“Maybe someone could leverage our story to turn down the temperature,” he said. “There are some that say this should never have happened. What are the chances of a woman who is young, with a four-year-old saving the life of a 60-year-old HBCU president.” Livingstone College President Dr. Anthony Davis

From the 2/8/26 Salisbury Post article: https://www.salisburypost.com/2026/02/07/act-of-humanity-livingstone-pres-kidney-donor-celebrated-an-founders-day/ (NOTE: the RCDP photo image was corrected on 2/16/26 to show the Heather Patrek who is the donor. Many apologies for posting an image of her sister-in-law who is also named Heather Patrek.)

Livingstone College celebrated the 147th Founder’s Day event on Thursday, but something about this annual ceremony was different than any that came before it.

Joining school administrators on stage was Heather Patrek. Before last year, Patrek had no connection to Livingstone College, but after November, she became tied to the Salisbury-based college and its first family for life.

Patrek was, until Thursday, the anonymous kidney donor that offered Livingstone College President Dr. Anthony Davis a second chance following his bout with renal failure and during the ceremony, Patrek was awarded an honorary doctorate for her act of humanity.

If it were not for a newspaper article, however, Patrek might never have even known that Davis made an impassioned plea last year for help.

“Like many people my age, I was doom scrolling one night in my bed looking at whatever popped up on my feed,” Patrek said. “I saw an article (in Black Enterprise) and happened to click on it. It was about Dr. Davis’ search.”

At that point, Patrek had lived in North Carolina for less than a year. She and her husband, Nick, moved to Belmont in 2024 from Minneapolis along with their daughter, Eva. Patrek is a financial planner at U.S. Bank Private Wealth Management. She is also O positive blood type, the same as Davis.

“It was just kind of a, huh, maybe it is meant to be,” Patrek said…

…“The backstory, before I met her, a person showed up at the Atrium Health hospital with the Black Enterprise news article,” Davis said. “I am thinking, process of elimination, that the person was probably African American.”

Originally, the two had no plans to actually meet, but following the surgery, the prospect was presented as they were in the same facility after all.

“I received a phone call that said the donor who gave you their kidney would like to meet you,” Davis said.

Patrek said that she was more nervous about meeting Davis, a man that she came to admire from personal research, than she was about donating a kidney, but the moment they met for the first time is a moment neither will ever forget.

“When she walked in and I saw she was not African American, when I saw it was not somebody close to my age, but somebody that was really my children’s age, willing to step up and give me a kidney that would save my life, what else can you do but cry?” Davis said. “What else can you do but rejoice?”

Read the entire story at: https://www.salisburypost.com/2026/02/07/act-of-humanity-livingstone-pres-kidney-donor-celebrated-an-founders-day/