ROCKY RIVER, Ohio -- On Oct. 21, just five days before his 36th birthday, Jeff Hammond was about to embark on a journey that would change not one, but two lives forever.

The Rocky River educator is now recovering from donating one of his kidneys -- not directly to his cousin, Nicole Harnish, whose 26-year battle with kidney disease had profoundly shaped his life -- but to a stranger in Florida as part of a program that will give new life to them both.

It was the culmination of a journey originating when Hammond was just a high school student watching his younger cousin fight for her life.

That experience would come to define not only his decision to donate, but the path his career would take.

Harnish, 10 years younger than Hammond, was born with kidney failure that required a transplan

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