MIAMI -- Aaron got a lot of surprises for his ninth birthday.

He went on his first Disney cruise. And he got a special gift from a Florida Keys scuba diver, one he will carry with him for the rest of his life: a new kidney.

Since he was a baby, Aaron has dealt with a condition that has slowly degraded his kidneys. On Monday, about three months after a transplant surgery that saved his life, he met his 25-year-old donor, Nick “Cuda” Kolor, at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood for the first time.

“[God] used Nick as Aaron’s angel to give him a life,” his grandma Ferlande Jonquille said.

Aaron was born with posterior urethral valve obstruction, a condition that affects bladder function, gradually damaging the kidneys.

Growing up in Broward County, his mom and grandma tried to give him as much of a normal life as possible. He loves playing soccer and swimming. And every weekend he went with his grandma to volunteer at a Lauderhill food pantry. But as he aged, his condition worsened, and eventually he was put on Memorial’s waitlist for a new kidney.

Kolor, an Army veteran and professional scuba diver, didn’t know about Aaron’s situation when he decided to donate his kidney. His donation wasn’t fueled because of an experience with a loved one. He wasn’t even a registered organ donor at the time.

His reason to donate his kidney was simple: “It was a spare part. It was doing me next to no good. The negative experienced by me losing it is outweighed a thousand times over by the benefits he’s experiencing and hopefully will continue for a very long time.”

More than 100,000 people in the U.S. are waiting for an organ, and 86% of them need a kidney, according to Donate Life America. Every eight minutes, another person is added to the national waiting list for an organ. Every day, about 13 people die waiting for an organ transplant.

It’s one of the reasons why Aaron and Kolor’s story is so special for the doctors and nurses at Memorial Transplant Institute. The hospital has performed over 800 kidney transplants since 2018, with this year considered a “banner year for living donations,” according to Rachel Thomas, senior director of Memorial Transplant Institute. This year, over 40 living donors gave up a kidney, the most in a single calendar year since the program opened, she said.

Aaron and Kolor’s experience marks the first time an “altruistic donor was able to donate to a pediatric patient” at Memorial, Thomas said.

People 18 and older can donate one kidney, a piece of liver, and certain other organs and tissues while alive. And unlike deceased donors, people who donate an organ while alive can pick who gets their organ. That’s how some people give a kidney to a friend or family member. Others, like Kolor, donate their organ to someone they don’t know.

Kolor said he has wanted to donate one of his kidneys for several years now, though he didn’t feel ready until recently. He’s not entirely sure what spurred him to research organ donation, though he jokes it must be related to watching a TV show like “House.”

He never thought about whether his kidney would go to an adult or a child. About a week before surgery, he learned it was going to a child. Doctors say Kolor’s kidney was a perfect match for Aaron.

“I was not expecting that. That hit pretty hard,” Kolor said, recalling how he teared up knowing he was going to help a child live a better life. A week later, he remembers being driven by his best friends north, from the Keys, all the way to Hollywood for the transplant surgery. After waking up from surgery, the doctor came to his bedside.

“He said it went to a 9-year-old boy and whoo, talk about a load off your chest to hear he’s doing all right,” said Kolor, who is now launching an initiative — Spare Parts Project — to encourage other young healthy people to consider donating a life-saving organ. A video posted on his nonprofit’s Instagram shows Kolor walking around the hospital five hours after his operation. A week later, he was chilling on a boat. Three weeks out, he was exercising at the gym. At the month mark, he was diving into the ocean again.

For Ferline Lamothe, Aaron’s mom, it’s been an “emotional” rollercoaster of a journey. She was in the midst of packing for Aaron’s birthday cruise when she got the call that he had a donor. “I always had my faith in God,” she said.

Recovery and post-surgery life hasn’t been easy for Aaron, but he’s adjusting well, according to his mom.

“If you saw him, you wouldn’t know he had a transplant,” said Lamothe.

Aaron is now living with three kidneys, though only one kidney — the one Kolor gave him — is functioning. On Monday, his mom asked him to share the name of his new kidney.

“Cuda,” he said — Kolor’s nickname.

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Anyone interested in registering as an organ donor can visit www.donatelifeflorida.org to learn more. For those interested in being a living donor, contact Memorial Transplant Institute in Broward County, the Miami Transplant Institute in Miami-Dade County or another transplant center near you to learn more.

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