Filmmakers Team with Actor Dean Cain, Nonprofit End The Wait to Eradicate Kidney Donation Waitlist

Filmmakers Team with Actor Dean Cain, Nonprofit End The Wait to Eradicate Kidney Donation Waitlist

Producers (from left to right): Lance Dreesen, Randy Simpkins, and Dean Cain.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA, UNITED STATES, April 9, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ — End The Wait Foundation and its creative collaborators are ready to unleash an innovative medical breakthrough that can save 100,000 lives by eliminating the kidney transplant waitlist. The groundbreaking approach to fixing the growing wait (3,000 new patients are added to the list each month) involves storytelling through one of the world’s favorite entertainment mediums — film.

End The Wait Foundation welcomes the public to join its mission to utilize film to educate and recruit kidney donors to save those 100,000 lives. Combining the numbers game and education campaign, if enough people learn of the true story of Randy Simpkins donating his kidney to Russell Dallas, as well as the general ease of sharing one’s superpower to save a life through kidney donation, End The Wait is poised to eliminate the waitlist.

Simpkins, founder of End the Wait, is teaming with actor Dean Cain, writer-director Lance Dreesen and actress-writer Kelly Collins Lintz. They have lived a miraculous story of connection that comes full circle through storytelling, kindness and giving back in the ultimate way.

The worst-turned best day of Simpkins’ life was documented in the 2010 feature film “The Way Home,” a re-telling of the ordeal when his and wife Christal’s then 2-year-old son went missing. The rural town rallied to search, and the triumph of the family reuniting changed many involved, including Simpkins, who sought higher purpose.

A decade later, Simpkins, a Gulf War veteran who had since became a pastor, overheard Lucretia Dallas sharing a desperate prayer for a kidney for her husband, Russell Dallas. Simpkins decided to get tested, and despite being told chances were 1 in 10,000, he was the perfect match in more ways than one. He wound up donating his kidney to the man he’d only met right before the procedure, saving Dallas’ life, and then set off on his new mission with End The Wait to save even more.

“This cause makes this different, the fact that we’re putting proceeds from the movie back into the nonprofit,” Simpkins said. “It’s a movie being made like no other with a purpose like no other.”

Simpkins is partnering with Cain, who portrayed Simpkins in “The Way Home,” and Dreesen, who wrote and directed that film. Cain and Dreesen will again take on those roles for “End The Wait,” which will detail the beautiful discovery and success of Simpkins donating his kidney to Dallas.

“To make a movie to save people’s lives specifically is completely unique and there can be no higher calling,” Cain said. “I think it’s fantastic so I’m all in.”

Simpkins, Cain and Dreesen know the movie and the nonprofit will have an impact for the 100,000 people waiting for a kidney. Thirteen of them die every day due to the worldwide critical shortage of donors. Donations now can help the film get made faster, and proceeds from the movie will be invested back into the nonprofit to aid in creating additional awareness above and beyond the film, as well as providing support to the donors and recipients.

“This has never been done before, the film isn’t just illuminating a problem, the film is the solution to the problem,” Dreesen said. “People just don’t know the waitlist is 100,000 and the fact that the list can be wiped out.”

Those interested in donating or learning more about End The Wait and kidney donation can visit endthewait.net, email [email protected] and connect on Facebook at facebook.com/endthewaitfilm

Amanda Abelita
Abelita PR
email us here
+1 614.354.3322

Originally published at https://www.einpresswire.com/article/702274294/filmmakers-team-with-actor-dean-cain-nonprofit-end-the-wait-to-eradicate-kidney-donation-waitlist