Cortez made a T-shirt advertising her special request and wore it to the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival on April 13.
She’s hoping someone walking behind her will be the perfect match her brother Ronnie Dupre needs to stay alive.
“My brother needs a kidney,” Cortez’s shirt reads. “Type O. (270) 331-8233.”
Dupre and Cortez grew up in Louisiana, but Dupree now lives in Paducah, Kentucky.
“My brother is on dialysis right now,” Cortez said. “He really can’t do the things he wants to do and get around like he wants to get around.”
The search for a new kidney has turned up quite a few prospects in the past.
Twenty, to be exact, but no one has been the perfect match for Dupre, and now Cortez is taking her search to the streets.
Cortez knows just how much it can mean to be on the receiving end of a kidney transplant.
She had a transplant herself, more than 20 years ago.
“Now we’re just looking for someone to help my brother,” she said.
If your blood type is O, give Brenda Cortez a call. She’d love to hear from you.