TROY, N.C. — A North Carolina man is about to embark on the journey of a lifetime, and for a good reason.

Dr. Matthew Harmody will hike to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. He plans to reach the top on World Kidney Day, which is March 10.

Harmody is joining a group of 22 athletes from around the country called Kidney Donor Athletes, an advocacy group for kidney donation.

Harmody is the only one from North Carolina.

He says more than 100,000 people are on the kidney transplant list in the U.S. Donate Life says about 7,000 people die each year waiting for one.

In North Carolina, Donate Life says 3,000 people in the state are currently awaiting an organ transplant, and 90% of those are waiting for a kidney.

Not only is Harmody a kidney donor, but his connection to kidney disease goes deep.

His father passed away from kidney failure in 1990.

Harmody grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He says his father was a Cleveland city council member for 15 years.

“He was very hard driven, principled, practical man,” said Harmody. “Certainly related well to people as a public figure.”

Harmody has been training on trails all over North Carolina, going at least once a week to the Uwharrie National Forest. As he headed out for a training hike there, he remembered when doctors diagnosed his dad.

“My dad was 50 years old. I was a college sophomore away at school and I receive a call from my mom telling me he was being admitted to the Cleveland Clinic with kidney failure, and most likely due to untreated hypertension,” he said.

He says his dad didn’t want to accept a kidney from a relative.

So for a few years he went through dialysis and later received a kidney transplant from a cadaver, but it failed.

“He reached a point where it was no longer something he wanted to live with,” Harmody said.

His father passed away at age 59.

After seeing his dad struggle, Harmody, who was then a chemical engineer, decided to change his career.

"At age 30, I decided to go back to school, medical school,” he said.

Harmody worked as an ER doctor for more than 20 years and just recently retired.

“There was not a shift I didn’t see a kidney patient,” he said.

He joined Kidney Donor Athletes after learning about the trip last year.

Harmody donated his own kidney four years ago, since he wasn’t able to donate to his father.

While he never met his kidney donor recipient, Harmody says they exchanged letters.

He’ll carry the letter from his recipient and a picture of his dad with him on his hike.

“Four plus years after having gone through this experience, it's still very emotional and I'm sure being at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro will also be emotional,” Harmody said.

He’s hoping to encourage others to donate and says you can still live a normal life after donating.

“There are plenty of adaptive changes that happens to your remaining kidney,” he said. "It actually gets larger and works harder so you aren’t at half function so to speak. Most people are overdesigned with respect to kidney function, so it’s easy to live life with one kidney.”

Harmody leaves on March 1. He says the trek will take about six days. He’s set to return on March 17.

To learn how you can become a kidney donor, you can head to the National Kidney Foundation website.