He’s Given to His Community for Years. Now Local Dad Marc Jaffrey Needs Our Help
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by The 1932 Criterion Theatre.
MOUNT DESERT ISLAND REGION—If you are healthy and your kidneys are in good shape, you can save a local dad’s life.
A local family is desperately searching for a potential kidney donor for a man who is known for being pretty darn tough, pretty darn giving, and pretty darn unstoppable.
You might know Marc Jaffrey from Wild Iris Farm. You might know him from the time he spent being a volunteer firefighter or as part of the Civil Air Patrol. You might just know him from being a husband, a dad, and an active community member or the guy who drove the horse-drawn carriage through Bar Harbor. He’s all those things.
Marc Jaffrey is also the guy who needs a kidney.
Marc goes to dialysis 4-5 times a week.
That’s not easy for a man who is used to being on the go, constantly doing. It also ties down his wife, Mary.
“It is very hard. We are lucky enough to do home hemodialysis versus going to the clinic three days a week. It involved my wife getting trained for two months and then we have to do the following: Mary cannot leave the house while I am being treated. The treatment machine basically takes all my blood and filters out toxins since I do not have kidneys,” Marc said. “Without this, I would die in two weeks.”
Each dialysis day, Mary spends two hours just prepping the machine. The treatment itself takes four hours every day.
“So basically, we both have had to change our lifestyles to do this. I cannot do much while on the machine and it takes a lot out of my body and makes it very hard to work etc. I have really bad neuropathy in my hands and feet as a side affect and the drugs I take have really bad side effects as well,” Marc said.
Marc has been on the transplant list since 2024. He’s still waiting for a donor. That takes a toll. Seeing how his health has impacts his family, the farm, his life takes a toll, too. It’s especially hard for a man who has served his community. He was in the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) from 2013-2023 starting when his son Nathan joined.
“It was a great organization and I was in charge of the Blue Hill Fair apple and blueberry crisp booth. Sadly CAP does not do this anymore since I was unable to do it with dialysis,” he said.
When they lived in Colorado he was a firefighter in Colorado from 1995-2012 as an engineer at Burning Mountain Fire Protection District.
”I also volunteered at Bar Harbor from 2012-2014. I was also on the Bar Harbor PNZ committee as well. I am a strong believer in community service. I stopped Bar Harbor and PNZ to focus on CAP. I was a second lieutenant at CAP.”
The PNZ is the Bar Harbor Planning Board.
“My father is an extremely hardworking person. I grew up working beside him on our farm and he taught me the value of doing everything to the best of your ability. He is a passionate person and loves to live life to the fullest,” Addie Jaffrey said. “Dialysis has changed his life drastically. My dad who once could barely stand still before rushing off to go finish a project is now tied to a machine for hours every day. I wish with all my heart I could take his sickness from him. Watching my dad, who was always the definition of strength, struggle to get out of bed is hard. I still see his strength, and to a greater degree in his sickness as he refuses to give up. It is my prayer that God will provide for him a kidney so he can get back a portion of his freedom to live his life free of the dialysis treatments.”
Marc lost his kidneys because of renal cell carcinoma back in 2022 and wasn’t eligible to be a transplant list until he was two years cancer free.
The wait time for the transplant list at Mass General is 8-10 years. He’s on that list.
The wait time for Tampa General’s list is 4-5 years. He just got on that list, too.
When he was first diagnosed, he had two kids in college. He couldn’t stop work.
“Dialysis is my life and comes first – everything else fills in the blanks afterwards. It is really hard on my body,” he said.
“I could not stop work. There are very few patients who work at all. I am the only one that works full time. I have been burning the candle at both ends and will stop working as of October 12 since my body cannot handle the vigorous schedule, and I cannot risk being in poor health.”
If his health declines, they take him off the transplant list and he’ll be on dialysis forever.
“It has been hard on the farm since I have not had the time, or strength, so I ended up selling my dream draft horse and we have downsized from five draft horses to two. Until then my mom has been handling all the farm chores I cannot do,” he said. “My daughter will be moving back to the farm full time this November and she will take it over and we plan on having sheep, goats, chickens and eventually a new draft horse operation with breeding and training. She also is interested and developing a program at the farm for disabled children.”
His oldest son Alex and his family moved here to help him.
“They have given up so many days as farm work days to do things I can no longer do,” Marc said.
Donating would require about a 3-4 week recovery time after surgery. All medical costs would be covered by his insurance.
Friends of Acadia’s Amanda Mogridge donated her kidney to a past coworker.
“Technology has come so far with organ transplants, it was actually quite easy in the big scheme of things. I knew I wanted to give my kidney to this wonderful woman I had worked with about 10 years earlier, and the transplant team at the hospital took great care of us, ensuring two healthy patients at the end. It was a truly fulfilling experience and I’d be happy to talk to anyone about it,” said Mogridge.
It’s worth it, according to Lori Bartlett, a dispatcher at Acadia National Park, who gave a kidney to her father a few years ago.
“Why not donate an organ if you can? Because life is precious. The older I get, the more I understand this,” Bartlett said. “We all want to live long and meaningful lives, surrounded by people and things that we love and make us happy.”
Giving a kidney can mean giving someone a life and giving your own life extra meaning.
“If you are thinking about organ donation, whether living donation or when you pass, don’t think about it as giving a piece of you away; instead, think of it as giving life,” Bartlett said. “I was able to give my dad one of my kidneys. In doing so, I didn’t just give him an organ, I gave him seven more years of life. Seven more years of better health. Seven more years of birthdays, Christmases, shared family meals, memories and love. Seven more years with the people whom he loved the most.”
She urged others to consider doing the same—for Marc, for anyone.
“So, if you’re ever in a position where you’re able to donate the gift of life, think about this: you’re not giving someone just more ‘time’ here on earth, you’re giving them more life. And there isn’t any greater gift than that,” Bartlett said.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
“Anyone can donate a kidney for me. If they are not a direct match, it’s called a swap where they give their kidney to someone else and I then get the next available kidney and go to the top of the list and my wait time decreases rapidly. We could even go at the same time to have them swap and I get the new kidney from another person swapping. If someone donates a kidney, they have to be healthy, and if they ever need a kidney they do not have to wait and go to the top of the list,” Marc said.
If you are interested you can apply at https://www.mghlivingdonors.org/.
When you apply, say you are applying for Marc. That helps him out a lot.
All photos courtesy of the Jaffrey family.
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