Don Brown
by Gabriella Da Prato
Don Brown gets vegan eggs and sausage every Sunday morning at the Turning Point of Doylestown. I have been a member of the staff since those restaurant doors opened for the first time in 2020: I started as a server and weaved my way through traffic to become a manager. And in the past two and a half years serving this community, I’ve seen people enter strangers and walk out loved regulars.
I have many relationships with the people who carry me through my work week. One passed away in 2021, and I read a poem at his funeral. One brings in pastries for the staff every Tuesday morning. The line between stranger and friend blurs over that granite bartop.
Don Brown was always a kind face on my Sunday mornings. and because we shared those days for so long, I would never consider him a stranger. We were a part of his week. Our schedules were intertwined. But that all changed in March. I received a message from a friend of mine who recognized his face on a billboard headed into the city. Seven words. That's all it took to unravel the Sunday routine: “I need a kidney. Can you help?”
I cried. I awoke the next morning with heaviness in my chest. How much strength must he have to be a light within his own darkness? From that moment forward, I knew it in my heart, long before I knew it in my brain: I was going to help Don Brown get a kidney.
And we help each other. He helps me learn how to breathe kindness. As I tell his story to anyone willing to listen, I have learned his life is well crafted in gentleness: He founded a widows support group and created a safe space for people to wrestle with their grief. He is an advisor to a women’s shelter, and he privately mentors young entrepreneurs.
The kindness he brings is flammable. And once lit, it spreads. Like wildfire. It burns and engulfs until that wave of warmth bathes me. And soon, that kindness that serenaded me into sharing his story, becomes the kindness that convinces you to donate, to contribute, to save Don. While he needs a kidney, it will ultimately be human love that saves Don’s life.
If you are interested in helping Don receive the help he so desperately needs, please share his story and visit his website at: https://www.kidney2don.com