Wednesday’s event was to celebrate Donate Life Month, when people are encouraged to consider organ donation.

Marc Munroe Dion Herald News Staff Reporter

FALL RIVER —Kelly Sipe tried it twice before it worked.

Her first transplant kidney, given to her by her aunt, Mary Machado, only lasted for a few months.

The second, which she got from her sister, Erin Aguiar, in 2006, is the reason why the 49-year-old Somerset resident was standing on the sixth floor of Government Center Wednesday, about to serve as a living example of why people should register to be an organ donor when they renew their drivers licenses.

Sipe didn’t get much warning that she would need the transplant when she found out she had pancreatitis.

“They stopped working overnight,” she said of her kidneys.

Dialysis didn’t help her much, but the new kidney did.

“I would have died,” Sipe said.

Sipe said she is grateful every day for the family members who saved her life.

Bill Beal, of Norwell, also would have died from kidney failure if it hadn’t been for someone he never met.

“Mine was a cadaver donor,” Beal said of the donor who saved his life back in 2013.

“I feel fantastic,” Beal said.

Beal knows a little more about his donor than he did the day of surgery.

“There's a process for a recipient to write a letter to his donor’s family,” Beal said. “It’s anonymous.”

The family Beal contacted chose to respond.

Now, Beal knows that his donor died of heart trouble in his 40s, was from a farm in upstate New York, and was remembered by his siblings for strapping on skies in snowy weather and letting the family bull pull him around a pasture. The donor’s name was Jimmy.

“He did a lot of traveling,” Beal said. “My kidney’s been around the world.”

Wednesday’s event was to celebrate Donate Life Month, when people are encouraged to consider organ donation.

“Check the ‘yes’ box,” said Matthew Boger, in charge of state relations for New England Donor Services.

“There are 11,500 people waiting for a transplant in the United States,” Boger said. “There are 3,000 in Massachusetts.

“Only two percent of deaths happen in such a way that they can be donors,” he said.

“As a respiratory therapist, I took care of donors,” Beal said.

He didn’t now then that he would someday owe his life to one such donor.

“I encourage you,” Beal said. “Please donate.”