April 02, 2026
The 13th Annual Kidney Patient Summit: Raise Your Voice is a wrap, and the numbers tell the story.
On March 16 and 17, more than 100 kidney patients, caregivers, and advocates gathered in Washington for Kidney Patient Summit 2026—but the reach of this year's summit extended far beyond the Capitol.
While our in-person advocates walked the halls of Congress, 650 virtual advocates at home sent over 2,300 messages to Congress through NKF's Action Alert, amplifying every in-person meeting with a wave of constituent voices from across the country.
A True Bipartisan Effort
The kidney community doesn't have a party—and this year's Kidney Patient Summit (KPS) proved it.
The 141 in-person meetings spanned 38 states and territories. It covered 66 Senate offices and 75 House offices, with representation across party lines: 86 Democratic offices, 53 Republican, and 2 independents.
Among the offices visited: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith and Ted Cruz, HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, and dozens more members from both chambers who are critical to moving kidney legislation forward.
Donate Life Month and Beyond: Pass the LDPA
This year's advocacy came at a historic moment for the Living Donor Protection Act. Just weeks before the summit, the LDPA passed out of the Senate HELP Committee, the furthest the bill has ever advanced.
Advocates arrived on the Hill with real momentum behind them, urging members to keep that momentum going and position the bill for passage as part of a year-end legislative package. These weren't introductory meetings. This is a bill that's ready to cross the finish line, and advocates made that clear.
A Champion in Every Sense of the Word
Among our 2026 advocates was a familiar face to football fans and a powerful new voice for the kidney community: NFL defensive tackle Khalen Saunders and his mother, Kim Hamilton.
Khalen is NKF's 2026 Kidney Champion Award recipient, an honor that reflects both his personal connection to kidney disease and his longstanding commitment to raising awareness, including wearing NKF-themed cleats in the NFL's My Cause My Cleats games. Seeing him and his mom walk the halls of Capitol Hill alongside patients and caregivers was a reminder that kidney disease touches every kind of family, and that advocacy takes many forms.
And about That Group Photo…
Every year, one of the highlights of KPS is the group photo on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. This year, we had a small scheduling conflict: the President of the United States had the same idea. With the Capitol steps temporarily off-limits, our team did what kidney advocates do best — pivoted quickly and made it work, getting a great shot of the group on the steps of the Cannon House Office Building.
What's Next
The work doesn't stop when advocates leave Washington. The relationships built on Capitol Hill will carry forward through the rest of 2026 as NKF continues pushing for LDPA passage, expanded home dialysis access, kidney disease education benefits, and OPTN modernization funding.
To every advocate who made the trip, prepared for months, and walked into a congressional office to share their story—including Khalen and Kim—and to every virtual advocate who sent a message from home: thank you. You are the reason this work moves forward.
