Wilmington’s Geoff Schoenberg Is Seeking a Kidney Donor

Schoenberg's fraternity, AEPi, is leading the search for a kidney for the University of Delaware alum in desperate need of a transplant.

AEPi recently shared a Delaware member’s story online in an attempt to help the Wilmington community member find a kidney donor.

Geoff Schoenberg, a University of Delaware alum and active member in the Delaware community, was recently diagnosed with late-stage kidney disease. Unfortunately, diseases of this type are much more common in those who were diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. Schoenberg was diagnosed when he was only six years old. At 10, he was also diagnosed with Perthes disease, which caused him to be bound to a wheelchair for a year.

Neither of the two conditions kept Schoenberg down. He spent his young adult years pursuing acting and comedy in Los Angeles. After 11 years, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the Delaware native back home.

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Upon his return to Delaware, Schoenberg was able to cultivate closer relationships with his family and hometown community, but he was also diagnosed with late-stage kidney disease. Schoenberg has recently been put on peritoneal dialysis, which means for 8.5 hours every night a tube in his stomach is hooked up to a machine that cleans toxins out of the body by repeatedly flushing and draining five liters of fluid through the torso. The dialysis has left him tired, weak, and unsure of his future.

“I think Geoff is kind of shell-shocked now,” says Rob Lattin, another member of the fraternity. “He’s done so much for others that he wasn’t sure how to move forward as his health deteriorated.”

Schoenberg echoes this sentiment in an online statement.

“This is not a permanent solution for someone my age—not when there’s so much more life out there to live,” Schoenberg says. “A kidney transplant is what I need to live a full life.”

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“Geoff is a unique individual who has impacted so many people,” Lattin adds. “He is incredibly generous, thoughtful, and caring, and is the type of person who truly would give you the shirt off his back—and offer to pay for your tailoring if it didn’t fit you quite right.”

Schoenberg’s fraternity brothers put together a microsite with the University of Pennsylvania’s transplant center to assist in the donor search. Interested parties can visit the site and begin the donor screening process.

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