In January 2007, after fighting for nearly a year for the opportunity, Christina became a nontraditional living kidney donor through an intimate tribute to her aunt who died of renal failure at the untimely age of 31. Christina was 14 years old at that time and was dismissed as a candidate for donation because of her age. She set it in her mind that one day she would make a difference to someone. At the age of 31, for obvious reasons, Christina approached her local transplant program with the intention to donate anonymously to someone on the transplant waiting list and was initially refused the opportunity.

It didn’t take long to discover that very few nontraditional donor programs existed nationwide. Christina initiated the Share Life Foundation and used the media to raise awareness about the need for nontraditional donor programs. The media attention generated an outpouring of support and an introduction to the man that would eventually become her recipient.

With a combination of time, patience, and a great deal of persistence, nondirected donor protocols were established. Christina and her recipient were among the first to participate in the revolutionary program. She went on to write about her experience in an article published by Progress in Transplantation entitled, “Perspective of a Nontraditional Living Donor” (June 2008).

Christina’s ambitions didn’t stop there. In March 2007, Christina channeled that passion through her nursing career as a Procurement Transplant Coordinator. One year later she passed her ABTC Certification and served two years on the Procurement Ad Hoc Committee with NATCO where she taught the CPTC Review Course. That same year, Christina was appointed Counselor at Large on the UNOS Living Donor Committee. During her tenure, she was nominated to the KPD (Kidney Paired Donor) Pilot Program work group where she served on both the Interim Policy and Donor Chains Subcommittees to establish the protocols for the National Kidney Paired Donor program in effect today.