Shannon Catalano has donated her hair to charity six times. She’s on the bone marrow donation registry and regularly donates blood. She started a nonprofit that gives seniors who haven’t ridden a bike in decades the sensation and freedom of doing just that.

As one of those benevolent people whose altruistic itch can never quite be satisfied, Catalano also donated a kidney to a stranger almost four years ago. And now — to bring awareness to the importance of all kidney donations and to show that a one-kidney life is far from limiting — the Plano resident plans to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

“This is all I think about,” said Catalano, who will turn 44 on Saturday. “Two things made me want to do it: It’s a big challenge. And it’s spreading the word about something that can save lives.”

The trip, sponsored by the nonprofit Kidney Donor Athletes, has pulled together almost two dozen donors from 15 cities across the United States. Most have never met face to face. Yet for seven days — along with porters hired for the trip — they’ll trek 19,341 feet to the top of the world’s highest freestanding mountain and back down again.

They’ll go through five climate zones, including rainforest and arctic. They’ll share meals, successes, setbacks, incredible scenery and perhaps the biggest adventure of their lives.

Their scheduled summit date: March 10, World Kidney Day.

Getting the word out

“The whole idea at the beginning of this,” said Bobby McLaughlin of Kidney Donor Athletes, “was, ‘Let’s dream big.’ This is a huge opportunity and could impact people like no other story the donation world has. We want to get the word out about how many people still need help.”

Last year, a record 24,669 kidney transplant surgeries were performed, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Yet, McLaughlin said, “97,000 people are on the transplant list. Thirteen are dying every day. This is a story that came to the lives of all of us who are going on the trip. Yet some people haven’t heard of kidney donation, so we need to keep telling our stories.”

During wrist surgery following a bike accident, McLaughlin needed transplanted tissue and bone, which came from a cadaver. He exchanged letters with the donor’s family, which he calls “a powerful experience.” Then he met a woman who was a kidney donor, which led him to donate one of his own kidneys.

Others on the Kilimanjaro trip have donated a kidney to their mother, to a friend, to a cousin. And, like Catalano, to a person they’ll never know.

“When I was 11,” she said, “my older brother was diagnosed with Type I diabetes. My family learned that one day he might need a kidney, and I decided I’d be the one to do it.”

Years passed, and he didn’t need one. So Catalano signed up for the Be the Match bone marrow registry. Fifteen years later, she was notified she was a match for someone, but the procedure was called off.

“That was hard for me,” she said. “I had no closure. I thought, ‘How can I make an impact?’”

She contacted the National Kidney Registry, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing the number of kidney donations from living donors. After psychological and physical testing, she donated her kidney in May 2018. Walking and rest helped her healing process, and before long, she was riding her bike again. An avid cyclist, she once rode from Canada to Mexico — 2,000 miles in five weeks.

“After surgery,” she said, “I wasn’t down in the dumps, but I wondered if there would be anything to match what I had just done.”

Cycling nonprofit

She did some research and heard about an adaptive cycling nonprofit in Portland, Maine, then took classes at Collin College to learn how to start her own nonprofit. A year later, Lone Star Wheelers began. Its handful of volunteers go to a Plano senior living facility and take interested seniors on the bike rides they can no longer do on their own. The front part of the vehicle, where the rider sits, is a wheelchair, the back a motorized bicycle.

“It reminds the people we pedal of childhood, when life was very easy and carefree,” Catalano said. “Riding a bike gave them their first taste of independence. Now, they don’t have that. Someone decides what meals they’ll have and when they eat; they don’t have a lot of choices.”

But for a couple of hours almost every Saturday, they feel the breeze on their faces and flying wheels at their feet.

Before Catalano lived in Plano, she and her husband, Chris, owned a fitness studio in Denver. Before moving there, she had told him that she wanted to one day climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Initially, he was going to go with her.

“He knew what he was getting into when we married 15 years ago,” said Catalano, who also started the DFW One Kidney Club for fellow donors. “I have an independent streak, and he’s a go-with-the-flow person. He’s always very supportive.”

When she heard that Kidney Donor Athletes was planning a trip to Kilimanjaro, she said, “Chris told me, ‘If it’s in your heart to help people, this might be the way to go.’”

So she applied and was accepted.

“Shannon is this phenomenal human being with a passion to participate in something bigger than herself,” said McLaughlin of Kidney Donor Athletes. “She could’ve stopped after donating a kidney. She chose to stay engaged in this.”

Training for the climb

She’s now well past halfway in her training, which includes running, yoga and climbing in whatever steep terrain she can find in North Texas, as well as giving up alcohol and caffeine. She climbed two Rocky Mountain peaks over 14,000 feet; being more than 5,000 feet higher on Kilimanjaro doesn’t scare her.

“I have full faith in the Tanzanian people, plus the bunch of us kidney donors will have each other’s back,” she said. “I know I’ll be safe. Just being with a positive group will uplift me and get me through. Of course we’ll all go through times of doubt — hopefully, though, not at the same time.”

But, she acknowledged, “You’ll never understand it till you’re in it. It’s like skydiving.”

After the trip? Who knows. She did, though, promise her husband that she won’t be planning a trip to summit Mount Everest. She’s just grateful for this opportunity, and for the life she leads.

“I am living a blessed life,” she said. “I am happily married with an amazing dog. We are financially secure. My health is great, and I know not everyone is as lucky.” Twice a week, she works as a caregiver to a determined young man who sustained a paralyzing spinal cord injury years ago.

She said she loves and tries to live by sentiments expressed by Shirley Chisholm and Marian Wright Edelman: Service is the rent we pay for living and the purpose of life.

Leslie Barker is a Richardson freelance writer and former staff writer for The Dallas Morning News.

■ National Kidney Registry: kidneyregistry.org

■ Kidney Donor Athletes:

kidneydonorathlete.org

■ Lone Star Wheelers:

lonestarwheelers.com

Twitter: @ohlesliebarker