A custodian at Boston Arts Academy didn't just mop floors and fix broken chairs this year — he helped save a man's life. Andrew Allen learned that a colleague's younger brother urgently needed a kidney transplant, and without hesitation, he offered to donate one of his own. The gesture ultimately connected Thomas Thermidor with a compatible organ, and the school honored Allen's generosity with a celebration that doubled as recognition for the entire custodial staff.
Allen works alongside teacher Tom Thermidor at Boston Arts Academy, located at 174 Ipswich Street near Fenway Park and known as the city's only public high school dedicated exclusively to visual and performing arts, according to Boston Arts Academy. When Allen found out that Thermidor's younger brother, Thomas Thermidor, needed a new kidney, he stepped up immediately. As reported by WHDH, Tom Thermidor said Allen offered to donate without hesitation once he learned of the need.
Allen's kidney wasn't a direct match for Thomas Thermidor, but that didn't end the effort. He donated through Mass General's Living Donor Program, which uses paired kidney exchange to enter mismatched donor-recipient pairs into a larger pool so cross-donations or donation chains can connect incompatible candidates with matching donors elsewhere. The station's report notes that Allen's donation enabled Thomas Thermidor to receive a compatible transplant through that same organ-sharing pool. Thomas Thermidor expressed gratitude to Allen for the donation, per the same account.
A Celebration Years in the Making
Boston Arts Academy held a celebration honoring the donation, drawing attention from city leaders including Mayor Michelle Wu, Governor Maura Healey, and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, the article notes. Allen received the Unsung Hero Award during the event. He said the experience brought everyone involved much closer, and he encouraged others to consider organ donation if they are able.
The timing of the celebration lined up with National Custodian Day, observed annually on October 2 since being added to Chase's Calendar of Events in the mid-1990s to honor school and facility maintenance staff, according to Calendarr. The Boston Arts Academy event recognized the school's entire custodial team alongside Allen's individual act of generosity.
How Paired Exchange Turns Willing Donors Into Matches
Paired kidney exchange exists precisely because willing donors are not always biologically compatible with the person they hope to help. Mass General Brigham explains that the system lets a donor give to a stranger who matches, which in turn unlocks a compatible kidney for their own intended recipient somewhere else in the pool. It's the same mechanism that connected Allen's donation to Thomas Thermidor's transplant.
Boston has a singular place in this field of medicine. The world's first successful organ transplant — a living-donor kidney transplant between identical twin brothers — took place at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in December 1954, with surgeon Dr. Joseph Murray later receiving the Nobel Prize for leading that historic operation, per Mass General Brigham. More than seven decades later, the city's hospitals continue running programs built on that same foundation.
Boston's paired exchange system has produced other recent local connections. In April, a WBZ-TV photojournalist suffering from kidney failure received a transplant after a newsroom colleague stepped forward to donate on his behalf through Mass General's program, according to CBS News Boston — another example of workplace relationships, rather than family ties, kicking off a donation chain.
A Shortage That Living Donors Help Ease
The national need behind these individual stories is severe. Nearly 90,000 people in the United States are currently waiting on the kidney transplant list, and an average of eleven waitlisted patients die each day, according to data published by the United Network for Organ Sharing. Living donors made up a meaningful share of a record 48,149 total organ transplants performed nationwide in 2024, with 7,030 living donors contributing to that total, per the same organization's data.
Kidneys from living donors also tend to last longer. A clinical overview from UC Davis Health found that living-donor kidneys function for an average of 20 years, roughly double the lifespan of kidneys from deceased donors, and can spare recipients years of dialysis by allowing transplants to happen preemptively. Federal regulators have taken notice of the broader access problem as well: in July 2025, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services launched the six-year Increasing Organ Transplant Access Model, which introduces financial incentives for transplant hospitals to boost kidney transplant volumes and standardize how waitlists are evaluated, per UNOS.
Lawmakers have also been pushing to remove financial barriers facing people who consider becoming living donors. Proposed federal legislation known as the Living Donor Protection Act would prohibit insurers from denying or altering life, disability, or long-term care policies for living organ donors, while protecting their recovery time under the Family and Medical Leave Act, according to the Regenstrief Institute. Insurance and employment concerns remain among the biggest deterrents for prospective donors nationwide, the organization notes.
For Boston Arts Academy, the story that unfolded between a custodian and a teacher's family became something the whole school community could rally around. Allen's message to others considering the same leap was simple: if you're able, consider donating.
