- Recently my colleague Jacqui Tricarico and I went to the New Jersey Sharing Network 5K.

The Gift of Life.

That's what it's all about, organ and tissue donation.

At the 5K, Sharing Network 5K, Jacqui spoke with Anika.

She's the New Jersey Sharing Network Youth volunteer the year.

Now, Anika's father needed a kidney transplant.

Anika's mother was a perfect match.

Jacqui she stood up with Anika.

and had a compelling and important conversation.

Here it is.

- Hi, I'm Jacqui Tricarico on location at the New Jersey Sharing Network's 5K here in New Providence, New Jersey.

And I am so pleased to be joined by Anika Bhatnagar who is a high school student but also New Jersey Sharing Network's Youth Volunteer of the Year this past year.

That's amazing.

Anika, tell me, first I wanna hear about your dad and his health journey that led to kidney donation.

- Of course, so my father had a condition known as IgA nephropathy and I'd known that he'd had it his entire life but we only really seriously started considering donation as an option about a couple years ago when we realized that his kidneys would go into failure and he would need a life-saving transplant.

And that is when discussion started about my mom potentially becoming a donor for my father.

So that's how that situation kind of arose.

- So talk about that conversation in your family 'cause you're the only child, right?

So talk about that conversation and how things came about that you all decided this was gonna be a good situation to have your mom be the donated kidney.

- Yeah, so obviously it was a difficult conversation.

It's always a daunting thing just to even talk about.

But fortunately, my family is very close.

We believe in having really open conversations.

So it was a pretty easy and natural conversation for us to have about the different realistic options that we had for my father.

And so, one of the first things we considered was actually organ donation.

And prior to this, we really had no idea what organ donation was but out of necessity we kind of had to research about it, learn about it, and through that we realized that this might be the most viable option.

And my mother was completely selfless.

She had no qualms about doing it at all.

And so, that's when the first conversation started and we decided to go from there, see if she was a match, and thankfully, she turned out to be.

- So she's a match and then they are getting ready for this surgery.

- Yes.

- How did you feel with both of them having surgery simultaneously?

I know you weren't able to be in the hospital because it was during COVID times and there was restrictions on visitors being able to be there.

Talk about that journey for you, that emotional journey for you and how you took that as an opportunity though to learn more and educate people about organ and tissue donation.

- Yeah, honestly, it was incredibly difficult because I am an only child.

I am extremely close to my parents.

Both of them are my best friends.

And so, it was really tough when both of them had to go into the same like, you know, surgery in the same place, three to four hours away.

You know, I couldn't really do anything about it but thankfully, we had an amazing support system 'cause my family's from India, so my parents moved here and we don't really have any family here but thankfully, we have some amazing friends to make up for it.

So my parents' friends were an incredible support system.

They took them to the hospital, brought them back, went to all of their appointments and they also made sure to keep me in the loop which was something that was really important for me as like a 14, 15 year old seeing both of my parents go into this very invasive surgery.

But thankfully, through FaceTime and everything, I was able to keep up and I was able to get live updates and I also was able to come visit them in the hospital, I think the day after the surgery.

So that was really helpful.

But in terms of the emotional journey, it was definitely a lot to process.

Thankfully, we kept a more positive attitude whenever we talked about it.

We didn't shy away from conversations.

So I think knowing what I was getting myself into fully and knowing how it was gonna play out really helps me process it as it was actually happening.

And yeah, sorry.

- Oh, no, yeah, I was just gonna say too, and obviously, they're both doing so well now, tell us about their health.

- Yeah, so they're doing incredible now.

You know, they're both taking excellent care of their health even more than they were before.

My dad goes on like mile walks every day at least.

So he's staying active, my mother as well.

So it's just really nice to see them healthy and happy and I think it's brought us together as a family as well.

- And when did New Jersey Sharing Network come into the picture for you and your family?

- Yeah, so we actually, so typically, someone finds out about NJ Sharing prior to their transplant but ours was a little bit different.

We got involved with them after our transplant was over.

So throughout our research before the transplant, we realized how many people didn't know what organ donation was because we ourselves didn't even know what organ donation was until we had to.

And so, that really got us thinking like, how many other people out there that don't even know about this?

And that really inspired us to get involved with NJ Sharing to reach out to them, go to their informational sessions, and yeah, kinda just sparked from there.

It was very natural.

We got in contact with a bunch of really cool people from here and I just really wanted to help out in any way that I could, especially being a teenager.

- Well, and you took that such a big step further.

You didn't say, "Okay, this is a great organization, "I wanna be a part of it."

You then went to your school and said, "I wanna start this club here, Donate Life Club."

Talk about that, what is it?

- Yeah, so Donate Life Club is it club at my school, it's about 22 member club.

And our mission is to, again, similar to NJ Sharing, raise awareness about organ and tissue donation.

One thing that was really important for me was raising awareness amongst teenagers like myself, right?

Because you know, we're gonna grow up, we're gonna be the adults of tomorrow and it's really important that we have all the information necessary to make an informed decision when deciding whether or not to actually become an organ donor and register.

So that was one of my main missions when starting this club.

And I think it was kinda just born from that desire to bring awareness to my peers.

And then we started this club, it's our first year but we've done a lot of really cool stuff.

Set up informational booths, done 5Ks like this one, raised money, so it's been really cool to kinda share my passion with other people and see them get involved as well.

- And what has been the reaction from your peers on this?

Because like you said, 17, that's typically when people go and get their license, get their driver's license for the first time.

Getting them to realize how important it is to consider checking that box to be an organ and tissue donor.

Talk about the response from your peers and your school.

- Yeah, so it started right off the bat with our informational session that we had to generate interest for the club.

You know I got a lot of just stares, a lot of like, "What are you talking about?"

Which I completely understand because that would've also been my reaction.

So I was really happy to kinda sit down and dispel those myths for people because I know that people have a lot of apprehensions about organ donation, a lot of questions.

So right off the bat there was a lot of that going on which was again, completely natural and I completely understood.

But I was really glad that I was the one that was able to kind of sit down and explain to them like this is not as daunting as it seems.

It's not that scary.

It's really easy to get involved even if you don't personally wanna become an organ owner, there's tons of other ways to support those who are organ donors and recipients.

And so, I think over time the reception to this club has been much better because I think people are becoming more aware, hopefully because of our efforts, they'll be more open to this idea in the future as well.

- Definitely, and talk about what it means for you and your parents and your friends to be here today at the 5K event.

- You know, it's so amazing.

We actually did this 5K last year as well with the same two friends that are here with me today.

So it's really incredible because two years ago, I never would've imagined that I could even be standing here with my friends and with my parents doing this walk.

So it means a lot to me that so many people are here and that it's such a successful event and that I get to even be like a small part of it.

It's really incredible.

- And finally, your parents must be so proud of you.

Are they?

- I hope so.

(Jacqui laughs) - I'm sure they are.

I'm sure they're beaming with pride with what you're doing and taking a situation that was scary and a lot of emotions and making it into a positive.

Anika, thank you so much for talking with us and have a great time at the 5K event today.

- Thank you.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by NJM Insurance Group.

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New Jersey'’s Clean Energy program.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

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New Jersey Sharing Network.

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