Teaching By Example
Alumna has given the gift of life twice and become an outspoken advocate for organ donation
by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson
Light rain slickened the Loveless Cafe parking lot as Rebekah Thomas ’96 kicked off her bicycle journey. When the rain intensified, she didn’t call it a day: She still had hundreds of miles ahead.
Thomas was one of four women cycling 444 grueling and exhilarating miles along Natchez Trace Parkway, from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi. The women had each donated a kidney—and Thomas had additionally donated a lobe of her liver. They were riding to demonstrate the healthy, active lives that living organ donors can enjoy.
For Thomas, it was a full-circle moment, hearkening to a moving experience with a former student and to lifelong ties with Dickinson. It also was part of a meaningful tradition, one rooted in a profound sense of purpose and connection.
Inspiration to give back
Thomas grew up in a small town in Vermont and discovered a fascination for Russian language and culture as a high-school exchange student. As a sophomore and a Russian and Russian area-studies major at Dickinson, she traveled to Russia to chaperone a high-school exchange program, and later returned to Russia for her junior year abroad with the American Collegiate Consortium. When the English-language instructor left the country unexpectedly, she stepped up, teaching students just a few years younger than she was.
After Dickinson, Thomas enrolled in Vermont’s School for International Training, the original training site for the Peace Corps. She became an ESL teacher and eventually landed in Burlington, Vermont, a refugee-resettlement city, working with elementary-school students who come to the U.S. from all around the world.
Early in her career, one of her students underwent two organ transplants, just a few years after Thomas had taught her. The girl’s father had donated a lobe of his liver, and a family friend had donated a kidney.
“I was really inspired by the fact that they donated a part of themselves to help her become well and live a healthy, productive life,” Thomas remembers. “I thought about it, off and on, over the years.”
Years later, in 2018, Thomas was brainstorming ideas to make her upcoming birthday more meaningful, a personal tradition. On previous birthdays, she’d given back by taking part in charity events and platelet donations. That year, her thoughts again returned to her former second-grade student, by then a nursing student.
She’d long considered kidney donation, and finally, the timing was good: Thomas was healthy and young enough to expect an excellent surgery outcome. She had an understanding boss and a strong support system too.
Her initial assessment was on her 45th birthday.
‘Our families are bigger now’
Through the evaluation process, she decided to become a double donor. The more complex surgery—liver retrieval—came first, at UPMC Pittsburgh—the same hospital that hosted Thomas’ former student. Thomas’ surgeon had operated on her student’s father. The Dickinsonian’s transplant coordinator, a onetime dialysis nurse at UPMC, had likewise worked with the student years before.
The 2019 transplant was a success, and Thomas met her liver recipient a week later. They’ve stayed in touch, sending Christmas cards and texts.
In 2020, before COVID-19 vaccines were available, UPMC Pittsburgh began to schedule more living-donor organ transplants, as elective surgeries were canceled and operating rooms became available. One of them was Thomas’ kidney surgery. The day after, Thomas’ kidney recipient insisted on walking down the hospital hall to Thomas’ room, so he could thank her in person. He’s now able to play with his grandchildren without exhaustion—his primary pre-transplant goal.
“Our families are bigger now,” Thomas says. “I consider him family, and he feels the same way.”
Mountain of misconception
Thomas got involved with Kidney Donor Athletes (KDA), which raises awareness of the active lives that living organ donors can lead. It’s a vital message, because there are an estimated 90,000-100,000 people on the U.S. kidney waiting list and not nearly enough living donors to meet that demand. The average patient is on the waitlist for three to 10 years.
“There’s a lot of misconception out there, and some people hesitate to become donors because they’re worried they won’t be able to lead active lives after donation,” Thomas says. “Our goal is to show, rather than just tell, that you can still do hard things with one kidney.”
Thomas helped prove that point during a 2022 KDA group climb of Mount Kilimanjaro. Last September’s bike ride took that message to a narrow, rural parkway in the American South.
4 Women, 4 Kidneys, 444 Miles, 4 Days
The bike ride brought Thomas together with fellow KDA members Becky Bussey of Colorado and Anna Cannington and Diane Mills of Mississippi. Bussey’s kidney donation was inspired by a stirring podcast episode. Cannington donated to a stranger who was part of her weightlifting community. Mills, the Natchez Trace event organizer, had the most post-surgery experience, having donated her kidney to a friend 14 years before.
