John Reed, father of senior Griffin Reed, had to have both of his kidneys replaced, one in 2000, and one in 2014. He spent the years in between on dialysis, a machine that filters the blood when the kidneys cannot. On his second transplant, John Reed was part of one of the largest kidney exchanges ever, consisting of 24 recipients and 24 donors from around the country.

Mike Menne, husband of science teacher Megan Menne, has also had a transplant. He had a condition called Budd Chiari, causing his liver to fail in 2016. He received a liver transplant the next year.

Organ transplants are an often overlooked part of medical care. When people like John Reed and Mike Menne receive organ donations, they are given a second shot at life. As a way to raise awareness for this cause that has given so much to them, John Reed and Mike Menne participate in the biannual Transplant Games of America. 

The Transplant Games bring together the families of transplant recipients, donors, and other members of the transplant community. From around the world, there are over 40 teams made up of people who have received transplants, donors, and family members of donors who have passed away. The teams compete for medals in 20 various competitions, while over 60 events are held for spectators and families to enjoy while they support their loved ones. 

The games are the basis in which these families have gathered, but the main point of the games is to build a community and raise awareness for the impact that transplants have on people’s lives.

“The competition really doesn't matter at all at the Transplant Games. It is probably the last thing people think of while they're there. There are certain teams that get into it, but our team is mostly about being there and seeing that these people can go back to normal life,” said Griffin Reed. “The games are mostly about raising awareness for organ donation and how important it is to have ‘donor’ on your license.”

John Reed and Mike Menne compete for the Mid-America Transplant organization which includes people from the St. Louis area, southern Illinois, and northern Missouri. The organization raises money for transplants and has close ties to Barnes-Jewish hospital, one of the largest transplant centers in America. The team is made up of athletes of a wide range of ages and backgrounds with the youngest being 12 years old and the oldest being 83 years old. 

Menne competed with the team for the first time in the 2018 games hosted in Salt Lake City, Utah and most recently in San Diego, Calif. this past summer.

John Reed’s career in the Transplant Games also started in Salt Lake City, but much earlier in the games hosted in 1996. John Reed originally heard about the event from a friend in St. Louis and has been a part of the transplant games community ever since. 

“It's good because they kind of put the message out there that about organ donation, just in general and there's a lot of people on the transplant list that are waiting to get organs and so just getting that message out there is super important,” said biology teacher Megan Menne. “My husband and I went this summer, it was just our second time going. There are some families that have been going for a long time and they clearly know each other very well. It's a whole community.”

In the 26 years that John Reed has been involved, he has contributed to the games as more than a competitor by introducing his family to the community. Since the 2016 Transplant games in Cleveland, Griffin Reed has been accompanying his father to the various cities around the countries that host the event. Families like the Reed’s and Menne’s participation in the games are essential to combating the lack of awareness that people seem to have about how positive of an impact transplants can have on recipients’ lives.

For Griffin Reed, the decision of a donor to say yes to becoming a donor made all the difference in being able to have a life with a real presence from his father.

“My whole thing is you're not going to use them when you're gone. There's really no reason for you to keep them so once you're gone, why not give somebody else who really needs a second chance of life?” said Griffin Reed. “It has impacted me greatly because I've been able to actually experience a real life with my dad because for the first years of my life, I remember either going to see him at the dialysis center with wires hooked into him and blood and those wires going in and out of a machine.”