touch every six months, we're doing checkup calls just to make sure that they're still listed. We'll ask if they're listed at other centers because we know that your listing status can change. And we've sent donors who've got cleared and the veterans not listed anymore. So we just try to avoid that happening if we can. So we ask that the veterans just stay in touch with us and confirm that they're still active on the transplant lists. I find that it's cruel that we bring patients in for a transplant evaluation, and then many of them are shown a diagram that if they don't get a transplant, the mortality rate is so steep and they're eligible for this transplant, which is the preferred way for them to get treated. But yet they're gonna have to wait five years for a deceased donor, and they may not survive that wait, or they have to go out and find their own kidney donor. You have chronic disease, you're on dialysis, and you're being told you have to now do a marketing campaign to ask people to donate a kidney to you. It just seems ludicrous to me, and it always did. And I just don't like the whole setup. It doesn't seem fair to someone. And um, so that's what I loved about, you know, when Johns Hopkins, I think they were the first that created this idea of a donor champion. So you're putting the onus on other people other than the person in need to do a campaign and to do the ask. And then just broadening that out to donor champions for communities seemed to make sense too, you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

So speaking of communities, just this week on Monday, I recently learned you have a special partnership with an organization that I really, really look up to called Renewal. I know you look up to them also. Renewal is a Jewish-based organization that has a similar model to yours that supports all types of people, but has a focus on supporting the Orthodox Jewish community. And what impresses me about Renewal is that while Orthodox Jews represent less than 1% of our population of the four to 500 people who donate a kidney um anonymously each year, 18% are Orthodox Jews. That's just remarkable. It tells me that we have a lot to learn from Renewal in terms of how to help people tap into a space of generosity and responsibility to caring for or loving a stranger. Um, that was my soapbox on renewal. Can you share a little bit about your relationship with Renewal and maybe kind of how you overlap with them and what they're doing?

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Renewal is everything to Dove. Dove is modeled after and mentored by Renewal. Um, there would be no Dove without Renewal. The origins of that relationship started in 2008 when I was at Mount Sinai as a transplant social worker. I think that was the first year that they even launched. Wow. So you've really been with them since like one. Wow. And I and I was a true admirer and believer in what they were doing. And they, when they launched their idea of a community-directed Jewish model, I think it was not wholeheartedly embraced by the transplant community. And understandably, there was skepticism and concern about the motivations of the donors and potentially incentives that the transplant communities had to figure out and make sure that they were comfortable with. But from my perspective, I saw all that renewal did to support a member of their community who was in need. They ensured that that member of the community was lifted up by their friends and neighbors and knew that they weren't in a search for a kidney donor on their own, which is what I was just referring to as cruel in my, in my in my mind, um, having an illness and then being told to go find your donor to run your own campaign to find your treatment. And so just even the community thinking, well, let's do this as a community, was very simple, but yet not done in the in that time. Um, and then meeting those donors that came forward as a result of that outreach of the community. These donors did not know who they were giving to. They just knew it was a member of a community they were a part of and cared about. And so they were going forward with donation full steam ahead and despite a lot of obstacles, because they were put through a lot more delays, a lot more clearances that they needed because they were anonymous and there was some concern at the time about anonymous donation as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Yeah, it wasn't cool in 2008.

Sharon’s Living Donation Swap;

SPEAKER_01 20:36

It wasn't. In transplant, we're highly skeptical of anonymous donors. Like what possibly could be your motivation? And I think we take that for granted now that that was like the mindset of the transplant professionals saying, I don't understand. We must have a psychiatric evaluation for an anonymous donor. Meanwhile, I saw much more complication in family dynamic donation, you know, and a lot of unsavory relationships and coercion going on because of family dynamics versus the anonymous donor who just wants to give to a member of the community. But that was that was it for me. I met these donors and they got so much support from renewal along the way. They know exactly what the donor, you know, would need to make it more comfortable. And you just, it's those little things, and they're just my touchstone to overcoming obstacles to helping me navigate certain situations. I've always known that if I'm in trouble or whatever I need, I can I can run it by them and they will help me. They donated$10,000 worth of seed money. When I first started Dove, they surprised me with that. Yeah. So it just is it's a continued friendship, relationship, mentorship. I'm and tremendously grateful to them.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

So we didn't talk about this yet, but you you're a kidney donor. Yes. Can you share a little bit about what happened there?

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Sure. Well, you know, throughout my career, I was wondering when the right time would be. And it just wasn't the right time. I had young children. I had, you know, I had to get through personal and family hurdles. And then when I decided it was the right time for me, I was thoughtful about how I wanted to donate. I wanted to go to an evaluation and have renewal support. I wanted to give back to this organization that has given me so much personally and professionally. So what I proposed to renewal is that I become a donor for their community and that in return they find a donor for a veteran from my community. And so that's what we did. And I donated my kidney in August of 2022 at Hackensack. And six or seven months later, Renewal was able to find a kidney for a very hard-to-match veteran at Brigham and Women's in Boston. That was really a wonderful symbolic ending to what iTorney has been. So I really believe that community-directed donation works and that again, the next step would be more communities supporting each other to increase the donor pool and to work collaboratively to get more transplants done. So I just think that that's what I'm trying to show and which I was able to show. And it felt very affirming just for what I'm trying to do as well.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Way to go, Sharon. Thanks. It really does. It illustrates how communities can support one another. It's you just beautifully illustrated that.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to think of more communities that Dove can now partner with to do the same. I I would love to give back and pay it forward.

