Saturday we went to the fourth annual Wizards Organ Donation Awareness Tournament at Capital One Arena. The National Kidney Foundation Serving the National Capital Area hosted the charity basketball tournament, where participants competed in 3-on-3 half-court scrimmages on the same floor as the Washington Wizards. This year, Howard University Hospital took home the title. We snapped NKF/NCA Development Manager Michael Cleary, intern Dave Sultzer and Executive Director Michele Anthony with Attain President Manish Agarwal, who is also a NKF/NCA board member and kidney transplant recipient.
Tournament sponsors and participants enjoyed reserved seating for the Wizards game against the Brooklyn Nets following the tournament. They also had the opportunity to participate in the Wizards’ fan tunnel and high-five their favorite player. NKF/NCA was on the concourse during the game to raise awareness and register organ donors along with Washington Regional Transplant Community and Be the Match. Here, Punch Digital Strategies partners Brian Tillman and Joe DePalma flank Emma McKinley.
During the event guests heard from mission speaker Sultzer, a kidney donor and now an intern for the NKF. In 2007, Sultzer retired from the U.S. Army and donated one of his kidneys to his mother, who had been on dialysis for some time while his father was already on the transplant waiting list. Since his donation, Sultzer has devoted himself to raising awareness for kidney disease and transplantation in at-risk communities, and hopes to promote a healthy lifestyle to those same communities. Here, Team Virginia members and kidney transplant recipients Brian Wilson, Kala Dawson and Gary Scheer.
The National Kidney Foundation is the largest, most comprehensive and long-standing patient-centric organization dedicated to the awareness, prevention and treatment of kidney disease in the U.S. Here, members of the champion Howard University Hospital team — Daniel Ayorinde, Eric Bowman, Joshua Obamedo and Aaron Bolds.
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