Like innumerable kids, Kendra Fortin grew up with a list of ideas as to what she may want to do for a profession once she was out of school.
What separates the Bemidji State senior defenseman in that regard is how her ultimately chosen career route tied into something that happened to her family when she was growing up.
When Kendra was nine years old, her father, Cory, was diagnosed with end-stage kidney failure and was told he would need a kidney transplant to live. It wasn’t until 2021 that he received a transplant from a deceased donor, but thankfully, all’s well now. At the time that Kendra was contacted for this story, her parents were flying to Barbados on vacation, and they did not miss a single BSU home series throughout this season.
And it’s her father’s ordeal that set Kendra on course for a nursing career, most importantly, and also helped make her one of this year’s five finalists for the Hockey Humanitarian Award.
“My train of thought with what I wanted to be started as a hairdresser,” Kendra said. “My mom, my grandmother and my aunt are all hairdressers, and I originally wanted to do that, but then I went on to want to be a teacher, because I like kids, then I wanted to be a dietician.
“I had a lot of patient-nurse interactions, including with my dad’s nurses, and so I declared my nursing major right when I came in here (to Bemidji State). Once things started to unfold, I became a little more curious. I was 13 when I started setting up my dad’s dialysis machine at home, so I definitely had the knowledge of that and it was something very interesting to me, how a machine that beeps really loudly in the middle of the night and could probably wake up our whole house can save someone’s life and keep them from passing away.
“I grew that interest until I was 17, when I started my dad’s campaign to help him find a kidney. Everything just snowballed from there, and now I’m 22 years old, finishing nursing school and I’ll be back in a dialysis clinic (this semester, as part of her pre-graduation placements). It’s pretty incredible how time has changed.”
Kendra originally started a “Kidney for Cory” campaign in her hometown of Thunder Bay, Ontario, and her efforts have carried over into her time in college. As a freshman at BSU, she began planting seeds for organ donor awareness. And over the past three years, she has spearheaded Organ Donor Awareness weekends for both Bemidji State men’s and women’s hockey home games.
“It’s been incredible to see how it has gotten bigger every year, where we’ve done something one year and would see how we could do it differently,” Kendra said. “We’ve done interviews and done a lot more with social media, and that’s the best way to get the awareness out there, just putting it out for people to see.
“Within this past year, I had four different people come up to me and say something to the effect of, ‘I wasn’t a donor before this, but I am now,’ and some people just weren’t aware they weren’t donors, then after a game, after a puck drop or after seeing videos, they would make sure they’re donors, and that’s one more chance of saving a life that we wouldn’t have had if we weren’t doing this stuff.
“This past year, I made pamphlets with QR codes for both Canada and the U.S. for how you can sign up to be a donor, and I asked someone who wasn’t a donor at the time how long it took them to sign up, and they said it was under two minutes,” Kendra continued. “Things like that have kept spreading the right way, and hopefully it comes to a point where people don’t have to wait nearly a decade for a life-saving organ.”
Kendra’s work ethic has made admirers out of her college teammates and coaches.
“She does a lot for our hockey program with what she does on the ice, and she’s a nursing major, which is an incredibly challenging thing to be as a Division I student-athlete, and then there’s the work she does in our community, especially around organ donation awareness,” BSU coach Amber Fryklund said. “She has a personal connection to that and has been very passionate about it, and she has really been great about the work to plan all of our events, including her teammates and how her teammates support her in her advocacy. She also does a lot with Bemidji youth hockey and volunteering with our girls hockey program, as well.
“I had a person email me who had some family experience with organ donation with a family member, and she had read about Kendra’s story in terms of her work and her advocacy, and this person was just so grateful for Kendra’s story and how it impacted her, and asked if Kendra had any advice. I had a chance to connect the two of them, and it’s really neat to see that impact she’s having on our community and elsewhere.”
Going forward, Kendra has already accepted a job in the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre’s labor and delivery department. Her end goal is to become an organ donor coordinator, and Fryklund is pleased to know that Kendra’s awareness work will continue along the way.
“We’ve had quite a few nursing majors come through our (hockey) program, and it’s extremely challenging,” Fryklund said. “I know she’s inspired by her experiences to become a nurse and help others, and I think what she does with her advocacy goes directly into the passion she has for helping people. The way she manages it all is pretty incredible, and I’m really, really proud of all that she has done on the ice but also in the community and in her organ donation awareness efforts.
“It’s her passion and her dedication, wanting to help others and spread awareness. She truly cares about people and wants to make an impact, whether it’s in her own community or other places. Her desire to make an impact to help others is a really great legacy that she leaves here at Bemidji State, and it’s something that will continue on after she leaves. She wanted to make sure, even though she’s graduating as a student-athlete, she wants to continue her advocacy in her community and beyond.”
