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Feb 24, 2012

"You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link." --Kahlil Gibran

30 kidneys, 60 lives: A Kindness Chain

"A year ago, Rick Ruzzamenti decided in an instant to donate his left kidney to a stranger. In February 2011, the desk clerk at Ruzzamenti's yoga studio told him she had recently donated a kidney to an ailing friend. Ruzzamenti, 44, had never even donated blood, but the story so captivated him that two days later he placed a call to Riverside Community Hospital to ask how he might do the same thing." But that was just the beginning. As this NY Times article outlines, Ruzzamenti's selfless, pay-it-forward act rippled into the longest chain of kidney transplants ever constructed, linking 30 people who were willing to give up an organ with 30 who might have died without one.