Mark Scotch and his wife both grew up Catholic. According to Mark, Lynn’s faith was deeper, stronger; it wasn’t that he didn’t want to believe in the Church’s teaching, he was just more drawn by other things.
He found “great value in the Bible … and the homily at Mass,” but, as he told Aleteia, “the rest of it was just too much dogma and ritual for me, sadly, even the Eucharist.” He needed to search and question.
“I never tried to talk someone out of believing,” he said. “And I never blamed God for anything that happened to me personally, nor for anything bad in the world in general."
“I always understood that God has a plan … I never felt that I knew more than God,” he added, admitting that he had a basic sense of believing God’s will would be done.
Upon this foundation, God did and has continued to make his will known.
Mysteriously, and tragically, the Scotches lost a son at 15 ½ months. “Our faith, along with the love and support of our families, sustained us … Believing that Jason was in heaven was a great solace,” he recalled and said that when Lynn’s grandmother passed away five years after their loss, they were comforted knowing she was with their little boy.
With three living sons, who all attended Catholic schools in the Appleton, Wisconsin, area, Mark was active as a dad in their sons' sports and “all the normal things associated with life” raising children. They have always enjoyed traveling as a family and as a couple.
Three strangers walk into a bar…
Mark and Lynn walked into a bar while vacationing in Louisiana. They started chatting with a stranger and when he mentioned having to leave for a dialysis appointment, Mark (who was 64 at the time) offered him his kidney on the spot.
The 56-year-old former professional horse jockey, Hugh Smith, was blown away but figured he’d never hear from Mark again. What he didn’t know was that Mark’s sister-in-law had donated a kidney 12 years before. The next day Mark contacted Hugh’s transplant coordinator and began researching kidney donation. He learned that more than one dozen people die daily from renal disease.
Although he wasn’t a match to donate to Hugh, in September 2020 his kidney was given to another stranger in New York and through the National Kidney Registry’s voucher program, he was able to move the Louisianan up the wait list.
In February 2021, Smith received his needed kidney from a donor in Southern California and was back on the golf course sooner than he’d ever expected. A lifelong friendship was a bonus. In 2021, Mark won a Best of Humankind Award from USA Today.
The story continues and redeems a mother’s suffering
While Mark was going through the donation tests in 2020, his wife Lynn felt convicted to look into donating herself. The COVID-19 pandemic paused her donation but the following year, through Facebook, she discovered 2-year-old Cooper Thompson, who had been on dialysis since he was 8 months old.
In January 2023, Lynn’s kidney went to someone in Illinois and through her voucher Cooper received his needed organ in March of that same year. The couple appeared live on NBC’s The Today Show in April 2023 to share their story and a reunion with Hugh who calls Mark “brother.”
To hosts Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotbe, Hugh admitted that what Mark had done helped him believe in Godsends and that Mark was his.
Then, to Lynn’s great surprise, the Thompson family was also in studio and they were able to meet in person for the first time. Lynn shared the significance that Cooper was close to the same age as their son Jason.
“What does it mean to give life to another little boy?” Savannah asked.
“It’s really full circle for me,” Lynn said through tears. “I say it’s redemptive healing because I carried that stone of regret that we were never able to donate his organs at the time and so now that regret is gone.”
The Thompsons expressed their incredible gratitude to Lynn and his donor, Ali, from Illinois. Cooper turned 5 in November 2025.
The "Organ Trail" and Mark’s mission
An avid biker and endurance event participant for 20+ years, Mike always finds ways to ride on their travels (as well as finding a Mass to attend). Motivated by his experience and newfound passion for kidney donation and advocacy, mere months after his transplant surgery, Mark rode his bike the 1,400 miles from Wisconsin to Louisiana as a witness that kidney donors can live healthy, active lives with only one kidney.
The journey gave birth to “The Organ Trail” which has, as of January 2026, resulted in 7 rides totaling more than 10,000 miles across 23 states. During these rides — which follow the routes taken by his and his wife’s donated organs, Mark has given close to 300 interviews pitching “an old guy riding a bike with one kidney” to local media outlets. He was featured in a Texas PBS documentary in February 2025.
“Kidney donation and 'The Organ Trail' experience has facilitated a purpose of meaning in my life I can’t really explain,” Mark told Aleteia. “God has offered doors for me to pass through that I never would have guessed were in any way going to bring me closer to him and my Catholic faith."
“We both feel this has been a purpose and a mission that God called us to,” Mark confessed. “And it has also been a great healing of our grief.”
In January, Mark travelled to Washington, D.C., to lobby with Congress members for passage of the End Kidney Deaths Act. The bill gives tax credits to persons who donate their kidney to a stranger. Its passage could save 100,000 lives and $4 billion to Medicare reducing the need for dialysis.
His detour to D.C. came midway through his latest bike journey honoring the sliver of liver he donated in May 2023 to infant Selena in Southern California after doing an event at the Children’s hospital in Los Angeles where she was receiving care.
Unable to donate the portion needed for an adult, he could safely donate to a child. Then 67, Mark was the oldest living organ donor in the U.S. Many hospitals would not consider donors over 50 years old but, as a liver continually renews itself and because Mark is in such superior physical shape, he was able to give another child the gift of life.
With another new sense of mission — 90,000 Americans waiting for a kidney transplant — he decided to expand his ride from something personal to promotional. Partnering with the National Kidney Registry (NKR) and the National Kidney Donation Organization (NKDO), since 2021 “The Organ Trail” has been raising awareness for kidney and live organ donation through Mark’s rides, an active social media presence along with his and Lynn’s testimony and presentations — offered to churches, organizations, and local media wherever they find themselves.
In October 2025 Mark rode the Camino de Santiago raising funds for Restoring Hope Transplant House, a non-profit “home away from home” for transplant families hoping for a second chance at life through the miracle of transplantation near Madison, Wisconsin.
He shared that having a chance “to reflect away from the normal influences of the modern world” was an amazing opportunity. Paired with two days in Fatima, the pilgrimage gave Our Lady a chance to offer a life-giving experience of its own kind to this man who has done so much to give second chances to many others. Those days brought deep conviction about the gift of his Catholic faith and renewed commitment to living it more profoundly.
At a recent daily mass in Rockport, Texas, the deacon who preached the homily spoke at length on pro-life issues, including but not limited to abortion. Only afterwards did Mark realize that it was January 22, Day of Remembrance and Prayer for the Unborn. He was moved by the deacon’s preaching about “doing everything we can for the sanctity of saving all human lives, whenever and wherever we can.”
While Mark has no plans of slowing down anytime soon, he hopes to continue inviting others to be open to the ways God is asking us all to witness to the sanctity of life as Catholics and good citizens.
