In 2013, Brian Martindale was down to his last piece of gum, so he took a simple walk to Liberty Food Store in Bay City, Michigan, to buy more. Inside the store, he picked up a copy of The Bay City Times and saw something that would change his life forever: a front-page photo of a 10-year-old girl in a princess dress named Jessica Schwerin, whose mother was desperately seeking a kidney donor. Even though he had never met Jessica or her family, Martindale felt an overwhelming compulsion to help, and within months he donated his kidney to the little girl who would eventually become like a daughter to him.
That life-changing moment opened his eyes to the thousands of children waiting for kidney transplants across the country, inspiring him to found the nonprofit Kidneys for Kids in 2022. Since then, Martindale has driven over 25,000 miles across America in his “Driving for Life” initiative, literally circling the earth in his quest to connect 100 kidney donors with 100 children in need. Reflecting on that fateful day, he says if he hadn’t run out of gum and made that walk to the store, he never would have seen Jessica’s story. What started as a simple craving for chewing gum has grown into a national movement that’s giving children across America a second chance at life.