Who Donates And Why;

SPEAKER_00 24:00

My first question is about the donors who stepped forward. Is a high percentage of them veterans? No.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Actually. This month we we will have completed our 81st transplant since I guess 2021. And I would say about half of the donors were veterans. And we had two active duty, a military personnel donated, and the rest of the half, like about 40, were veterans. And then the others are not veterans. They may have come from military families, or they're just members of the public that really wanted to give back to a veteran. And this spoke to them. Some donors have shared with me that they never joined the military and always felt guilty about it. And so this felt like a really great way to reconcile that for themselves by saving a veteran's life who did say yes. Amanda, whose brother passed away, had he had kidney disease and she had so desperately wanted to be his donor. And he died before he was eligible for transplant. And then she learned about Dove and was able to donate, you know, in memory of him to another veteran who consequently they have become very close. And Amanda talks about seeing her brother in the recovery room and feeling like she was touched by him. And she really says that it has helped her so much deal with her grief and her loss of her brother. And, you know, not all the stories end up in this kind of wonderful outcome where there's true connection between the donor and the recipient when and if they meet. But this is one of those beautiful stories that you couldn't you couldn't have written a more beautiful relationship that could have evolved from a donor and a recipient meeting each other.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

I'm so happy for her. It's so nice when we hear those stories, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 25:51

Yes, it is. It is.

Building Donor And Veteran Community;

SPEAKER_00 25:53

So you talked about how when donors come through, said 30 to 40 percent end up going to be evaluated at another center. That kind of blows my mind. Yes. You're helping them access the protections already available at that center, whether that be through NKR or the Alliance NALDAC, and then you're supplementing with a fund that you have for anything else in education. You mentioned that as well. Is there anything else you want to talk about in terms of how you support donors?

SPEAKER_01 26:22

We're not just partnering in outreach, we're also cultivating a connection in a community. So we do things throughout the year virtually and also in-person events that just kind of create connection with each other. So we're just trying to create connection. Weaving together the donors with the veterans is important too because the donors get a tremendous amount of gratification from staying connected to the veteran community.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

So that's cool. So you've got a Dove donor community and a Dove recipient community, and then they they kind of you also mix them together.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Yeah, yeah. Everybody's welcome, invited to attend whatever we're doing throughout the year.

How To Support Dove

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Sharon, you've come so far in such a short period of time. Are you are you doing this solo or do you have a team that helps you?

SPEAKER_01 27:11

I have a tremendous board of directors that have been with me over the past few years. It has grown. We do have behind the scenes medical and military and business professionals that really give me the support that I need. And then as far as the staff, we're pretty small. People can't believe it, but I'm really the only full-time staff, but we do have two case managers that help part-time with the veteran intakes and donor intakes. And then I have an assistant, and then we have volunteers. Dev is run primarily remotely, and it's remarkable that we've been able to do what we've done with the resources that we have.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

It is remarkable. And you know, sometimes it shocks me, and I love it when it does. But when an organization that feels like it's huge, you dig a little deeper and you find out that it's one really dedicated person with a smart board and some volunteers doing it. Yeah, it really shows the power of what per one person can do. And I'm not saying one person and like just you, because you do have this team and some support, but it's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

No, it's the community, community engagement. It's all about that. I can't say that enough.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

How can listeners support your work, whether they're potential donors, veterans, or you talked about volunteers? What's your connection to anyone listening who feels like, oh my gosh, I need to support Dev?

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Well, if anyone believes in what I'm doing and has any connections in Congress or in the VA or wants to help get Dev more traction and expansion, I'm I'm happy to welcome your expertise and your connections. There's really a way to support in any way that you can, whether it's sharing a veteran's profile or just following us on social media, donating financially is always appreciated. Just visit us online and reach out. And I'm sure I can find a way that you can contribute to the community directed movement.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

Excellent. And to our listeners, all of the information that you need to reach Sharon will be in my show notes. And I hope that you feel compelled to reach out. Well, thank you for all you do for our community and for veterans and for donors. You're truly an amazing human being, Sharon.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

So nice to meet you and talk to you, and we'll be in touch.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

If today's conversation with Sharon resonated with you and you want to learn more about Dove and the work they're doing to support veterans and living donors, you can find links and resources in our show notes. Whether you're a veteran, someone who cares about the veteran community, or you're just curious about how living donation works in this space, Dove is a great place to start. Take a few minutes to check it out, share it with someone who might need it. This season of Donor Diaries is sponsored by Giftworks, an organization dedicated to education, advocacy, and support for organ recipients and living donors. Giftworks celebrates the courage it takes to ask for help and the miraculous ways help often answers. Within this growing community, recipients, families, and donors come together to participate in a transformative exchange that reminds us of the power of human connection. Visit yourgiftworks.com to learn more. As we close out this episode during National Military Appreciation Month, we want to take a moment to recognize and thank the service members, veterans, and families who have given so much. Your service matters, and we're grateful today and always. This is Lori Lee signing off.