After months of planning on Zoom, the women met in person at the start of the trail, outside Nashville’s famous Loveless Cafe.
Mills’ husband, Rick, and Cannington’s mom, Janet Wright, traveled along the route in a van, checking in regularly with snacks, hydration, tools and a first-aid kit at the ready. Thomas was delighted to discover that Wright taught biology at Dickinson when she was a student, and the two bonded quickly. When heavy rain stalled the cyclists’ progress on the first day of the ride, Wright donned her professor hat, launching an impromptu lecture about the history of the Natchez Trail.
“We were soaked and cold, and we didn’t know when the rain was going to stop. So we could have easily been miserable,” Thomas says. “But Janet gave us a fascinating reprieve. By the time she was finished, it had cleared up, and we were ready to get back on the trail.”
There were many memorable moments on the historic Natchez Trace, a former Native American path that bicyclists now share with noncommercial vehicles. Long, tranquil stretches were punctuated by traffic-prone areas, where local cyclists turned out to safely escort them. The women marveled at the ingeniously designed Double Arch Bridge and the majestic Tennessee River crossing and took in other historic sites.
Blind curves and hills presented challenges, and proper hydration was critical for the kidney donors. There were times when the fatigue was extreme—in Mills’ words, it felt like her wheels were zip-tied at one point. The women pushed through the aching exhaustion, bolstered by short breaks, longer lunches and the promise of a comfortable bed.
But the actual ride—the physical demands, picturesque views and camaraderie—was only part of the experience. There were also appointments to keep. All along the trail, the cyclists met with kidney waitlist patients, representatives from sponsoring organizations and members of the media, among others. So as they cycled hundreds of miles, they needed to be camera ready and “on.”
They were also traveling highly emotional terrain. Their goal, after all, was to inform and inspire. Celebratory meals and media appearances underscored that happy message and triumphant vibe, but the urgency of their cause was never out of view.
“The smiles came easy ... as we laughed together and got to know each other,” the women wrote on a dedicated Facebook page. “The tears came just as easy as we met people who were kind enough to share their stories with us.”
Some of those people, Thomas notes, have been on kidney waiting lists for years, and they’re still hoping for a match.
“Whatever we were experiencing—the pain and exhaustion—was short-term and minor, compared with what the people on the waiting lists were and are going through,” Thomas is quick to point out. “They are what this event was all about.”
The roads ahead
Three months after the ride, Thomas was back in Vermont, navigating the ebullient mayhem of an elementaryschool classroom, just before winter break. Over lunch, she reflected on those heady four days in September.
The 4 Women, 4 Kidneys, 444 Miles, 4 Days ride exceeded her expectations. The women had mentally prepared for long stretches of riding alone, given their varying levels of cycling experience. But the group rode together the entire way, enjoying each other’s company and cheering each other on. “
It’s amazing when you think that none of us had met in person beforehand,” Thomas says. “I think we bonded right away because we had something in common, and we were all in.”
The cyclists had also planned, meticulously, for all manner of mishaps and emergencies. Except for Thomas’ minor tire patch on Day 1, none of these problems had materialized. And to top it off, the event coincided with Thomas’ birthday week.
Most important, more than 500 people followed their progress through a dedicated Facebook group. Far more learned about the ride and its mission through TV, newspaper and radio coverage and through sponsoring organizations. The cyclists even were the subject of a National Parks Traveler podcast episode— much like the podcast that had inspired Bussey to donate her kidney four years ago.
It’s impossible to say how many of these readers, viewers and listeners may become living organ donors. As Thomas can attest, that decision takes time to process and launch into action. What we do know is that the word is out that Thomas and her fellow cyclists are much more vital and fit with one kidney than most of us are with two. We also know organ donation continues to expand the cyclists’ worlds.
The women, now friends, are discussing future awareness-raising projects. Or, as Thomas puts it: “Having one kidney hasn’t slowed us down. In fact, I think it’s enriched all of our lives in many ways.”
Read more from the spring 2025 issue of Dickinson Magazine.
TAKE THE NEXT STEPS
Published June 10, 2025