💚 19-YEAR-OLD JUSTIN LEPRI NEEDS A KIDNEY — COULD SOMEONE READING THIS BE HIS LIFELINE?

Just weeks after celebrating one of the biggest milestones of his young life, 19-year-old Justin Lepri of St. Augustine, Florida, found himself facing a devastating medical crisis.

In May, Justin was looking forward to graduating from Nease High School in Ponte Vedra Beach.

Instead, he was hospitalized.

After nearly two weeks in the hospital and extensive testing, doctors discovered that a rare genetic disorder had silently damaged his kidneys, leaving Justin with advanced Stage 5 kidney failure.

💔 Now, this young man needs a kidney transplant.

And his family is urgently searching for a living kidney donor.

🎓 FROM GRADUATION TO A FIGHT FOR HIS FUTURE

Justin’s family describes him as:

🎨 Creative and artistic
📸 Passionate about photography and videography
🌲 Someone who loves nature and the outdoors
❤️ Kind-hearted, funny and resilient
✨ A young man with dreams, adventures and milestones still ahead of him

Despite his illness, Justin still walked across the graduation stage only days after returning home from the hospital.

His teachers even visited him in the hospital with gifts and encouraging messages.

His mother, Madelin Lepri, says Justin’s illness does not define him — and his family is determined to help him move forward.

🩺 JUSTIN IS NOW ON THE NATIONAL KIDNEY TRANSPLANT WAITING LIST

Justin has been placed on the national kidney transplant waiting list.

But his family is searching for a living donor because a living-donor transplant could potentially shorten the wait for a kidney.

His medical team has encouraged the family to search for a donor before dialysis becomes necessary.

🩸 WHO CAN CONSIDER DONATING?

According to the family’s published appeal, potential donors should:

🔹 Be 18 years of age or older
🔹 Be in good physical and mental health
🔹 Have blood type A or O
🔹 Be willing to undergo the transplant center’s confidential medical evaluation

You don’t have to assume you’re a match.

The transplant team makes that determination through medical testing.

And simply completing the initial questionnaire does not obligate you to donate. Justin’s family specifically emphasizes that there is no pressure or expectation for anyone considering donation.

❤️ WHAT IF YOU DON’T KNOW JUSTIN?

That’s okay.

A living kidney donor can be someone who knows the recipient—or, depending on the transplant program, someone who comes forward after learning their story.

And if a potential donor isn’t directly compatible, transplant centers may have paired-donation options. UF Health has an established kidney-paired-donation program in which incompatible donor-recipient pairs can be linked with other pairs to facilitate compatible transplants.

📞 HOW TO BECOME A POTENTIAL DONOR FOR JUSTIN

Justin Lepri — Living Kidney Donor Appeal

🏥 Transplant Center: UF Health Shands Transplant Center, Gainesville, Florida

📝 Potential donors can begin by completing the donor questionnaire provided in Justin’s published appeal:
UF donor questionnaire:
https://redcap.ctsi.ufl.edu/redcap/surveys/?s=XNCTAY4CHJDHM44

☎️ UF Health Kidney Transplant Program: 352-273-8821
📧 Email: neph@medicine.ufl.edu
📍 1600 SW Archer Road, Gainesville, FL 32610

The transplant team—not the family—will determine whether a potential donor is medically eligible. UF Health states that its transplant program evaluates both transplant candidates and living donors.

🙏 IF YOU CAN’T DONATE, PLEASE DO ONE THING:

SHARE JUSTIN’S STORY.

📲 Share this email.
📲 Post it on social media.
📲 Send it to friends, colleagues and family.
📲 Tell people in your community.

You may not be Justin’s donor.

But someone you know might be.

Justin’s father, David Lepri, has publicly appealed for help, describing his son’s situation as one of the most difficult experiences a parent can face and asking his network to help spread the search for a living donor.

💚 JUSTIN HAS ALREADY WALKED ACROSS ONE STAGE.

Now his family is hoping he gets the chance to walk across many more.

Graduation was supposed to be the beginning of Justin’s next chapter.

Let’s help him have a future filled with more photographs, more adventures, more laughter, more milestones—and more memories.

🩵 ONE DONOR COULD CHANGE THE COURSE OF HIS LIFE.

🙏 Please share Justin’s story. The right person may be only one share away.

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