--- title: Texas Teacher Will Donate Her Kidney to 6-Year-Old Student description: After searching for two years for a donor, doctors called her the 'perfect match' canonical: https://time.com/3719238/teacher-donates-kidney-student/ author: Rachel Janik article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-02-23T19:43:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:56:46.079Z og:title: This Teacher Will Donate a Kidney to a 6-Year-Old Student og:description: Doctors say she's the perfect match og:url: https://time.com/3719238/teacher-donates-kidney-student/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbbbb49ea19033f92/6987809c55a8598086a85f93/teachers-desk.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3802 og:image:height: 2139 og:image:alt: 56181370 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Teacher Will Donate a Kidney to a 6-Year-Old Student twitter:description: Doctors say she's the perfect match twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbbbb49ea19033f92/6987809c55a8598086a85f93/teachers-desk.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Texas Teacher Will Donate a Kidney to 6-Year-Old Student by [Rachel Janik](https://time.com/author/rachel-janik/) ## Rachel Janik Feb 23, 2015 7:43 PM UTC  Apple on a stack of books Apple on a stack of booksImage Source—Getty Images/Image Source by [Rachel Janik](https://time.com/author/rachel-janik/) ## Rachel Janik Feb 23, 2015 7:43 PM UTC An elementary teacher from Texas has agreed to donate one of her kidneys to a six-year-old student who has been in need of a donor for two years. Doctors told Matthew Parker’s family there was only a 1% chance of finding a suitable donor for Matthew because his body had rejected a previous transplant. But his teacher, Lindsey Painter, got tested after his physicians released a public plea for donors. Remarkably, doctors said she was the “perfect match.” “When it came back that I was a match, it was shocking,” Painter told KVUE, a Texas ABC affiliate. “It did take a while to wrap my head around it, to think that I can do this, I can still live a normal life…and I get to make this amazing difference in Matthew’s life.” Matthew can only go to school twice a week, driving down to San Antonio on the three other days for dialysis treatments. Once he gets a functional kidney, doctors expect he will make a full recovery and be ready to live a normal life. He and Painter will undergo surgery in mid-March. \[[_KVUE_](http://www.kvue.com/story/news/local/2015/02/19/comal-isd-teacher-donates-kidney-to-student/23702995/)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3719238/teacher-donates-kidney-student/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3719238/teacher-donates-kidney-student/"},"headline":"Texas Teacher Will Donate a Kidney to 6-Year-Old Student","datePublished":"2015-02-23T19:43:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:56:46.079Z","description":"After searching for two years for a donor, doctors called her the 'perfect match'","url":"https://time.com/3719238/teacher-donates-kidney-student/","keywords":["Living","Education","health"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbbbb49ea19033f92/6987809c55a8598086a85f93/teachers-desk.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Rachel Janik","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/rachel-janik/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbbbb49ea19033f92/6987809c55a8598086a85f93/teachers-desk.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"56181370","caption":"","creditText":"Image Source—Getty Images/Image Source","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3719238/teacher-donates-kidney-student/","name":"Texas Teacher Will Donate a Kidney to 6-Year-Old Student"}}]}] ```