Missouri woman donates kidney to her neighbor

[August 24, 2009]  KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Few things can be more neighborly than offering your kidney to a friend.

Two Kansas City women have lived next door to each other for 30 years. But Claudine Jackson and Jo Ann Walz really got to know each other after Walz donated her kidney to Jackson.

The two had always been friendly, but have grown much closer over the past three years as Walz helped with car rides to dialysis treatments, doctor's appointments and the grocery store.

The kind act ended two years of waiting on a national kidney waiting list.

Jackson moved onto Fuller Avenue in south Kansas City in 1977. Walz moved in next door about a year later.

[Associated Press]

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