Give the gift of life
More than a million Tennesseans are registered organ and tissue donors, but millions more are needed.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - More and more of you are getting that little heart on your driver's license.

The number of registered organ and tissue donors in Tennessee has reached 1.5 million. But even though there are more  organ donors, there are still thousands waiting for you to change their lives.

It may be just another day at work, but for Todd Malone, it's another day of life.

"It's just, a blessing. Straight up it's just a blessing."

At 18 years old, Todd had his first kidney transplant. But then, it failed.
For 5 years, while on dialysis and working full-time, he was on a transplant list.

"It's a waiting game. Sometimes you'll get calls and they'll say the kidney won't match, which is a disappointment because you get excited about starting your life all over again."

But this past Spring, he got the phone call he says is a gift from God.

"Once they say you do get the kidney, you get the call and they say everything is, you're going to surgery, wow, that's really, amazing."

More and more people are getting those phone calls, thanks to you.

More than one million Tennesseans are registered organ and tissue donors. But millions more are needed.

Of the 109,000 patients on the national organ transplant waiting list, more than 2,400 are in Tennessee.

"There's a lot of people waiting on organs that you would just change their life tremendously," says Malone.

The person who gave Todd a kidney, changed his.

"They game me, I have a 7-year-old, gave her daddy back to her, for x amount of years, for my wife, gave her husband back."

Todd takes medication so his body doesn't reject the kidney.

He is also an organ donor.