CADILLAC — Someone in New York is hopefully in the early days of experiencing a second chance at a full, healthy life thanks to a Cadillac woman who gave a kidney to a stranger.
It’s called a Good Samaritan donation, and Niki Schultz just knew she wanted to do it.
Schultz, her days before her anonymous kidney donation in April, was notably calm for someone whose left kidney was about to become intimately acquainted with the surgeon’s scalpel.
And here’s the kicker: she was choosing to put herself through elective surgery, solely for the potential extreme benefit of someone she has never and may never meet.
Most people don’t get it.
“If it’s for a loved one, clearly that makes sense, but to just go into like, ‘oh hey, here’s a perfectly functioning piece of myself, take it’, yeah it’s a little weird,” she said laughing.
According to the National Kidney Registry, approximately 90,000 people across the country are in need of a kidney transplant. A little less than a third — 27,500 people receive a kidney transplant each year, according to the United Network for Organ sharing. Approximately 21,000 of those organs come from deceased donor donations. The rest, around 6,500 are removed from living donors.
Less than 5 percent of those living donors offer up one of their body’s toxin filtration systems to an anonymous recipient biding their time on the registry, according to the National Kidney Registry.
Niki Schultz finds herself in that minority category of donors.
“It’s always been in the back of my mind that I want to be able to give that gift of life to someone,” Schultz said.
At one time, that gift meant becoming a surrogate mother. After three natural child births and easy pregnancies with her own kids, she thought she’d be the perfect candidate to help someone build their family.
For different reasons, becoming a surrogate didn’t work out, but her need to give back never abated — something that is evidenced in her community involvement.
Schultz is the executive director of Alliance for Economic Success in Cadillac where she strives to grow jobs and industry in the area. She serves on the board of education for Cadillac Area Public Schools and she mentors kids through the Kids Hope program. She also makes frequent visits to Munson Hospital in Cadillac with her therapy dog Lizzo in tow where the duo brightens the days of employees and patients by offering up pets, grins and licks.
Niki and her husband Ryan Schultz were also recently recognized as the Cadillac Area Chamber of Commerce Outstanding Citizens of the year in 2025 for their commitment to advocating for workforce development, housing and literacy expansion according to the chamber. Ryan Schultz serves as the president and CEO of M R products in Copemish.
“I would say for both of us, it’s pretty par for the course to kind of, we support each other, we do a lot of different things and we are involved in the community,” said Ryan Schultz.
He’s “tremendously proud” of his wife’s heart. But still?
“I could think she’s crazy and be proud of her at the same time,” he said.
“I keep telling my husband, ‘I have two. I have two,’” said Niki Schultz. “You can live with one.”
That’s true if both kidneys are healthy which was the case for Niki Schultz. She’s a non-smoker who has never had major surgery, with a self-reported high pain tolerance. After a full medical and psychological workup, she got the all-clear.
“I’m in a really good position to be able to do it. I don’t see why I wouldn’t,” she said before adding, “I can do it.”
The results could be a game changer for the recipient.
“It’s such an incredible gift to be able to give somebody. You’re giving somebody their life back,” said Sara DeRooy, a registered nurse and the Living Donor Coordinator at the Kidney Transplant Center at Trinity Health in Grand Rapids where Schultz’s procedure was being performed.
“You’re letting them, you know, live a longer life with their family and allow them to travel and maybe even work again and things like that,” she said. “It’s just such a wonderful gift.”
The return to health for the undoubtedly grateful recipient is almost instantaneous.
“We see it even when they’re in the hospital, their numbers and we look at, like, creatinine and GFR, those are the two numbers that we look at for kidney function and those often are almost normal by the time they’re discharging,” said DeRooy.
Creatinine is a waste product dispelled by the body during the metabolic process. If kidneys are functioning well they filter out the waste. If not, creatinine builds up in the bloodstream.
GFR, or glomerular filtration rate also measures how well the kidneys are filtering waste excess water from the bloodstream, according to Medicine Plus.
Without well-functioning kidneys, patients must rely on a dialysis machine to remove the waste and water from the bloodstream. It’s an almost all-consuming process maneuvering itself to the forefront of a person’s life. The arduous three- to four- hour procedure typically must be undergone three days a week, according to DeRooy.
“It’s a huge commitment for them, and they feel terrible on dialysis,” said DeRooy.
Trinity Health performed 40 live donor surgeries in 2025 according to DeRooy.
Those surgeries encompassed through a combination of direct donation, paired exchange, advance, and non-directed anonymous donation.
A direct donation occurs when a person is a match for an intended recipient and donates directly to them on the same day. A paired donation occurs when the donor and intended recipient aren’t a direct match. In this case, both individuals have surgery on the same day. The donor’s kidney is given to an appropriate match and the intended recipient receives a kidney from someone who is a match. Advance donation happens when a donor has surgery before the intended recipient. That donor’s kidney goes to a match on the registry and the intended recipient receives a kidney when he or she is ready for the procedure.
Last but not at all least are the Good Samaritan kidney donors which counts Niki Schultz as a member.
In 2025, four of the 40 live transplant donors, or 10 percent, were anonymous donations. That’s double the national average.
“I do feel like it’s (anonymous donation) becoming more common just with all the different ways that people can get their story out there. There’s been more podcasts about it. There’s been news articles, people share their story all over social media, and so I think that has led more people to be interested in donation,” said DeRooy.
In fact, that’s what gave Niki Schultz the idea — a Facebook post.
“We had one year where I think we had three people that donated as ‘non-directeds,’ all because they listened to a podcast.”
Besides simple altruism, an anonymous donation, specifically in partnership with the National Kidney Registry, comes with safeguards and perks.
First of all, the donor will jump to the top of the registry if he or she is ever in need of a kidney. In addition, the donor is given the opportunity to choose five people who will also be moved to the top of the list if they become in need.
“Then they still have the safety net of being able to list any family members,” said DeRooy. “So if somebody were to need a transplant themselves down the road, then they would be able to get a living donor kidney through the National Kidney Registry.
Risks of kidney donation include decreased kidney function of up to 35 percent, possible surgical complications and slightly long term increased blood pressure according to the National Kidney Foundation.
Fewer than 1 percent of donors undergo kidney failure themselves and life expectancy is not impacted, reported the National Kidney Registry.
Days after her transplant Schultz was recovering well, but was surprised at her immediate limited mobility and unexpected pain in — of all places — her shoulders.
“They pump gas … CO2 into your body in order to create space to get the organ out, and some of it gets trapped once they close you up,” she said. “It goes to your shoulders, so the amount of shoulder pain that I experienced like days three and four was pretty intense.“
She remained resolute.
“I do feel like it was 100% worth it. I mean, maybe this kidney only works for two years. I mean, who knows, right? But in my mind, like, it was a good thing,” she said.
A month after her surgery, another check-in revealed Schultz was fully recovered, back to work and not experiencing any side effects or regrets.
“I would do it again,” she said.
With the facilitation of Trinity Health, she wrote a letter to the recipient opening the door for communication.
Shultz knows she may never hear back from the person housing her left kidney.
It was the news she received shortly after the completion of her surgery that made everything worth it.
“Later that afternoon, when the surgeon came in, he said that he did get word from that hospital, that it was in the recipient and that it was functioning.”