Kelly Hallett, a Mallorytown resident with professional ties to Kingston, entered the CFL Fan of the Year contest with the hope of winning some CFL game tickets and Baffin boots, without too many hopes for a chance at top prize.
But when she was chosen by the Canadian Football League’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers as the team’s CFL Fan of the Year, moving on to the final round of voting up against nine others for the Canada-wide title, she saw an opportunity to share about her decision to donate a kidney to a stranger.
Hallett donated her kidney in May of 2024 through Kingston Health Sciences Centre’s Living Kidney Donor program.
Hallett made the decision to donate after her husband was told he needed a transplant due to complications from diabetes.
“My husband needed a kidney, and obviously I wanted to be able to make sure that he was going to be ok in life,” Hallett told the Whig-Standard. “And so, we went through the process of me being a donor, because I was a direct blood match.”
The couple would later learn that Hallett’s kidney would likely be rejected by her husband, Keith, due to antibodies in his body.
“It was probably about the nine-month mark when we got told that I was no longer able to be his match,” she said.
Hallett decided to put her name on the list for the national Kidney Paired Donation (KPD) program, a countrywide organ sharing program operated by Canadian Blood Services in collaboration with Canada’s living kidney donation and kidney transplant programs. The program would see Hallett’s kidney go to someone who qualified as a match, and another donor’s kidney go to Keith.
“Paired donation is when I say, well, hey, I don’t care who gets my kidney as long as somebody gives one that is of equal value,” she said. “So, what a paired donation does is, if I choose to give up my kidney for the benefit of somebody else, on Keith’s behalf, then Keith would automatically qualify for the best six out of six match that could come his way. So that’s what we did.”
Keith underwent his transplant surgery in April, receiving his kidney from a donor in Toronto. Hallett gave her kidney in May to a recipient in Toronto.
Both kidneys received a police escort up and down Highway 401 between KGH and Toronto.
“Both recipients are strong and doing incredibly well,” she said.
Now, after battling it out online with 30,000 other Canadians vying to be chosen as the CFL Fan of the Year, Hallett was voted by her peers as fan of the year. Part of her prize is the opportunity to host a tailgate with the Grey Cup Trophy!
Hallett is feeling appreciated not only the Blue Bombers, who chose her as their fan of the year for the final round of competing, but also by people who are reading her story.
“I think that it just really said, hey, wait a minute here, there’s a chance that we could not just win a contest but really share a message that’s important to all Canadians.”
